Had a kidney stone? Tell me your story!

In My Humble Opinion
21

I’ve had over forty kidney stones.

The worst episode was when a 13 mm stone, a 9 mm stone, and two others all got jammed together in my right ureter. I had a good old fashioned lithotomy for that, and woke up while being moved off the operating table, which really hurt. One of the people working on me said, “hey, he’s waking up” and another said “hey, you, go back to sleep, you don’t want to be awake now”. I thought them both inarticulate for starting everything with “hey”, and passed out. Ten days in the hospital, and two – count 'em – two catheters, concentric ones, to my bladder and past my bladder to my right kidney. The one in my kidney felt like white light when it came out. Damn.

I’ve had enough lithotripsies and cystoscopies to have lost count of both. And I’ve passed plenty of the stones without help, one of them even while driving. I made lots of hissing noises but, I think, managed safely.

My fifth urologist put me on Theralith and I haven’t had one I’ve noticed in the several years since, though I have incidental findings of stones something like 1 mm in size from time to time when being imaged for something else. I figure I pass them without noticing.

22

Generally speaking the pain is associated with the stone trying to move from the kidney through the ureter. Once it’s in the bladder they usually pass easily. Obviously there are exceptions.

I’ve had 4 or 5 episodes with stones. The last one required heavy drugs, insertion of a stent and finally the use of a laser to blast the stone into dust.

23

I passed a lot of blood and white goop without pain. An hour later I was doubled over and in the emergency room. They gave me something for the pain (no much) and told me I had passed a stone. Pass first-pain later, seems to happen sometimes.
I had to go to a nephrologist to have the little camera threaded up inside me. THAT was worse than the stone.

24

“Up, and was pretty well, but going to the office, and I think it was sitting with my back to the fire, it set me in a great rage again, that I could not continue till past noon at the office, but was forced to go home, nor could sit down to dinner, but betook myself to my bed, and being there a while my pain begun to abate and grow less and less. Anon I went to make water, not dreaming of any thing but my testicle that by some accident I might have bruised as I used to do, but in pissing there come from me two stones, I could feel them, and caused my water to be looked into; but without any pain to me in going out, which makes me think that it was not a fit of the stone at all; for my pain was asswaged upon my lying down a great while before I went to make water. Anon I made water again very freely and plentifully. I kept my bed in good ease all the evening, then rose and sat up an hour or two, and then to bed and lay till 8 o’clock”

Samuel Pepys, Diary, 7th March 1665

25

I have a vial filled with kidney stones I’ve passed over the years. But the last one was extra special. The pain came in waves no matter how much Vicodin I did. Within the first hour the pain was so bad I was on the floor and I started vomiting. My shirt was drenched in sweat. I became delirious and was taken to the ER where I was injected with a pain killer that had me giggling in 3 minutes.

Note to those who take Vicodin for pain. I was prescribed 2 tablets every 4 hours. When the pain got really bad I took 2 tablets every 2 hours. The doctor said that was my mistake. I should have doubled up, that being, take the Vicodin every 4 hours but instead of taking 2 tablets, take 4 tablets.

Maybe an MD will come buy and explain why 2 tablets every 2 hours is not as effective as 4 tablets every 4 hours.

Side note. The kidney stone stayed in my bladder for almost 3 months. When it finally popped out I almost fainted at the sight of its size. Its length was greater than the length of the finger nail on my index finger.

26

IANAD, but the reason they do that is because it’s easier to keep pain and inflammation down than it is to reduce it in the first place. Often you’ll see the instructions on things like naproxen say you can take 2 tablets the first time and another 1 ever X hours thereafter. This first larger dose is called an “attack dose”, and it’s common to have to make it larger than the normal dose in order to get everything settled down to start with.

My mother had kidney stones once. Well, “once”. She had a string of them for a couple of years running. They never went for proper surgery, but she had a few lithotripsies – where they break them up with ultrasound – and said that afterwards she felt like she’d been kicked by a horse. She used to ride a lot as a kid, so we figured she’d know. :smiley: They finally went in with a laser, and while that didn’t hurt as extensively as the lithotripsy, she was rather irked at the surgical nurse, who told her that she was hilarious while under anaesthesia, but wouldn’t repeat what she’d said for love or money.

