Kidney Stones...Your Experiences, Please

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I think I might have kidney stones. My main complaints are frequent urination - to the point where I always feel like I have to go - and an increasingly severe pain on my right side.

I went to the docs today and am waiting for results (should be in in a day or two).

Have you - or someone you know - ever had kidney stones? If so, what were your symptoms, experiences, treatments, etc. like?

I did some research on the web and got some info from my doc, but I’d like some first-hand info, too.

Thanks in advance.
DoperChic

2

I’ve had three, count 'em, three kidney stones. The first was the worst – a pretty big oxalate stone, they said. The second two were no picnic either, but I passed all three on my own. Had IVP’s for two of them – I think the last two.

For the first one they gave me a “nun hat” to put in the toilet when I peed, and a strainer to check for the stone. Not fun, that. And then there was the awful-tasting Go-Litely they give you to clean out your system for the IVP (something like a gallon over 24 hours) – bleh! – I couldn’t finish it. I think urine would taste better. The Go-Litely was followed by a lovely suppository the next morning to finish the job before the IVP, but luckily the liquid diet had cleaned me out enough.

The worst part for me was the horrible throbbing – I could barely sit up. Thank God for painkillers. Some people who’ve experienced both say it’s worse than childbirth. Although I’ve never borne a child, I’ve had worse pain than my stones, which leads me to believe that as bad as mine were, they weren’t bad for kidney stones. And I never needed laser treatments or surgery, which seems to back that up. But even if they weren’t bad for stones, I don’t care to repeat the experience.

Good luck, DoperChic. You’ll need it. :dubious:

3

I was going to say that the main way I can tell that it’s a kidney stone, Is that along with the side pain, My testicles really start hurting, but noticing your name that might not be very usefull. Blood in the pee is another good sign.

4

Thanks for the info, wolfman and Scarlett.

Did your pain come on suddenly, or creep up on you? My pain started sometime early last week as more of a bloaty uncomfortable feeling. Now it gets pretty bad if I sit for too long, but is no where near the “worse than childbirth” pain that my mom and others have described.

5

I had one, when I was about 20 years old.

First sign was when I went to the bathroom one day and my urine was BLACK. :eek: After that, I started feeling sick and weak every once in a while, and then the pain started. I didn’t go to the doctor, my Mom is an RN and knew right off it was a stone. She said that most of them were the size of a grain of sand, and I may not even see it when I passed it. Later on, she said I should have gone to the doctor. :slight_smile:

The pain was like running until your side hurt, and then someone sticking a knife in and twisting. It would come and go every few days, accompanied by peeing blood. My urine got increasingly lighter and redder as it moved from my kidney to my bladder.

Once it reached my bladder, I was pain and blood free for a few days. One morning, I got up to pee and my urine stopped, like it was plugged up rather than my bladder being empty. I drank lots and lots of water that day. That afternoon, I finally had to pee again. I could feel it moving down my, uh, urethra, and it popped out, accompanied by a little bright red blood.

It was the size of a freaking BB, and had a spike on it.

I named it Joey Jr. and kept it. Been stone free for 8 years now, thank goodness.

6

My kidney stone attacks started without warning or symptoms on March 17th, 1998. The reason I have the date so exactly is because when the pain started and I went to the Emergency Room they had to take X-rays and, before doing so, I had to take all metal off, including the shamrock earrings I had on.

I have had several stones and infections, and undergone three lithotripsies. The latter procedure is one where sound waves are used to break up the stone(s), so they can be passed more easily. It’s relatively painless, at least in my experience, and sure beats invasive surgery. I just feel really tired for two or three days, like I was a worn down battery that needs recharging. My problem has been getting rid of the continuing infections.

You might check out the following site. My sister sent it to me. And if you have particular questions, feel free to email me.

7

My understanding is that the pain occurs when a stone begins traveling down the urethra, and usually ends when the stone reaches the bladder.

My first indication was abdominal pain that lasted several hours and that I thought at first was indigestion, followed by a couple of episodes of bloody urine.

About a week later, I woke up one moring with severe abdominal pain. I attempted to go to work but within about a half hour I was hurting so bad that I could hardly walk. I was taken in a car to a local clinic and spent the weekend there. Tentative diagnosis was appendicitis, changed to kidney stones after a sonogram revealed the presence of three more in my kidneys.

For me the pain from kidney stones was a sharp, spasming pain with a frequency of about 1-2 minutes; at its worst it also caused a constant urge to urinate. The first stone was estimated to be about 5mm in diameter and took about six months :eek: to pass. I’d have episodes of pain about every ten days, and kept open a prescription for powerful anti-inflammatories which were partially effective. At least twice I went to an emergency room and received an anti-inflammatory injection, which was more effective.

The others were smaller and to much less time to pass, usually no more than a few days. One passed without treatment; I ended up making one more ER visit for an anti-inflammatory inkection for each of the others.

