Kidney Laceration from MTB crash

Overshot a jump Tuesday on my last run to the car and crashed hard into the lip of the next jump. Couldn’t breathe for a while and then couldn’t straighten myself up. Spent ~15mins gasping on the side of the trail and then walked down about a mile to the car.

Got home and into the shower, peed and was alarmed to see massive gush of bright red blood and 50-100 big clots coming out.

Got myself to the ER, had to wait 3 hours without being admitted and no pain meds, puked from the pain in the CT scanner, eventually got me onto a cot. A shot of morphine didn’t touch it and a bigger shot of diloudid still barely took any pain off. It took three full shots within an hour to get my pain below a 7/10.

Grade 4 kidney laceration, bleeding stopped within 24 hours. I got released from the hospital at about 48 hours but every day I get a new high pain score. Also dealing with massive bloating and constipation from my guts getting scrambled.

Anybody deal with this before? How long until you started feeling a bit better? Even at home, 5mg of Oxy doesn’t really touch the pain and it randomly comes and goes, sometimes just a minor twinge other times a massive spasm that hits the entire abdomen and flank.

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Originally Posted by Falcon3

Overshot a jump Tuesday on my last run to the car and crashed hard into the lip of the next jump. Couldn’t breathe for a while and then couldn’t straighten myself up. Spent ~15mins gasping on the side of the trail and then walked down about a mile to the car.

Got home and into the shower, peed and was alarmed to see massive gush of bright red blood and 50-100 big clots coming out.

Got myself to the ER, had to wait 3 hours without being admitted and no pain meds, puked from the pain in the CT scanner, eventually got me onto a cot. A shot of morphine didn’t touch it and a bigger shot of diloudid still barely took any pain off. It took three full shots within an hour to get my pain below a 7/10.

Grade 4 kidney laceration, bleeding stopped within 24 hours. I got released from the hospital at about 48 hours but every day I get a new high pain score. Also dealing with massive bloating and constipation from my guts getting scrambled.

Anybody deal with this before? How long until you started feeling a bit better? Even at home, 5mg of Oxy doesn’t really touch the pain and it randomly comes and goes, sometimes just a minor twinge other times a massive spasm that hits the entire abdomen and flank.

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Weeks if not months. Consider yourself lucky though, you could have died. I’ve had kidney and liver lacerations and the associated trauma is the real pain.


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vibes dude, that sucks

I only got one kidders left right now, so stories like these keep me up at night. can't let my guy bleed out on me, otherwise I'm up shit creek.

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Shitty. Sorry. What trail and what hospital, you are in Utah right? 5mg of Oxy seems like a low dose for that injury, but I've only taken Oxy once so I'm no expert. Maybe they only recommended 5 so you don't get addicted to never shitting for a week.

Or maybe it's the high of Oxy, maybe.

I had a buddy have a very similar crash. He said his tear was bad enough that 10 years ago they would have removed the kidney so I believe it was a 4 as well. He was off work for a week or two and I believe on oxy for a similar amount of time. Based on his experience it seems like it really sucks but gets better. If you've got some more questions feel free to shoot me a message and I can pass them on to my buddy.

Good luck man!

Thanks guys, yeah I’m grateful this injury is 100% healable and I didn’t crack my head or pelvis or rip my aorta or something.

Last night was the first slightly tolerable night since Tuesday. Luckily this happened after I got home to Spokane, not while I was down in Utah. I’m slowly ramping up laxatives to relieve the bloating and then hopefully the nausea will go down too so I can eat something. I’ve maybe taken in 600 calories in four days

Fakkkkk big vibes


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Shit man that’s brutal, +++vibes+++

Wooooweee dammmmn! Glad you’re still kicking. Hope the healing is healing.

The word laceration makes me cringe every time. Heal up dood


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I assume you broke ribs--that's mostly what's hurting you, not that it matters. Pain is pain. But it like the man said it's not going away any time soon. Prunes, in addition to whatever else you're taking. Seriously--laxative plus bulk. If 4-5 days go by without a shit give yourself a Fleet's enema. Seriously.

By oxy do you mean oxycodone or Oxycontin. How often?

When I broke my back, 14 rib fractures I was on Oxycodone 80mg day for about a week. Didn't shit for 10 days. When I finally had a decent shit--first day I was home--it was so massive it blew out the sewer pipe.