My mother, whose reaction to being asked if she wanted an epidural while giving birth was ‘eh, it’s not that bad’, thought they were excruciating. Her least favorite part was how the stent kept stabbing her on the inside when she moved wrong.

27

Thanks Arabella Flynn. Any MDs out there to confirm? I’m talking Vicodin, not naproxen.

28

I think ER staff are more used to people who claim a 10/10 for a paper cut (while munching on a bag of chips and playing Angry Birds on their phones) than people like you who actually think about what 10/10 would mean.

I’ve had gall bladder attacks but, thankfully, never kidney stones.

29

I have found that walking in with your thumb in a plastic bag of ice sharply reduces the number of people thinking you lying about the pain level. :smiley:

30

This is awesome.
mmm

31

HOLY FUCK!! :eek:

32

It’s 2am. Hmm. Just can’t sleep. Not comfortable. Eventually get up, grumbling and go to the couch. About an hour later, SWMBO comes done to complain about the noise - “And why are you bashing your head against the wall, anyway”?

Off to ER, waiting (gritted teeth), forms to fill in (crying by now), into a bed (whimpering piteously), morphine. Aaaah, Morphine.
Oh. My. God. It was almost worth living through that horrendous pain - the relief was so-o-o-o-o great. I’ll have more of that, thanks…

Have the usual long wait around for the doc - eventually get the examination - ‘Yep, Kidney Stone - but it appears to have moved, so it wont cause any more trouble. Have these Magic Dissolvers and they’ll fix it’.

Off home.

Next Morning. 2am. Oh shit.

I should point out - for me, there are two levels of severe pain.

  1. So bad, I am afraid I might die.
  2. So bad, I am afraid I won’t die.

Kidney Stone hits Level 2 rapidly. SWMBO drives me off to ER (me, curled up on the seat, crying). I know the drill now. I rush into ER and shout - ‘Give me morphine!’. Duty Nurse stiffens up, and says (politely) ‘What seems to be the trouble’?

I don’t need this!! My Kidney Stone has now gone Nuclear! I growl through clenched teeth - ‘Just give me some morphine’!

Anyway, after some time (damn. those forms!) I get taken into the ER by a pair of 6’4" male nurses, either of whom could break me in half in a second.

A day or so in Hospital - I get the ultra-sonic vibration to break up the stone (I could then tell my story about Pissing Razor Blades After The Op, but I’ll save that for later).

33
  1. So bad, I am afraid I already died & am in hell.
34

I am in the middle one! It’s been quite exciting… Oh wait, did I say exciting? I meant excruciating. ( i’m doing voice to text here so sorry for any crappy spelling)

Anyway, I woke up feeling uncomfortable at around 3 AM and for about 45 minutes convinced myself that whatever it was would stop. Sadly, the opposite proved to be true, and it got bad enough that I woke up my wife to take me to the ER. There I writhed in pain for more than an hour until they decided to give me Dilaudid as well as some antinausea drug. In fairness, it would have been less than an hour, but they had a really hard time finding a vain for the IV…3 tries! That’s always been true when drawing blood, so it was the same here.

Half an hour later I was still in pain and throwing up, so the double dosed me on the anti-nauseal, and said given how big I am that wasn’t unexpected. Right, well, one quick CT scan in the stone was verified… So then they gave me some other pain med.

I’m home now working, and the stone hasn’t passed. There’s much less pain however, so I’m trying to avoid taking the drug they gave me, something called Hydro more phone. I just assume wait this out, and not get all dopey again. Anyway, that’s my story!

35

Hydromorphone is Dilaudid. Don’t be brave, take it if you need it.

36

Lying in bed right now after having the ultrasound last night. This was the second. Time for me in six weeks. First time I was too big for the tub so they used the table and it did nothing.

35 days later and 29 pounds lighter, doc says it was a success. Waiting now for the hard rain

30 pounds in 35 days, if that doesn’t tell you how motivated I was to stop the pain, nothing will.

37

Oh man, I’m taking that message to heart tonight. What a weird-ass place to have that much pain.

