Searching

I've noticed a really odd thing. My little blog, of whom I have officially six followers (and thank you! Because without you I would wonder if anyone read my blog!) but otherwise it gets a good deal of surfers looking for information on PNEUMONIA.

It makes me feel kinda bad, because my post on pneumonia isn't all that helpful, unfortunately. I wonder if they are searching 'pneumonia' because they actually need medical information. I also wonder how many people get kidney stones and pneumonia in their household all at once, like we did. I thought it was a unique situation, actually.

This past December, every member of our household (excluding myself) came down with pneumonia. I don't know what the odds of that are, but because of the fact that at around the same time, I noticed the google searches that led people here, I remembered that this previous event happened-- the triple combo of Kidney Stones, Pneumonia, and Allergies, which caused me to write this post.

It certainly wasn't fun the first time around and it wasn't fun the second time around either.

However, because of the timing of my finding my blog entry, I remembered the fact that the kidney stones happened at the same exact time as the pneumonia-- and guess what? It happened again. The same symptoms my husband had before. Only this time, the doctor diagnosed it as a kidney infection. I wouldn't have remembered the fact that this happened the same way before, except for those googlers who came here.

But then I began to think there might be a connection between the two, because does lightning strike twice? I don't know but it seemed to me, who maybe watches too much Grey's Anatomy, to be something I could go on.

And so, I started a Google search of my own. And I found out that there IS a connection. Surprise, surprise. I found out that the bacteria which causes the upper respiratory infection that ended up turning into pneumonia, is also responsible for causing other infections, including kidney infection.
This is what I found:
"Acute glomerulonephritis usually follows a streptococcal infection of the respiratory tract" and

"There are many different kinds of infections that lead to glomerulonephritis, including pneumonia"
(and in going back I did notice that prior to that we had Strep A in the house, which had a contributing factor to the pneumonia, I am sure)


And this: "Pyelonephritis is a serious bacterial infection of the kidney that can be acute or chronic. One of the most common renal diseases, acute pyelonephritis is a sudden inflammation caused by bacteria. It primarily affects the interstitial area and the renal pelvis or, less often, the renal tubules.

"Causes and Risk Factors of Pyelonephritis: Doctors believe that the bacterial infection causing pyelonephritis may sometimes develop elsewhere in the body and travel through the bloodstream to the kidney."

SYMPTOMS of Pyelonephritis

No matter what the underlying cause, the symptoms of acute bacterial pyelonephritis are often the same. The first indications are usually shaking chills, accompanied by a high fever and pain in the joints and muscles including flank pain. Attention may not be drawn to the kidneys at all.

In acute infections, the symptoms develop rapidly, the fever noted first, followed by possible changes in the color of the urine, and then tenderness in the flank. As the kidney becomes more inflamed, pain, loss of appetite, headache, and all the general effects of infection develop. This type of kidney pain differs from renal colic pain of kidney stones in that it is continuous and does not come in waves, stays in one spot, and may be worse by moving around."
If that sounds like what you have, and or you googled and came here for information, then you might want to google both Pneumonia and Pyelonephritis.


To sum up: my husband probably never actually had kidney stones. Both times he had pneumonia followed by an acute kidney infection. A course of antibiotics cleared it right up. I hope that helps.