As if getting laid off last week wasn’t bad enough, now I’ve got a kidney stone. The wikipedia entry describes one of the symptoms as:
And that pretty much sums up yesterday for me.
I was on taking the train at the time when suddenly I felt a nagging pain, like I’d pulled a muscle. Not five minutes later, I had to get out of my seat because the pain of being in a sitting position was excrutiating. Another ten minutes later, I was bowled over on the street corner, vomiting. Abruptly feverish, I managed to crawl into a taxi and make it to an E.R., where I got worse. When I was at the front admissions desk, the receptionist asked me to go sit in the waiting room, but I literally could not get out of my chair and had to have an nurse assist me to walk ten feet.
The nurse who attended me was very sympathetic. She said she’d passed two stones before, and the only pain she’d ever felt worse was that of labor. I thought to myself “If having a child hurts worse than this, it’s a wonder that the human race keeps going at all.”
I’m better now, heavy doses of Motrin, and one percocet later. Now my condition has downgraded from extremely painful and extremely uncomfortable.
Well, labor, even with no pain killers, was not as painful as passing even very tiny kidney stones, at least for me. I find changing positions and when possible walking around helps move them on out. My sympathies.
I tried to drive myself to the ER and ended up on my hands and knees in the parking lot of a children’s hospital. They weren’t allowed to admit me but gave me morphine and poured me into an ambulance. Didn’t have to wait in the ER at all.
The downside is that after 2 weeks and a number of doctor visits to up the medication they didn’t pass. I think I started with Demerol then Percocet and finally Vicodin. Vicodin was the only thing that worked for the full duration of the dosage. I don’t know if that is an addictive drug but after 2 weeks I opted to have them removed.
My business partner has a chronic kidney stone issue that is partially controlled by diet. Apparently there no treatment at this time for his condition. On average he throws 15-20 stones a year.
To the OP: If you can, after you pass your stone (if you can), try to catch it and have the doctor analyze it. The type of kidney stone you have can tell you a lot of what you would have to do to keep from getting them again.
Mine were calcium oxalate stones (the most common). So I am able to control them by taking daily B-12 vitamins and a prescription drug called Uracit. Its been 2 years since I’ve had a stone.
I had a kidney stone. The pain woke me up at 3 in the morning, I thought it was just gas or something. When I started throwing up I figured it was time to go to the hospital.
The dr gave me Flomax and a sieve to pee through so I could catch the stone when it came out. It never did. I peed through that thing for 4 weeks, and nothing. I guess it’s still in there.
My cousin has three kidneys, and he gets stones a lot.
I used to work for a little country grocery store about the size of a big 7-11 when I was a kid. I had to pick my boss up off of the floor and get him to a doctor when he passed out trying to pass a stone. Apparently it was REALLY big.
I spent 2 very sleepless days completely pain ridden. Just at the point where I had decided to go to the hospital(a difficult decision as I was unemployed at the time, with no insurance), the pain broke completely, just like thatsnaps fingers. Couple hours later as i was taking a leak, there was a minor scratching/burning sensation, and tink tink. Aaaaaaah.
I have had eight or so stones and for the last two I discovered the absolute best way to hand them: jog up and down stairs.
Seriously. The pain is beyond measure when lying down, but after a minute of going up and down the stairs it was almost completely vanished; far better than any drug. Of course, the pain comes back a few minutes after stopping, so you need to keep doing it for the duration. The up side is that all that motion hastens the stone along. You get some exercise and avoid pain.
I feel for you! Really!
I’ll be 48 next week, and got my first kidney stone at the tender age of 15. Seriously, I thought I was dying. I could not imagine that something could hurt that bad and not kill you!
Since then, I’ve had dozens of the little fuckers. In my experience:
Percocet is the best oral pain medication (with Dilaudid being the best IV pain med, followed by morphine in second place; Demerol does nothing for me but make me throw up more).
The size of the stone seems to have nothing to do with how painful it is. I know that sounds silly. But I’ve had stones smaller than a match head that were enough to literally drive me to my knees, and stones as big around as a pencil eraser and 1/3" long that didn’t hurt nearly as bad. I’ve even been surprised by finding a stone in the toilet bowl when I didn’t even know I had an active stone!
For me, I have to have anti-nausea drugs before oral pain meds, or I’ll just throw the oral pain meds up. That ten minutes between using the Phenergan (anti-nausea) suppository and the time I can down a bunch of Percocet is a long ten minutes.
Whenever I wake up in the middle of the night, elbow my hubby into wakefulness, and hiss at him “Get me drugs. Now!” he knows exactly what I mean.
Thankfully, my right kidney always seemed to grow a lot more of them than my left kidney, and since having said right kidney removed two months ago, I’ve been free of any amount of kidney pain!
Please be cheered by the fact that, apparently, the frequency and rapidity with which I grow stones seems to be quite uncommon. You’ll find a lot more folks who don’t get even one before middle age, and then may have a couple more, at most.
You have my sympathy. I’ve had two kidney stones and they were indeed, extremely painful. What made the pain so bad was its consistency. When a painful episode occurred it was a constant and intense throbbing for hours upon hours upon hours. There was no escape and the experience was physically exhausting.
Happily, I passed both stones relatively quickly and with little pain. Apparently, I have a freakishly large urethra which allowed the stones to easily make their journey to the dark bowels of some random toilet bowl.
Very interesting. With my stones, I always laid in bed in a certain very specific position. Knees up with my right leg crossed over the left while leaning my upper body in such a way as to stretch the left side of my back (where the stone was located).
Should I get another stone, I’ll try this out. However, it was a terror just walking and when I did so I had to be hunched over to my right. Can’t imagine jogging. Still, it’s worth a try.
No fun! My one and only experience was very mild compared to everyone else I know. I was already on pain killers for an operation, so I had some pain, but nothing compared to what people have told me.
My SIL in Quebec came down with one on the Sunday of Canadian Thanksgiving.
By the time she and my MIL had made the hour’s drive to the cousin’s house where family dinner was taking place, she grabbed one of the cousins who’d already eaten to drive her to the hospital. They ultrasounded her and found an 8mm stone, gave her some drugs and told her if it didn’t pass on its own in a day or two to go to her GP.
She went to the GP who told her if it didn’t pass within 6 weeks they’d put her on a list to get it broken up. She’s still waiting and it still hasn’t passed.
I wish you MUCH better luck and healthcare, if needed, than she got.