I’ve had intermittent flank pain for three days. I just returned from the Good Doctor who proclaimed what I already suspected to be true: I have a stone of the kidney.
If you have had one, tell me everything. How long until you passed it, what it felt like to pass it, was there a recovery period afterwards, etc.
mmm
I’ve had both kidney stones & gall bladder stones for years. The gall bladder stones apparently were reabsorbed or passed, but the 2 cm kidney stones were way too big to pass. I needed Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL), and a stent for two weeks.
In hind sight I wish I had the procedure done years ago. It wasn’t pleasant, but my health improved considerably after the stones were gone. I suspect they were the cause or a major contributing factor to a persistent low grade infection & inflammation in my abdomen.
Funny story about pain caused by the kidney stones:
I knew the stones were becoming a problem & I was already looking into what procedure would be best for dealing with them when one shifted and blocked my ureter.
== Major pain, major nausea, etc. Quick trip to the emergency room. ==
Because I knew about the stones and what would happen if they shifted, I told the emergency room doctor that my kidney stone had just blocked my ureter. He then asked how much pain I was in, and I (honestly) told him that on a scale of 0=no pain and 10=the worst pain I could imagine, this was about a level 5.5 or 6 pain. He then ruled out the possibility of the kidney stone being the cause of my pain because he felt I would have been in far worse pain. He refused to believe me until after the x-rays proved I was right.
I suppose I have an overactive imagination about possible levels of pain. Also, just one-half year prior to this I was in a hospital with level 8+ pain. I now know to lie to the doctor when asked about my pain.
Had kidney stone, bedridden for weekend.
Had bladder (yes bladder) stone, had to be blasted out. Made small so I could pass it.
Over a period of about 30 years, I had had eight kidney stones. I got to the point I didn’t even go to the doctor anymore, I just passed them, which in the end was taking about a year to pass, with only occasional bouts of pain, albeit excruciating.
In 1993, I had one while living in Paraguay, and my friends told me that nobody in Paraguay has kidney stones – they drink a tea made from para-para-y, a wild herb closely related to Rosemary. Over a month or so, I made up an occasional liter of tea from the leaves, and drank it over the course of a day or two. That stone gave me very little problem, before it dropped into my bladder, from where it passed without pain.
Three years later, in a little town in the mountains of Taiwan, my wife and I were in our inn waiting to take an onward bus, when I came down with the first signs of a new stone. My wife wend down and used hilarious body language to explain to the innkeeper’s wife what I needed, and she took her around the corner to a traditional pharmacist, who put one each of four different hand-made capsules in an envelope for me. I took the four pills, and in an hour I felt good enough to get on the bus. I slept the 3 hours on the bus, and felt dopy but fine when I got off. I have never had the slightest twinge of kidney stone pain in the 18 years since that day.
My American doctor just shook his head, and said “I sure wish I knew that was in those pills”. I do not know if it was the Paraguayan para-para-y, or the Chinese herbal concoction, that finally knocked it out. Maybe some of both, or maybe they were essentially the same thing. I have about a kilo of powdered rosemary, very cheap on line, which I occasional toss into a sauce or tea, as a sort of a precaution.
Some years ago I had sudden terrible pain in my back and abdomen. I’d never felt anything so bad. Went to the ER and it was finally determined I had kidney stones on both sides. There was a honking big one on the left, and several little ones on the right.
I fought the stones and the stones won. I had a lithotripsy, then another and another. The stone on the left never came back, but I lost most of the function in my right kidney and it had been surgically removed.
Got stones again on the left, but it took a while to find them as they were uric acid based, not calcium based. Another lithotripsy, and now I take a low dosage of allipurinol daily.
My doctor said he’d had big tough looking guys bend over and “cry like little girls” from the pain, and he’d also had female patients tell him it was worse than childbirth.
I got a good urologist that first night. The hospital was going to fix me up with someone else and my mother, who was with me, refused him. She was a retired RN, and had worked at a state residence for the retarded for many years. This first doctor she didn’t like because although he was quite competent, he never, in the words of my mother, “wasted bedside manner on the residents.” So the hospital put me with the doctor I still see.
Been told that if you hear someone behind an ER curtain, it’s one of two things:
1)Woman giving birth, or
2)Man passing a kidney stone
First time, I was 15 years old. It was summer and for some reason I was home with my cousin and brother during the day.
All of a sudden, horrible pain in my side. As in, I was curled up and sweating and crying. It came in waves, gripping and stabbing, then receding.
My cousin was about 12 and with a calmness you’d expect in someone much older, called my dad and stepmother (they both worked at the same location) and we all went to the ER.