OK maybe the sewer pipe--old cast iron--was failing and it wasn't the massive shit that broke it, just a coincidence. It was fun to see all that shit coming out of the broken line onto my asshole neighbor's driveway.

Hopefully they have you on other pain meds besides the oxywhatever. The oxy won't really work beyond 2 weeks--at that point you're technically addicted and to get pain relief you need to increase the dose. Don't. And technically addicted doesn't mean hooked. It does mean you will have withdrawal symptoms if you stop the opioid suddenly. So don't. Taper it.

If you can't get reasonable relief--enough relief that you can take a deep breath and cough--ask if there were rib fractures and consider a rib block --local anesthetic given just under the rib where the nerve is. Be aware that the there is a chance of puncturing the lung--not dangerous but painful--or injecting into the blood vessel, which is potentially dangerous. The risk should be very low if the doc knows what they're doing.

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Originally Posted by old goat

I assume you broke ribs--that's mostly what's hurting you, not that it matters. Pain is pain. But it like the man said it's not going away any time soon. Prunes, in addition to whatever else you're taking. Seriously--laxative plus bulk. If 4-5 days go by without a shit give yourself a Fleet's enema. Seriously.

By oxy do you mean oxycodone or Oxycontin. How often?

When I broke my back, 14 rib fractures I was on Oxycodone 80mg day for about a week. Didn't shit for 10 days. When I finally had a decent shit--first day I was home--it was so massive it blew out the sewer pipe.

OK maybe the sewer pipe--old cast iron--was failing and it wasn't the massive shit that broke it, just a coincidence. It was fun to see all that shit coming out of the broken line onto my asshole neighbor's driveway.

Hopefully they have you on other pain meds besides the oxywhatever. The oxy won't really work beyond 2 weeks--at that point you're technically addicted and to get pain relief you need to increase the dose. Don't. And technically addicted doesn't mean hooked. It does mean you will have withdrawal symptoms if you stop the opioid suddenly. So don't. Taper it.

If you can't get reasonable relief--enough relief that you can take a deep breath and cough--ask if there were rib fractures and consider a rib block --local anesthetic given just under the rib where the nerve is. Be aware that the there is a chance of puncturing the lung--not dangerous but painful--or injecting into the blood vessel, which is potentially dangerous. The risk should be very low if the doc knows what they're doing.

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Thanks OG. Surprisingly nothing else is substantially damaged. No ribs or other organs. They did three passes in the CT plus full chest and abdomen X-rays and everything kept coming in clean.

Basically just showed a massively swelled up kidney and amorphous other soft tissue injury with fluid and blood intermingled, but no urine or poo floating around the abdominal cavity. Worst pain is actually the abdominal wall front/side where I think I took a handlebar. It wants to seize up and the the cramping moves from one central spot eventually to encompass my whole right abs and flank. It’s starting to be easier to calm it down now but still takes 20-30 mins deep breathing and concentration.

Pain meds are Oxycodone HCL 5mg and said to take 1-2 every six hours. They only gave me 20 total so about three/five days worth with no refills. I had to specifically ask if I could supplement with otc pain relief and they told me Tylenol. I’m pretty careful about not wanting to get hooked on opioids but it sounds like a couple days of this low dose isn’t an issue huh.

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Originally Posted by Falcon3

Thanks OG. Surprisingly nothing else is substantially damaged. No ribs or other organs. They did three passes in the CT plus full chest and abdomen X-rays and everything kept coming in clean.

Basically just showed a massively swelled up kidney and amorphous other soft tissue injury with fluid and blood intermingled, but no urine or poo floating around the abdominal cavity. Worst pain is actually the abdominal wall front/side where I think I took a handlebar. It wants to seize up and the the cramping moves from one central spot eventually to encompass my whole right abs and flank. It’s starting to be easier to calm it down now but still takes 20-30 mins deep breathing and concentration.

Pain meds are Oxycodone HCL 5mg and said to take 1-2 every six hours. They only gave me 20 total so about three/five days worth with no refills. I had to specifically ask if I could supplement with otc pain relief and they told me Tylenol. I’m pretty careful about not wanting to get hooked on opioids but it sounds like a couple days of this low dose isn’t an issue huh.