I was given materials to try and catch one of the stones for analysis, but never managed to get one, so no further treatment, other than for inflammation and pain, could be done.

8

I had 3 kidney stone attacks in my early 20s. All 3 were very sudden in occurrence.

The first one happened on a Monday morning when I began to feel pain in my side just after arriving at work (great way to start the week). I have a very high pain tolerance, but this took less than 30 minutes to get bad enough to send me to the emergency room. The doctor diagnosed a kidney stone, I was on Demerol for about 24 hours with the pain rising and falling over about a 2-3 hour cycle, after which the pain stopped. I have no idea what happened to the stone, as it never showed up in the strainer they gave me to use. (Then spent a week in bed recovering from the urinary tract infection brought on by all that scraping and scratching, and the all-over rash brought on by a previously unsuspected allergy to the sulfa drugs prescribed for the infection.)

Had a second one on the other side almost exactly 1 year later. This time they tried to extract it from my bladder for diagnostic purposes, but couldn’t get it. (Guys, don’t even THINK about how this is done.) The third was about 13 months later, and I haven’t had a recurrence in the past 20-odd years. The second and third were just as sudden, about 1 hour from feeling fine to excruciating pain, but at least I had an idea what was wrong. Both took about 24-36 hours before they were finished. I expect that today they would be treated with ultrasound, but that option wasn’t available to me then.

I never had trouble urinating, but my doctor said mine were probably the sharp spiky kind rather than the round lumpy kind. All three seemed to disintegrate on their own, as none ever showed up in the strainers and all my pain seemed to be due to movement from kidney to bladder. I never had any pain symptoms which might indicate that they were moving down the urethra from the bladder.

Hope this helps. Watch out for possible post-stone infections.

9

The urologist I was referred to once told me that my pain was in the ureter also (between kidney and bladder). IIRC, he said there is not usually pain when the stone is inside the kidney. (Who can remember these things when your kidney is throbbing like a bitch?)

10

Over the past few years I had had numerous experiences with stones, although rather different from what most posters are describing. I’ve been seeing a urologist regularly during this time, FYI. Anyway, I have some kind malformation in the urinary tract that causes problems. I experience frequent and urgent need to urinate, and this causes me to drink less than I should which in turn can lead to stones (this is my summary of the situation, honestly I don’t think doc really knows that the hell is going on). I only experience discomfort when passing the stone. I can feel it "run the course’ so to speak. It’s at its worst at the very end (feels like a small nail is being jabbed through me). The “stones”, in my case, look more like flakes. The biggest one thus far was about as big as my pinke fingernail. I don’t experience pain as much as discomfort and frequent, urgent need to urinate. But I make up for it in number of occurences!

Good luck.

11

Had mine during the honeymoon of my first marriage. (Should have taken that as an omen.)

Had the classic symptoms. Urge to urinate, but little coming out. Excruciating pain in my back.

Went to the hospital and waited for someone to see me. When I told the nurse that I thought I had kidney stones, she was dubious, because, you know, I’m just the patient, what the fuck do I know. Persisted and asked for something for the pain. While the nurse struggled to find a vein, then gave up and waited for another nurse to do it, I passed the stone and the worst of the pain was over.

Worst pain was to come. Doctor came in, checked my chart, mumbled something about drinking lots of water and left, and then charged me $300 bucks for his consultation. Thanks, Doc.

Sheesh.

12

I’ve had one. Tiny one. If you wrote a news headline about it, it would read something like “Grown Man Immobilized by Speck of Grit”.

Being stupid, and having a ridiculously high pain threshold, I just thought I’d strained my back when the pain started. Eventually, it got bad enough that I had to go and see the doctor. By this time, I really could hardly move - it took me twenty minutes to walk the two hundred yards or so to the surgery. They listened to me describe my symptoms, and said at once “You have a water infection, possibly caused by a kidney stone; we’ll put you on antibiotics and schedule you for an ultrasound.” (My blood pressure was the highest it has ever been. 130 over 97. I don’t suffer from high blood pressure…)

The ultrasound picked up the stone - tiny thing, about a millimetre in diameter. I don’t think it was the stone itself that caused all the pain, so much as the associated infection. I was put on a waiting list for lithotripsy, but I passed the damn thing before my turn came up. Gotta love the NHS.

13

I had one. Saturday morning and my side hurts a little. I’m thinking it might be gas pains, constipation, something like that. But after two hours it got worse and worse. Finally I was in excruciating pain (by my standards).

We went to the ER and they took a urine sample. Since they didn’t know for sure what it was, they didn’t give me any painkillers. Nine times out of ten they can tell a kidney stone from the urine sample, but I was the lucky tenth, so that put off my pain meds even longer. By this time I was fetal in pain.

Finally they figured out what it was and stuck me in a room overnight. They gave me a saline IV to get me to pee more often and a strainer. I was also on a pain med dispenser, but I only needed two hits from it.