The ER doc kept saying it could be an ectopic pregnancy. I kept saying, no really, it couldn’t. If so, Jesus is coming. And he said, you should tell the truth. And I said, “I AM TELLING THE TRUTH, ASSHOLE! I’ve NEVER had sex. And if you keep on poking around down there and pushing on my abdomen, I’m going to pee on your head.”
At which point my stepmother quietly said, “She really will pee on your head…”
Anyway, a little testing later I had my dx, some drugs, and a pee strainer. Didn’t catch it. It of course passed when I wasn’t home (I draw the line at toting a pee strainer around.)
I had kidney stones again at age 20, 25, and in my 30s.
Some stones were so small I didn’t notice when they passed.
One I heard hit the bottom of the loo when I passed it. Of course I was at work. I wasn’t going in after it.
One I felt pass. OW!
It hurt to pee after passing the stones. Urethra scratches.
No idea why I got them so young or repeatedly. I drink oodles of water and real cranberry juice. Maybe the first one was a side effect of one of the weird asthma meds I’d taken as a kid, who knows.
I’ve had one or two symptoms of a kidney stone since, but since I have percocet on hand for migraines, I just treat the pain and drink lots of water. shrug Fever passes within a day for me. Unless it feels like there’s a UTI or kidney infection along with it, I don’t bother with a doctor.
One kidney stone, 1987. Gallstones, about 10 years ago. Honest to Og, I don’t know which hurt worst, but I thought I was going to die both times.
The kidney stone started as a twinge in my back while I was home eating lunch with my wife. Within 10 minutes, I was convinced someone had driven a nail into my back and was wiggling it around. End result was surgery to get it out. The worst part of that was the so-called “simple office procedure” to remove the shunt between my kidney and my bladder. It felt like someone shoving a huge pipe up my tonker, which in effect was exactly what was happening.
The first one I noticed showed up at 10 at night or so. Of course. 
Horrific flank pain, slowly moving down to near my bladder, where it got stuck. Yes, I’d rate it right about at unmedicated child birth. It was exactly the size they would normally operate on. Meaning right on the threshold. It initially cut off all urine flow on that side (a bad thing) but finally passed into the bladder. So the decision was to see if I could pass it. I finally did 3 weeks later.
I had had smaller ones earlier (now that I know what all the symptoms are). Not nearly as painful. And smaller ones since. It’s the big ones that suck.
Lots of fluids seem to help. My relatives swear by citrus drinks as preventatives (stones run in my family - thanks mom).
Hope all the stories help, instead of scare you spitless. Good luck.
Bolding mine.
GrumpyBunny, I would have got up, in spite of the pain, and slugged him. Too bad the doc was such a jerk.
Did you find a urologist that followed you through the subsequent stone episodes?
Medical threads go in IMHO, so I’ve moved this thither (from MPSIMS).
August of 2011
Second stone.
I passed it to the end of the line but the last ½ inch was not going to happen no matter the lube type.
Surgery it was.
9 mm, mostly calcium.
During transit, pain level went from Damn!, Damn!, Damn!, Damn!,
to uncontrolled blinding loss of all conscious thought.
At least that is the way I remember it. The wife just stayed out of reach.
Pics here:
I’ve seen my father suffer from serial kidney stones, never had one myself.
Some were so painful he was vomiting from the pain, in bizarre contortions in bed. For anyone who thinks when you arrive in the ER they will instantly give you a morphine injection NOPE total myth you’ll be lucky to get one hours later.
When I was in my late teens my father was like look I know you are a druggie get me some painkillers, lol I got him a bottle full of vicodin that he ate like candy.
I never had one, but my husband has had them a number of times. He is usually quite stoic about aches and pains. I have never seen anyone in so much agony. He was white as a sheet, begging for pain medication.
The doctors have always been able to blast the stones using ultrasound to break them small enough to pass without having to do surgery.
OP reporting in…
I’ve been pain free for a couple days. I’m hoping I gave birth already without realizing it (doc said this does happen, I am skeptical).
Unless the jagged little pill has simply navigated a ureter and is now lying low in the bladder planning a sneak attack on the urethra.
mmm
I have one… Thanks for the info.:eek: Meds had some bad side effects,gotta find something different.
My stepmother has experienced both said the stone was worse.
Kidney stone vs. childbirth? Honestly, they’re equally painful, but in different ways. Like, “the rack” versus “bamboo under the fingernails.” However, with childbirth you do have the comfort of considering the whole thing a joyous event. 
What works for me is this: Two ounces of juice squeezed from a lemon. Can’t be the ready-made kind. –
I have had two, possibly three. In each case, I have had no more than mild discomfort - nausea, more than anything else. They all passed without incident - including the one I am not even sure if I had.
I have been very fortunate in this respect - my sister and brother have both had them, and been hospitalized for the pain.