Perhaps someone has already answered this but here’s what I was told:
Drink a LOT of water/non-cafeinated beverages each day.
Limit cafeinated beverages.
I have done this and have not had another kidney stone.
My doctor explained that the main cause of the pain is that the ureter connecting kidney and bladder is not much wider than a hair inside. The urethra leading out of the bladder is a multi-lane highway in comparison.
My first (of many) was memorable. It happened just after our daughter was born, over 40 years ago, I spend three days in the hospital, found that hydromorphone was useless as a pain med for me but Dilaudid worked just fine. They tried ureteroscopy (thankfully under anesthesia) to remove it with no result. I developed a severe UTI after returning home and discovered that I was allergic to sulfa drugs.
Subsequent stones have been pretty much routine, occurring about every year for the first couple, then with ever increasing periods between. I have a fairly high pain tolerance, so aspirin and Tylenol were all that I needed when the pain got annoying. The last one was going to be dealt with by lithotripsy, but when they did a scan to locate it for the procedure, it was already gone.
Watch for UTI symptoms if you have one, as this is apparently a fairly common related problem.
My last stone was quite large. The Dr. tried using a stent to have it pass naturally but no luck. They ended up using a laser to blast it into dust. The laser insertion didn’t hurt nearly as much as the stent did.
Thank you everyone for the encouraging (and sometimes terrifying) information. My stone(s) passed largely unnoticed in about a week. No further pain or even discomfort was experienced. I was able to recover some very tiny debris and the urology lab thinks it is a uric acid stone. I’ve had CT scan (at the emergency room) and ultrasound scans (at the urologist) and everything seems to be flowing properly at this time.
Thank you for the virtual handholding during this ordeal.
I always wonder about this stuff, I’ve never had a kidney stone, I drink a lot of water with lemon juice in it. I’ve heard drinking lemon juice or orange juice can help prevent them? Do you drink stuff like that regularly?
I have had more than 40 stones, and have lost count. Mine have been as big as 13 mm. I’ve had one lithotomy and enough basket retrievals and lithotripsies to have lost count of those too. They are always calcium oxalate. A few years ago my urologist put me on magnesium supplements and that has cut way down on them. I do, though, have some pain in my left flank when I lean or press on the area, and after many CT and ultrasound and MRI studies over the past several years, there’s still no cause found; the leading theory is small stones in the kidney or high in the ureter that are not moving.
What I expect: somewhere around 5 mm is the line between stones that will pass on their own and stones that require some surgical procedure. These days the most likely procedure is lithotripsy.
This is important: they can be very painful, but it’s great to remember that people basically never die of stones, and people with access to medical care basically never suffer permanent consequences.
This is one of the more common pieces of advice a urologist will give you.
Do you eat a lot of meat? That’s one of the risk factors for uric acid stones. Organ meats in particular are associated with this type of kidney stone.