Hi all,
I need to know if anyone out there can help diagnose some strange
problems that my father is having. He is about 80 years old. He had
a kidney transplant back in '91 due to kidney failure from polycistic
kidney disease and a double coronary artery bypass in '82. His new
kidney has been working like a champ ever since it was put in. He
still has the old kidneys as well but they are no longer functioning
at all. He was also treated for prostate cancer a couple of years ago
using radioactive seeds, which was a success.
Over the last couple of years, he will every now and then run a
high fever (102-103) and need IV antibiotics. They have done all
sorts of scans and have never been able to find the source of the
infection but everything else has been fine other than the occasional
need for an angioplasty to keep his coronary arteries open.
He is now having some other strange problems. Several months ago,
his macular degeneration suddenly got much worse. Then a couple of
months ago, he suddenly had severe lower back pain for several days.
It went away on its own after about a week. Since he has a couple of
ruptured discs that had been found on an x-ray a few years back and
had been in the hospital for a few days, we attributed the problem to
the discs and too much time lying in a hospital bed.
He then developed bad edema and had to be put on heavy duty
diuretics. Suddenly, the back pain came back and his creatinine level
went up to almost 4 (it has been about 1.2 since his transplant). At
the same time, he ran a low grade fever and lost his appetite. He
went in the hospital and the doctors said he was dehydrated. They
took him off of the diuretics and gave him fluids, and his creatinine
came down somewhat (down to about 2.6) and his back got a little
better.
He came home last week but he is still in very bad pain in his
lower back, and his legs have swelled again so he is back on a lower
dose of diuretics. He also still has no appetite (which is very
unusual for him). The doctors at this point have diagnosed him only
with spinal stenosis which makes no sense to me because 1) he has no
leg pain or numbness or weakness, just lower back pain and 2) the back
pain came on suddenly - neither of which seem to fit the descriptions
of spinal stenosis that I have found. He may very well have stenosis
but I don't think it explains his current bout of back pain. The
discs have never given him a problem before either - they were only
found because he was being x-rayed for something else. They did a
biopsy of his transplanted kidney while he was in the hospital and
said it is not being rejected and seems to be fine.
I am thinking that all of these sudden problems over the past
several months are related - the back pain, the macular degeneration
suddenly getting worse, the edema, mabye the recurrent infections too.
Although he's had many medical problems, overall he has always been
healthy and robust and been able to get around, walk on his treadmill
every day, etc., he's never had a problem that has caused him to be
severely disabled in any way for any significant length of time. He's
come through the transplant, bypass, etc. with flying colors. I have
been trying to figure out what could cause these problems that he is
suddenly having and I'm stumped. Does anyone have any ideas or a
similar experience?
Thanks
Rob