14cm cyst on renal pelvis

@gt350 Welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect. Reading a finding like that on a report must certainly have been a surprise! You say your doctor hasn't said anything to you about that, was it your nephrologist who hasn't said anything?

Possibly not related, but what has your doctor said about the other symptoms you noted here? Have you been able to keep a journal of what you're experiencing, including the times of day, activities, meal times, etc. that may assist in pinning down some answers?

Here is an article from the National Kidney Foundation about "simple cysts". https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/simple-kidney-cysts
Ginger

@gingerw
The CT scan that made the cyst discovery was made during a hospitalization; at the time the kidneys were not of any specific interest. So, it was just an inconsequential finding that (I’m guessing) the doctors didn’t pay any attention too at the time. But would have been nice for them to have mentioned it.

The Simple Kidney Cyst information you passed along was something I’d read earlier today. It seems to say, these kidney cyst are not a problem unless they are a problem. In other reading I did, the examples given were small cyst, not 5.5” baseball size.

Mine is likely not a problem, I hope. I mean surely if a five inch cyst was a possible problem, the hospital doctors would have mentioned it. Just seems someone should have said something. I only learned of the cyst today as I was looking over old blood work and test and trying to put together what’s going on with me.

Now I’m just antsy and hoping someone here has insight about (what seems to me) a large cyst in this area and, uh, if size really does matter.

The journal you mentioned keeping is something I will do, thanks for that idea. I’ve been sick now for many months, and it has escalated in the last six or eight weeks. Now it’s getting hard to remember what effect a medication change made and how things became different.

Thanks again.

Don’t know how much I can help but unless the measurement was the diameter(draw a straight line from one side of a circle to the other), it the circumstances(or the whole outside of a circle) that is 5 1/2 inches. I just measured it and the diameter is just about 2” or about the size of a large golf ball maybe an old silver dollar. It’s still quite large and I have cysts in both kidneys. The right one gives me problems and causes pain. If I remember correctly while checking about my cysts, it’s filled with a liquid. They can put a needle into it and aspirate(I think that’s the word) and drain the fluid out of it. Yours is quite large an you need to see a doctor or specialist immediately. Your body is already screaming out to you saying HELP ME.

Not to scare you, but I have precancerous cells that are progressing to cancer and I have personally had the same symptoms you’re exhibiting. A number of problems can also cause the symptoms, like menopause. I imagine if that cyst pops while you’re asleep, you could be in serious trouble as the fluid inside the cyst is in the kidney if it’s in the kidney or in you body causing who knows what kind of problems. I get enough CT Scans checking my mutating cancer cells and keeping an eye on both of my kidneys. Your CBC or CMP bloodwork should tell you how bad your kidneys are damaged. My right kidney has been bothering me for weeks and my cancer screening bloodwork is only a short time away. Good luck. @becky1024

To me what you shared is most helpful, thank you for taking the time and providing your insight. I guess I hadn’t said, but I am a 65 year old male, that until I became “more sick” some 6 or 8 or 9 weeks ago was still an active retired adult loving life and still involved in amateur sports car racing. Last year I was able to race in the summer heat of Savannah Georgia, I won two races, and did all the heavy lifting required for maintaining a race car. Now I’m just too tired and the smallest of activity puts me down to rest, sleep, recover.

Recently I started using a free app called My Health on my iPad that gives me access to medical records back to 2015. Having a technical background from 34 years at AT&T Bell Labs (telecom), I started to chart and read the CMP and other reports and discovered I had Chronic Kidney Disease back to and certainly before 2015. Never was this mentioned to me; that’s just amazing.

Anyway, starting out my assumption was Stage 3 CKD must be the reason I was so sick and tired. But after two days of reading and learning my feeling is that CKD is not likely to be the culprit. There are other blood work results that may imply an infection or maybe even cancer, but I’m still learning and I know enough to know I don’t know enough.

But in the hunt and looking at all my reports I also discovered the 14cm cyst from the CT Scan. I know as much as anyone else here reading the finding as to what that 14cm measures. It could be straight long and skinny, it could be circumference, diameter, I’m just not certain. But it’s 5.5” (inches) and I only learned of it like I learned of the Stage 3 CKD, by reading over results I’d of expected to be told me, not learned of by teaching myself to read blood work results. Disappointing.

To date I’ve had a stomach emptying time test, and an endoscopy; these were because I get sicker when I eat. But both provided no insight. The doctor that did these test has hardly taken two minutes to listen to me or read my admission report stating what my primary complaint is. My only face to face with her occurred as she was strapping the device on my mouth to insert the camera in my stomach. She told me what my symptoms were and as I started to tell her those were not really accurate, she signaled to put me to sleep and she went about earning her insurance paycheck. 🙁

I still have other anomalies in the blood work to learn about and I have an appointment with the Primary Care doctor this Thursday. I’m not expecting much help. Honestly, I am a bit scared and not confident in the medical community. It is more about making money than “anything” else.

Since she has not been forthcoming with findings to date, I believe the more I learn and prepare the better the appointment will go. When you say my body is screaming “Help Me”, I agree that it is! I’ve been reduced to a sofa lump, and I hate it. Maybe it’s me, maybe I don’t represent my health complaints in a voice that makes them care to help me. I do fully believe if I’m going to get help, I’m going to have to get better educated in the data.

I do hope your condition improves; I just watched a special on Nova about what Cuba is doing to stop cancer from spreading in the body and they are adding years to some peoples lives. It was an interesting report and indicated breakthroughs are happening, if oddly enough in Cuba.