But a special ultrasound did show that my renal vein was being mildly pinched internally, which explains a very specific pain in my left kidney at particular times. (Unfortunately no answers yet around the most severe type of pain.) Annoyingly it wasn’t being crushed badly enough to qualify as nutcracker syndrome - I say annoyingly because there are both surgical and nonsurgical interventions to try and fix nutcracker syndrome. The milder version I think is called nutcracker phenomenon.

It’s good though because I’ve spent years without getting tests and being gaslit about the pain being psychosomatic (ie ‘all in my head’). Nope! There’s an actual visible physical issue! Right there on film. I literally had to change hospitals to get someone to take me seriously and even look.

I probably have a lot of tests ahead of me still for a long time so I’ll try not to vent or go on about it too much as they happen.

I’m just hoping to find something that can be helped. I’ll always be disabled but I really want to at least get back to my pre-pandemic level of health.