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Are you taking robaxin? I found with injuries like that that most of the pain comes from muscle spasms trying to splint the injured area. Robaxin was more useful than oxycodone. Physicians aren’t as reluctant to prescribe it


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Originally Posted by MagnificentUnicorn

Are you taking robaxin? I found with injuries like that that most of the pain comes from muscle spasms trying to splint the injured area. Robaxin was more useful than oxycodone. Physicians aren’t as reluctant to prescribe it

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I’m not, I asked several nurses/docs in the hospital about a muscle relaxer like that and was brushed off even though I was telling them the cramping/guarding was way more painful than the kidney itself. I’ll call my GP tomorrow and ask about it, thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Falcon3

Thanks OG. Surprisingly nothing else is substantially damaged. No ribs or other organs. They did three passes in the CT plus full chest and abdomen X-rays and everything kept coming in clean.

Basically just showed a massively swelled up kidney and amorphous other soft tissue injury with fluid and blood intermingled, but no urine or poo floating around the abdominal cavity. Worst pain is actually the abdominal wall front/side where I think I took a handlebar. It wants to seize up and the the cramping moves from one central spot eventually to encompass my whole right abs and flank. It’s starting to be easier to calm it down now but still takes 20-30 mins deep breathing and concentration.

Pain meds are Oxycodone HCL 5mg and said to take 1-2 every six hours. They only gave me 20 total so about three/five days worth with no refills. I had to specifically ask if I could supplement with otc pain relief and they told me Tylenol. I’m pretty careful about not wanting to get hooked on opioids but it sounds like a couple days of this low dose isn’t an issue huh.

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Glad to hear about the ribs not being broken. In that case I think you'll feel better faster than if they were broken. Rupturing a kidney without breaking some ribs is a pretty good trick--that handle bar that you took in the belly must have gone all the way back to get the kidney. That kind of mechanism can cause other organ injuries that might not be seen--although the great majority will show up on CT. On the left--I don't think you said which kidney it was--the tail of the pancreas can be injured. I hope I'm not alarming you, just have a low threshold to call your doc if things aren't getting better and definitely if worse.

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Originally Posted by larilinesign

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That’s about the best I can do

Sounds like you survived our biggest fear
A sudden stop at speed. - ouch
I crashed and got scuffed up. But no sudden stop
Heal up.

Trip Report Day 6:

Tried sleeping in bed last night instead of the couch. Bad idea. The bed allows so much more movement which exacerbated the kidney and muscles around it. Terrible cramping even after pain meds from 2am-9am when I finally relaxed enough.

Bloating is better but digestion is still terrible. I’m up to 400-500calories a day and that’s all my stomach can handle. Trying to maintain three daily quarts of water so my kidneys keep flushing is difficult too.

OG it is my right kidney that’s injured so not too much else over there.

MTT I was thinking about this all week. I always have worse crashes when there’s hero dirt. I think it’s because it’s sticky so my body doesn’t slide as easily, the bike is more likely to stay near me than just slide away. Plus I’m usually pushing my speed and jumps in the spring even though my form is rusty from taking ski season off biking. So much difference from skiing when hero pow snow is extra forgiving. Hero dirt makes me stop suddenly.

I have done some stuff. 2 street bike crashes at over 100 mph. Been through dunk and scrap

But no sudden stops

Ski buddy hit a tree at speed once. Skied to the lodge with me. Had a beer

Then started turning pasty. Broken kidney. I heard he almost died

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Originally Posted by Falcon3

Trip Report Day 6:


Bloating is better but digestion is still terrible. I’m up to 400-500calories a day and that’s all my stomach can handle. Trying to maintain three daily quarts of water so my kidneys keep flushing is difficult too.

OG it is my right kidney that’s injured so not too much else over there.

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Duodenum is over there--a blood clot in the wall of the duodenum could make it hard for your stomach to empty. That one could be missed on CT. Would normally resolve on its own. It is much, much more likely though that it's just the effects of the narcotics making you bloat and have trouble eating. But if you keep having trouble getting food down mention it to your doc.

And more than likely that is something they have considered and ruled out.

Also, next time find someone else besides your dad to drive you. The stress would not be good for you.

Just to wrap this up, I had my urology checkup today. Followup CT came back with some scarring but the hematoma around the kidney was resolved. Cleared me for all activities- I'll probably take a little while before fully sending it on the MTB but it'll be nice to get some more skiing and lighter trail riding in.