A friend had to have kidney stones pulverized about a month ago. I’m assuming they put a stint to aid passing of stone, she said it the stone was really big.
Anyway fast forward a few minutes ago, she’s scheduled for emergancy surgery to try and remove stint. She was told if it wasn’t possible she’d have to have a colostomy bag. She was really upset and we couldn’t talk because of the hospital setting and the surgery.
I think she said the stint (grew into the bowel).?
I’m just semi-educated wild ass guessing here (I am an MD), but stents can and do erode through ureters, and when that happens, they can erode right into bowels, as that’s what is usually adjacent to them. This could result in urine being dumped into the bowel and/or into the abdomen directly, along with bowel contents leaking into the ureter and down into the bladder or up into the kidney, and/or into the abdomen directly. All that would be a surgical emergency, as overwhelming infection usually follows those sorts of things.
However if a colostomy was placed I’d expect it most likely that it would only be a temporary one, until bowel and ureter healed sufficiently. It could then be taken down.
However, one could end up with a urostomy, where the kidney drains through a shortened ureter into a bag on the abdominal wall. That might or might not be permanent too, depending on whether the ureter could be put back together after healing takes place.
And this would all be very serious if there’s already a leak. Such leaks need fixing. If it’s just an eroding stent that’s not yet leaking, that would be urgent and serious but less serious.
This sounds serious and ugly, but it doesn’t sound like much of a mortal threat. There’s far worse things than having a colostomy bag. Also, when people need a colostomy, it’s not always permanent (I have no idea how that would depend on this particular case). You can certainly help your friend adjust, in the event that a colostomy happens!
An obstructed ureteral stent is certainly a ticking time bomb in my book. However, I’d certainly defer to input from urology or critical care medicine.
The lady in question is my roommates employers wife. I haven’t heard anything yet. We couldn’t reach him this morning.
Chris went to work since we finially dried out so Monday when the inspection happens the job will be finished.
When I find out something I’ll get back to you. I really appreciate your input.
I thought stents applied after kidney stone lasering, should be removed at the most about a week after surgery. A month seems waaaaaaaay too long. Hell bones can heal within a month. I also highly doubt that the stent “grew” into the bowel, but that the bowel grew around the stent.
@Omar_Little For patients requiring a chronic indwelling stent, stents are usually changed every three months on average (some stents may be changed every six months, or even annually in stents made of newer materials).
[quote=“Omar_Little, post:9, topic:942047”]I thought stents applied after kidney stone lasering, should be removed at the most about a week after surgery.
[/quote]
That was my experience last year, too. The kidney stone got lasered, stent got pulled out a few days later at a follow up appointment. A month seems a long time (the stent wasn’t exactly comfortable).
IMO the human body is not so well endowed with spare equipment that we should ever say things like “just ruin a kidney”.
To be sure I’d rather ruin a kidney or an eye than a liver or a heart or a brain. But until I’m equipped with a few dozen of the darn {whatevers} I’d like to keep the full original complement online happily doing whatever glandular thing they do.
Also my experience. At the followup appointment, the nurse put some analgesic gel in my urethra and pulled the stent out.
However, a man I know had a string coming out the end of his penis. When it was time to remove the stent, he went into his bath tub and pulled the stent out himself. I thought this was weird, but I consulted The Google and apparently some doctors do it this way.
Heard through the grape vine she had a blood transfusion.
When this first started with pain it was a 4-5 days before going to the ER 1st time.They didn’t pulverize them on that visit.
She was discharged. They did a cat scan?? Something for pain? antibiotics?
Then 3 or 4 days later she went back to the ER, then a couple days later they pulverized them and she was sent home to pass the huge stone.
When the pain became unbearable then she went back again to the ER, which prompted my OP.
Her husband doesn’t have a clue about the names of tests etc. He has a construction business and 2 teenagers. Plus helps with his parents. Hopefully tomorrow I will find out more details.
My late husband told me NEVER EVER take me to that hospital. I have witnessed UNBELIEVABLE. gross negligencece and incompetence where she is.
Perhaps. But how would she be doing had she merely stayed home throughout the whole last couple of weeks?
As always, the choice isn’t between one real world scenario and some ideal fantasy scenario where the problem magically disappears or never even came up. The choice is between different real-world scenarios, each of which have good and bad points.
When dealing with severe health challenges it’s a virtual certainty that each and every choice contains huge, perhaps life-threatening, downsides. Making decisions when each choice sucks mightily isn’t easy, but is often necessary. Recoiling reflexively from Choice A and therefore embracing all the downsides of Choice B (or C, D, …, Z) totally unexamined is not usually the route to an optimal outcome.
Recognizing that in dire straits “optimal” may still be “pretty darn shitty”.
Good luck to your friend. And to you when your turn comes to have such problems yourself.