38 Year Old Man Goes to Hospital for Back Pain, Discovers He Has 3 Kidneys

As I've gotten older, (I'll be 34 this month) I get aches and pains here and there. My pinky I sprained trying to intercept a pass playing flag football more than a year ago STILL doesn't bend all the way down. My knees are shot, my shooting arm has more shooting pain in my shoulder than it once did. And sometimes, after a decadent meal and lack of stretching, I wake up with back pain. Like can't touch my toes, low, twinging all the way to my neck, back pain. 

I'll admit, I have wondered if this was normal. My mom CERTAINLY has accused me of being a slight hypochondriac. I've watched my fair share of scary medical documentaries to know that ANYTHING is possible. What I've learned is that for every hypochondriac there are ten people who have disastrous conditions that go misdiagnosed or better yet, are sent home with a clean bill of health and a side-eye from the doctor. 

And then BOOM. Dead. Just like that.

I'm not even kidding. I often worry if I have a headache for longer than a week, whether I have a brain embolism. My high ankle sprain? Oh, I definitely broke it. 

Maybe it's just me? 

This story, though, sent me from mildly concerned about my back pain to feeling ready to book the next available CT scan when our city starts to open up. 

According to a Newsweek story, a 38-year-old man (only 4 years older than me btw) went to the doctor complaining of back pain. After protesting that something was seriously wrong, his doctors took a scan. 

What they found? Get this... he had THREE kidneys! Guess what? That's one more than normal. He had one left kidney and on the right side were two kidneys fused together. 

Are you kidding me? Siamese twidneys? 

I guess this condition, while relatively abnormal (very abnormal), isn't dangerous. In fact, the reason that this man was having back pain was had nothing to do with his kidney mutation. 

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The man's back pain was attributed to a herniated disk, also known as a bulging, protruding, or ruptured disk, unrelated to his kidneys. Doctors treated his back problem with pain medicine. 

The craziest part of this story is that doctors say they aren't sure how rare having three kidneys is given that you need a CT scan to catch it. 

Usually, there are no symptoms AT ALL from having three kidneys. 

I think there might actually be a benefit to this though. Kidneys are the main filtration system for toxins. So if you have THREE kidneys you can drink more, eat worse than someone with a normal amount kidneys. Sounds like instead of being fearful of this mutation, I should be looking to get plastic surgery to have a third one installed.

Since excessive drinking severely impacts the kidney's ability to filter blood, and since I recently discovered that whiskey is holy water, it can't hurt to have a backup to the backup.