I’m currently in the throes of passing a kidney stone.* It’s been flaring on and off for a month now. It’s at the point right now where it feels like I have to pee really bad, constantly, even though I might not have a full bladder (quite uncomfortable to say the least). Usually this has been an indicator that it’s near the end of its journey, tearing through my ureter. Is this common, and what’s going on here? Is the KS putting pressure on some nerve that makes my body think my bladder is full, or is there some other reason?
*yes, my doctor is aware, and this is my third. :eek:
IANAUrologist but irritation and inflammation of the bladder tissue can cause that but it might not be the only cause.
It might.
But it might not.
Kidney stones cause mostly visceral pain which is, sadly, very poorly and variably localized.
I’ve had patients with your symptoms who had the stone in the bladder, ready to make the journey out the urethra to freedom. But I’ve also had patients with your symptoms whose CT scans showed the stone still rather far up the ureter.
Sorry.
Yes, I’ve noted that visceral non-locality of pain and disomfort. 
Thanks anyways, guys!
I had a kidney stone lodge itself firmly in my ureter about halfway down. My doctor blasted it apart with sonics. Thorough, yet noninvasive.
I’m sure your doctor’s up on things, though. If it’s moving, there ya go.
Yeh, from what I can tell, it’s moving along (hence pain, right?), perhaps more slowly than I would like. How can you tell if it’s lodged?
Two x-rays a day apart.
>Usually this has been an indicator that it’s near the end of its journey, tearing through my ureter. Is this common, and what’s going on here? Is the KS putting pressure on some nerve that makes my body think my bladder is full, or is there some other reason?
Well, first of all, if you really want to know what a kidney stone feels like, you should ask someone who’s only had one. I’ve had almost fifty, up to 13 mm. I’ve had enough cystoscopies and lithotripsies that I have lost count of both, and a good old fashioned lithotomy that had me hospitalized for 10 days, but most of them I have passed - one while driving on a 4 lane road with no room to get off.
But, I think the needing to pee feeling most often corresponds to a stone at the UBJ, the ureteral-bladder junction. I’d characterize this feeling as also burning and stinging, and feeling like something is wrong with the urethra (which is not where I understand the stone is). All I can tell from your name, cymk, is that I wish you’d read my thread on artist’s paint and metamerism (or maybe you have posted there and I didn’t remember the name). But I don’t know your gender. I’m a male, and can report that large stones very high in the ureter or in the renal pelvis have usually given me a testicular ache like unrequited love, and that this can last weeks. Stones that start moving down the ureter but then get hung up create a situation where the ureter spasms, I understand, but what I feel is the classic renal colic, a very powerful burning and aching pain in the flank. Big fat needles of narcotic injected deep into my thigh after I’ve been admitted are certainly welcome but do not really take the pain away as much as weaken it and help me deal with it. Stones in the bladder are funny feeling, maybe a little annoying, and sometimes make me feel like I need to pee, but don’t feel as wrong or sting as much as stones at the UBJ. I think a stone in the bladder, if it is rolling around, creates more urgent feelings if it rolls into the area that tapers into the exiting urethra - but there’s a lot of guesswork in this mental picture. In any case, when I get that sensation, if I urinate, especially while standing up and leaning forward at a 40° angle or so and jumping around a little, the stone will often come out - though near the end of the process, not at the beginning, which would make more sense.
Here’s a pretty good diagram of what goes on when one passes a kidney stone
Wow, Napier, 50 stones (!) including a half -inch stone. I can’t even imagine. I hope your worst is over. And yes, I’m a dood. Haven’t felt any testicular pain though, even in my first two. It always seems to start out as your typical, dull ache in my lower back on what ever side the stone is in. Then I’ll go through a season or two of intense pain, that comes and goes over a period of days. I seem to be past that now, although over thursday night I was in considerable pain + the bladder sensation of burning and fullness for over 8 hours. The only thing that seemed to help was a hot bath. But after I would get out of the tub, the colic would immediately resume. Now I feel a twang in my bladder every now and then, so I assume it’s at the UBJ. In my past two, I would usually enter a period of a few days of calm and normalcy, followed by a minor prick that I feel in what I can only assume to be the entrance into my urethra. That’s usually my cue to pee and pass the damn thing. My previous stones have turned out to be pretty small, so I’m sure this thing will pass on its own. If it goes a week longer, I’ll get some xrays.
And thanks for the diagram picunurse. It seems to match the mental picture I had in my head as to what was going on inside.
>Wow, Napier, 50 stones (!)
Yeah. Actually, it wasn’t intentional. I’m glad I live in the US, where typical insurance policies will pay for stone surgeries. I hear that in Ireland and Germany and other places that otherwise seem like they’d be very nice places to live, they let you blow a kidney out if the stone won’t pass, and won’t give you surgery, unless you’ve already done that once and are on your last kidney. I don’t know if it’s true. But if it is I think I’d swim back here before I’d go through that.
Say, are you in printing or what? I assume your name stands for cyan magenta yellow black. In real life, I’ve hardly met any people with your name, probably because it’s hard to pronounce.
It’s not.
My wife has these alot. Her doctor said I should, I don’t quite know how to say this, kind of pound on her kidneys, or lower back when she’s laying down. I don’t do it hard, kind of like playing bongo drums. Truth be told, after intercourse she seems to pass them quite easily. Don’t tell the neighbors 
Speaking of baths and pounding and fun while naked, my first kidney stone passed after I took a bath. I was living in a museum attic on Nantucket Island, and there was a bathroom that was probably 300 square feet with a huge old iron bathtub that was long enough to truly lounge in and had a long and gently sloped back end. I discovered that if I slid back and pressed my back into this end, and then relaxed, the small of my back had enough suction cup action against the tub that it would hold me there for a minute or so. I quite enjoyed experimenting with this. Then I got out, dried off, went into my room and started getting dressed, and it hit.