I don’t know what the tub and the table are, and I don’t want to think about them.

38

Oh, I’d forgotten about the nausea and sweating until reading the posts here. My then-BF, Voldemort, took me to the ER for one event, and gleefully told me that a) he could tell which x-ray in the hallway was mine by the belly button ring, and b) I tried to hit on the “drug man” (the nurse who gave me the morphine).

Baker – Well, I was really young and not yet old enough to be good at channeling anger at jerkface docs. If I ran into that attitude today, I would just pee on him without warning.

I had a urologist for the subsequent episodes. They did some kind of urethral stretching as a treatment for the first round. That sucked, especially since I had zero response to the IV Valium.

He never did figure out what was causing them and just told me to drink boatloads of water. So I try to.

39

Anytime I’m asked about pain levels, I preface it by saying, “I’ve had kidney stones, and they are my 9. I don’t know what a 10 is, but I’m sure something is worse than kidney stones.” Then I tell them my number.

Everyone has a different reference point.

40

Oh yeah.
Had three bouts of stones. ( Crohn’s disease )
The second one was the most brutal. Due to a certain procedure after the fact.
All three caused spectacular pain. Considering I lived with the almost constant gut wrenching pain of Crohn’s colitis, it was surprising how I could be knocked to my hands and knees with the kidney pain. The gut pains could get to the point of short circuiting full leg control, but only once or twice. But the kidney pain just overwhelmed everything. I can’t even fully re imagine it.

But one time, there was additional fun. ( if you are into CBT I suppose ) They put me under and went up there trying to snag it and drag it out. They didn’t get it. So they put in a bypass tube kidney to bladder. That relieved the pain till I could get the ultrasound ( lithotrypsy ) treatment.

Oh yeah. That treatment is fun too. You are awake. They use sound pulses that zero in on the stone to shatter it. They hook up an IV of pain killer. Press a button during the treatment when you feel you need a shot. Of course I tried to see how long I could go before pressing the button. A couple of machines press into your flesh. Then it feels like your are smacked with a tablespoon. SMACK!. Ouch, but not so bad. But that happens in the same spot over and over again about a second apart. After a short time you seem to feel that smack go through your whole lower back. And an aching pain spreads out from it and deep into you. It isn’t long till you press that button.

But it works. I started peeing out sand and chunks.

But. I still had the bypass tube in there. You can feel it when you move. Irritating. They made an appointment to have it removed. While awake, in a doctors office.
The chair is very sturdy. It has to be. I wasn’t strapped down. But that should be an option. If just for the Doctor’s safety. Pants off. Sit down. Chair reclines a bit. Now you get the local anesthetic, very local. A long Q tip, quick in and out. Whoa! That’s different! A few minutes for it to take effect, then Doc is back. You see the tool… You consider living a lifetime with an irritating tube inside you. Because that tube he has is going to be more than irritating. A fairly large diameter tube goes up your tube. Then gets wiggled around the corner to your bladder. Scope goes up. Wiggles about to get a good view and position. I test how sturdy the arm rests are. A good looking nurse is there too. Are they filming German porn while charging the healthcare system? Scope comes out. Remote controlled claw goes in. I can feel it in there. Grab. Nope. Grab. Nope. Ouch, ouch.
Scope back in. Wiggle, twist. Very ouch.
Doctor poked around for quite some time. Finally pulled the steel tube out. Failure. Can’t grab it. It will be weeks before I can be admitted to the hospital to get it removed while under. No. Gone this far. Doc, if you think you can get it, go for it. Shoved it back in. Took me at my word and really worked that thing. I was sweating. ( I imagine the nurse was turned on by what a masochist I was ) Finally he got it. Dragged it out. Yeahhhhhhhh!!! wow! That is a couple feet of sandpaper coming out there!!! The local had probably worn off some by then.

That thing is never going to work again. May as well break up with the girlfriend. Pulled up my pants. Hobbled out to the bathroom. Didn’t scream when I pissed some more gravel and stuff. I recommend being seated though.

A couple years later I had most of my ravaged colon removed. No kidney stones since. I drink a lot of cranberry juice.