That’s it. I’m officially middle aged at 43. I got reading glasses a few months ago and this afternoon I had my first attack of kidney stones
THE PAIN. THE CRAMPS.
THE FUCKING PAIN.
How can something hurt that hellish?
And yeah, the rose colored urine after an hour of seeeething red hot PAIN didn’t help either.
Fuck.
All those old farts in their 40’s, who I sneered at when I was 20, who said they felt young in their minds but the body couldn’t keep up - I’m sorry guys. I know now how you feel.
Been there, had those. Yes they suck and the pain is damn intense !
But I can tell you that it is such a relief when the pain stops you will
be damn near orgasmic.
If you haven’t already get thee to a doctor. (They can make sure you get the GOOD drugs !)
I’m 20 and I can’t even sneer at those old farts. I had not one, but two kidney stones. I still have one of them, even after a lithotripsy. I’m going to have to go back later and get it blasted again. Vicodin is my friend.
Tell your doctor you want an appointment NOW!!! Tell them you want a referral to a urologist NOW!!! Sometimes they can be stopped.
I fought kidney stones for nearly six years, until they won. After inumerable antibiotics, and four, count’em *four * lithotripsies, I had my right kidney taken out in January of 2004, and thank heavens the left kidney has remained healthy. My urologist said he’d had female patients who’d borne children say that kidney stones were worse than labor. :eek:
Sit on the doctor until they explain all the answers to all your questions.
I had 3 kidney stones (with almost exactly 1 year between each attack) in my mid 20s. That was 30 years ago and I’ve never had so much as a twinge since (and my lifestyle changes didn’t last more than a couple of years). Hope for the best.
I’m not quite middle aged yet, but I feel your pain - I just spent an hour or so at the doctor’s office today trying to figure out what to do about a herniated disc causing pressure on the sciatic nerve… I feel… old. Especially considering we can’t really figure out HOW I managed to do this in the first place.
12 weeks of physio (two times a week) and drugs, here I come! Woo!
Although middle-aged now, I had my first kidney stone attack at age 28. I had no idea what was going on. I thought my kidney was destroying itself or imploding or exploding or whatever. The story has an additional bit of drama to it. They were all set to inject me with Denerol but at the time I was on Nardil and I even showed them a card that said Demerol was a no-no. They assured me this was an exception and not the rule. My body felt otherwise. It was just like in TV or the movies where someone gets drugged or knocked out. Everything started fading out , etc. I imagine that they gave me something to counteract the Demerol otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this posting right now,
I have had zillions of kidney stone attacks since then. Some people think that the human body is a miraculous “crown of creation”. To those of you who feel that way, please post your response AFTER you have had a kidney stone attack.
Just chiming in with the “I feel your pain” chorus.
I’ve had 2, and I’m only 24. The first one, they thought it must be my appendix, because 22 is “too young for kidney stones”. Out came the appendix, and I have a lovely scar now. A year later the pain was back, and since I don’t have a second appendix hiding in there somewhere, the docs clued in.
Side note: lithotripsy, my ass. Like shuffling across a carpet in big socks and touching a doorknob with your gut. A hundred trillion fucking times! And did it break the stone? Noooooo. :mad:
I just remembered: apparently my right kidney has a sort of pouch (diverticulum, if you’re my doc) that’s just perfect for calcium buildup. In other words, I’m a kidney stone factory.
Ditto… except one of my little sisters has the strainer, I PASSED a .177 cal. BB sized stone ( With visible spikes ) and it was considered so unusual that she was carring it around showing all her coworkers what her brother had done… It was my 15 min. :rolleyes:
I got an appointment with my GP pronto, in half an hour.
I doubt they can do much there, so I probably get a referal.
I don’t feel that intense pain anymore, but I feel kinda sore over tha back, across the kidneys.
What excersice? I got fuckin’ arthritis and psoriasis too. Working out for me is walking the dog.
Not much to add. She adviced me to drink beer and wait for a call back from the urologist, who will perform (not sure how this translates) a urography. The next step would seem to be a uroscopy, and from the description, I wouldn’t mind missing out the latter, as it involves sending instruments up the penis.
Ahhh yes, another reason I’m happy to be female. At least you have a good excuse to drink beer, should have made the doc write a scrip for you. I can’t believe she didn’t give you good drugs, or did she and you didn’t tell us because you knew someone would ask you to share ?
Kidney stone stories? Ahh, something I can relate to.
My first stone, I thought I was dying. The pain was so intense, I nearly passed out, which might have been better. It turns out I had a 1 cm. stone which was blocking the ureter entirely.
When I went to the hospital, they wouldn’t give me any medication for pain until they gave me an IVP, where they inject the dye into you. Naturally, this puts more pressure on the kidneys. Finally, after about 2 hours of this, they give me the drugs, the “good stuff”. But even with the good stuff, you still feel the pain, you just don’t care anymore.
These were the days in which they had just started using the lithotripsy machine, so I had to be put on a 3 month waiting list! In order to push the stone out of the way, they used a stent in the ureter. It just so happens that 3 months is at the extreme limit of how long you want to keep a stent in place, and you better believe it was some kind of pain when they removed that sucker!
The lithotripsy itself wasn’t much of a big deal. They gave me the choice of being out of it altogether, or using an epidural anesthesia and being awake. So I chose the epidural. Neither the injection into the spine nor the lithotripsy itself was particularly painful, especially compared to what I had already been through.
Since then, I’ve had a few small stones pass on their own. I was afraid they wouldn’t pass, but each time, I took the pain meds and sweated it out for awhile until they did.
No drugs at all. Don’t know what would be good, but I’m allergic to NSAID, and since I’m not in PAIN anymore, she thought it best to wait for the screening stuff. Of course, should I get another attack, I’m to haul my kidneys and myself to the E.R.
I do feel a bit faint today. Thanks for sharing - guys. It seems I’m not such a wuzz after all.
I don’t have kidney stones, thank og, but I do have bladder stones, which are like Kidney stones wimpy little cousins. Sometimes I will just pass a bunch of “dust”, other times theyt are larger, but the pain is nothing like you all are describing. At times though, the stone(s) get stuck on the way out, and I can feel them moving slowly down the urethra, getting stuck etc., until they finally pop out. Certianly far from fun, but not the hospital-bound-gimme-the-good-drugs kind of pain mentioned here.
