Early this morning (about 2:30 am), I woke up with an intense pain in my left kidney region. Not a sharp pain, (and not agonizing) but one that felt like was apply a lot of pressure to the left side of my lower back. Probably about a 7 on a 10 point scale.
I was also literally shivering. My teeth were chattering. I got up, went to bathroom, and believe I passed the stone at this time. I took a couple tylenol, put on some long underwear and socks and applied a heating pad to my back.
I finally warmed up, and the pain subsided and fell back asleep about 4 am. Woke up this morning at my normal time, feeling fine but groggy from losing the 20% of my normal sleep.
No other subsequent problems, no pain. No abnormal color in the urine, either.
This is my second (and much milder, thus far) occurrence with kidney stones.
I wish I was lucid enough to think about take my body temperature when I was shivering.
I had a stone once, it was horrible, but it passed and that was it. Make sure you are drinking a lot of water, as much as you comforably can, this will help if there are any more stones in there.
When I had first outbreak of stones 7 yrs ago, the urine was a faded brownish/red color.
Frankly, I didn’t check the color last night, I was groggy, shivering and not thinking very coherently.
But I check this morning, and the color was not abnormal.
The first time it happened, the first symptoms of stones happened on Labor Day (fever, dark urine, etc). Didn’t pass them. They started to budge one night in October, where I went to the emergency room in the middle of the night. But they didn’t pass then either. Finally Thanksgiving weekend, (almost 3 months) I passed them (and relatively painlessly).
I have had many stones in past years. I can recognize the signs, which can vary. Your description was close enough to believe a stone was the cause. Muscle spasms are another possibility. If this happens again to you and you suspect a kidney stone, drink a ton of water and go back to bed. Kidneys are more efficient when reclined. The heating pad is a good thing too.
You can form a kidney stone on either side. The same thing may happen to you on the other side next time. That would further suggest kidney stones. If you become a stone former, start considering the things that cause stones and alter your diet and supplement intake. If you can ever manage to save a stone by peeing through a strainer, the composition of that stone would help know how to prevent new ones.
The last thing you want to do is not pass a stone. The pain becomes intense and surgery can be required or the sound treatment used to break it up.
I’ve had dozens of stones, ranging from teeny ones to huge ones; IME, they’re not always accompanied by visible blood in the urine. Also, I’d guess that the presence of enough blood to be visible would have at least as much to do with how sharp/pointy the stone is as the size.
As to the OP, if the pain abated suddenly, and you didn’t actually feel it pass or see it in the toilet (I’ve seen them on the ‘shelf’ kind of area below the water line, when I didn’t even know I had one), you may not have passed it. But once they drop into the bladder, they’re painless. If you’re not sure you passed it, keep pushing the fluids in order to facilitate that happening!
The urologist whom I saw during kidney stone #2 explained to me that there were three “tight spots in the road”, at which points a stone might get stuck, causing pain. At least in my cases, several days would pass between the painful episodes at different points in the road. It sounds like notfrommensa may have had his stone go through “tight spot #1” last night.
I’ve had over 40, up to 13 mm. Several lithotripsies and enough cystoscopies to have lost count. And one good old-fashioned lithotomy with a 10 day hospital stay.
They vary, depending on the particular tight spot and who knows what all else.
I’ve had 4 kidney stones. All were passed and were no bigger than about 2mm.
Your symptoms sound like a kidney stone, but the only way to know for sure is to see a doctor. They can do urine analysis and blood work that will help to determine your tendency for kidney stones.
Could still be floating around in your bladder. If you have a persistant ‘I gotta go pee’ feeling you are likely carrying it around, having dropped it from the kidney proper, soon to make it’s final exit.
I shot out one last month on a Friday, and a SECOND the following day.
You probably had one. I had a stone once. It was too small (or the wrong material) to be picked up on an xray and I didn’t feel the CT scan was necessary since I didn’t have insurance at the time, and the ER doc was willing to diagnose it based on my symptoms anyway (microblood in my urinalysis, intense flank pain, and uncontrollable vomiting). But I also didn’t have visibly discolored urine. Just the microblood (they didn’t call it that, but I do). Though my pee tends to be a little on the darker side anyway because I don’t drink enough water. But there was no change in it.
It was so scary that I called 911 though, for the first and hitherto last time (knock on wood) in my life. Also I had just moved to a new area, didn’t know fucking anyone, and couldn’t have driven myself through the vomiting and the pain. Nor did I know where the fuck a hospital was, anyway. Definitely the worst pain I ever felt in my life but I rated it as an 8.75 because I hadn’t gone through childbirth yet and I imagine that hurts more. My justification made the paramedic laugh, anyway.
Kidney pain is SERIOUS SHIT. People who’ve experienced much more of life and pain than I have said that a kidney stone is the most painful experience they ever encountered. So I guess I feel better that maybe childbirth won’t be so bad! Unfortunately, unless your stone is a honker that needs to be shattered by ultrasonic wavey things (or surgery of course), there’s really nothing to do except take pain pills and wait for it to get flushed out.
I peed through the filter they gave me for a couple days, but since I didn’t have a doctor anyway I just gave up once the pain went away. I never found it! Never felt it. It sucks that something so tiny can make you so miserable.
If you’ve had them before then you know a sure sign would be that today (~48 hours later) you feel like Muhammad Ali kidney-punched you all night long - do you?
Not true. I’ve had many of them removed by uretoscope. This is a tiny scope that goes in through the urethra (under general anesthesia, of course!) so they can retrieve the stone. This can be done because they think the stone is too large to pass on its own or it can be done because the stone itself is infected and the only way to get rid of the infection is to get rid of the stone. For me, this has generally been a same-day surgery, where I’m home and resting by that evening.
Truth! I had my first stone at age 15, was sure I was dying (anything that hurts that bad has to be deadly, right??), and when I passed it, it was smaller than a match head! I was downright shocked that something so tiny could hurt so much. In my all-too frequent experience, the size of the stone does not correlate in any way with the amount of pain it causes.
That may be true for you and may be true for most people. But it isn’t true for me. For me, most of the time, once the stone has either passed or dropped into the bladder, I feel immediately better. Now, when I have a stone removed with a 'scope, that’s different, because they’ve had medical equipment all up in my junk, not to mention that the stent they put in afterward is no damned fun. Fortunately, I’ve had urologists who understand this and aren’t afraid to write prescriptions!
I had my first and only kidney stone eight years ago. I have a pretty high threshold for pain, but I seriously thought I was going to die. I’d never felt intense pain like that before, and I pray it never happens again.
This morning I’m feeling a pain down there in my lower back, on the other side this time. It’s not nearly the same, though (yet). The last time, it woke me up at 5:00 in the morning, and by 7:00 I was writhing on the couch. This morning, I woke up around 6:00 because I had to pee, and felt minor pain, but it wasn’t enough to prevent me from going back to sleep. Now, 4 1/2 hours later, the pain is somewhat worse, but more uncomfortable than anything; it’s not bothering me that much. If I sit still, there’s nothing; if I move around I feel it. It feels more like a knot in my back, with a dull ache. Would someone please tell me it’s a pulled muscle, or a spasm? I’m gettin’ scared.
As I was passing the first of my stones, a female doctor told me that the pain level was comparable to childbirth. As a guy, I then apologized to my fiancee in advance for any future pain which I might cause her to experience.