(A funny story. The room they put me in had a TV, but they couldn’t find the remote control. I wasn’t too concerned about watching TV, so I didn’t care, but later when the pain went away, I thought I might watch some. It was on Comedy Central, so I watched South Park. Afterwards a Dana Carvey stand-up special came on and within five minutes of it’s starting, I was hobbling across the room with my IV, desperate to turn the damn thing off.)

Anyway, the next morning it came out. Dink! It was a tiny little thing, and I was amazed it could have caused so much pain. I also realized how I had only had one little stone and yet it hurt like hell, and I know people get more and bigger stones. I had blood in the urine and frequent “false alarms” (feeling like I needed to pee real bad but not actually having to) for the next day or two, but they said that was common and resulted from the irritation of the stone moving through the urethra.

I’ve been told the pain is comparable to labor pains. Good news is, you don’t have to bring the stone home and put it through college.

That was my only encounter with kidney stones. After that I severely cut back on my caffeine intake, which I think was the culprit. From that one experience, I’d think that if you had a stone, you’d know it, but it appears from this thread that they manifest in several different ways.

14

I’ve had them. The first one felt like a nagging back ache in the middle of my back, and when I went to the doctor for muscle relaxants, he hurried me off to the hospital for an injection of fluid to find it. Sure enough, there they were.

The second time…oooh, boy. I’d felt like I had a bladder infection for a few days and I made a promise that I would call the doctor from work and make an appointment.

On my way to work I had to pee so bad I pulled off at a convenience store. Nothing happened. I knew I was in for a treat.

I guess the pain started to get to me, because my hands started to go numb, then my chest, then my whole body, even my eyelids. This is while I’m driving through rush hour traffic to get to work. My only thought was…“Get to work, then I can get help from my friends.” My hands started curling in, my lips started curling in, and I couldn’t talk.

I stumbled into work, dropped my purse, and scared the shit out of my friends, who called 911. I was taken away in an ambulance.

I remember sitting on the gurney, rocking back and forth, I remember vomiting into a garbage can while the paramedics held my hair back, I remember traipsing back and forth with the IV in tow to the bathroom, because I kept feeling like I was going to pee my pants, I remember some rude chick wanting me to sign insurance paperwork (after an IV of heavy drugs), I remember telling the nurse that although my head was floating from the drugs, I was still in pain…then I remember the lovely injection of Taxol. Ah, Taxol. I love you.

Turns out my stones are calcium based, so I’m told to drink lots of water. I gues my 52oz Super Big Gulp jug from 7-11 filled to the brim with ice water each day isn’t cutting it. :rolleyes:

I learned my lesson. The third time I hied myself to the doctor at the earliest symptom and got my butt on antibiotics.

Between kidney stones and labor pains, I’d much rather have the labor pains.

15

A friend described the pain as like being hit in the back with a baseball bat. He had a horrible time of it.

16

I’ve had 4 episodes now. Joy of joys…

They usually come on quick with pain in my back, frequent bloody urine and excrutiating pain.

The first time it happened, it put me in the hospital for a week on IV antibiotics, major pain killers and threat of surgery if it didn’t pass. It did eventually, but it was no picnic.

The other times when the pain hit, I imediately started chugging quarts/litres of cranberry juice and water and stopped eating. Though some pain relief was needed, they passed unassisted.

I can usually pass them on my own (knock knock knock knock) by hitting the juice and water. Calcium overload is what causes mine. I can’t drink more than 1/4 cup of skim-milk a day for fear of creating another stone. For someone who loves milk, this is hard to do. However, it is better to forgo the moo juice than feel the pain of kidney stones :eek:

17

Why do they happen?
How can this be prevented? :frowning:

18

Teelo, here is a really good site about them:
http://www.urologychannel.com/kidneystones/index.shtml

Scroll to the end of the page for prevention and treatment.

19

I had pains in my kidneys for some time (which I now know was probably caused by an infection) which I, being in my mid-twenties and indestructable, ignored until I was in Walgreens one day and felt a pain in my back like none I had ever experienced before which laid me out right there in the snack asile. Hoo-boy! The term “kidney spasms” sounds abstract, but once you’ve experienced it, it’s unmistakable and horrible beyond description.

I went to the doctor but, having no insurance, I was treated like the scum of the earth. He ran the urine test and told me “Well, you probably have kidney stones. Not much I can do.” and sent me home with an antibiotic script for the infection. No painkillers, nothing. I think maybe he thought that I, being the unwashed uninsured and therefore not a valuable member of society, was just trying to scam some opiates. I finally ended up calling him at home and begging for something, ANYTHING to help with the pain. He relented and wrote me a script for some peashooter painkiller that barely put a dent in it. I was taking three or four at a time–so many that I was afraid I was going to OD accidentally, so I started carrying a pad and pencil around with me and making a hash mark every time I took a pill. It was awful.

I had blood in my urine, but my pain was mostly confined to my flank. I never had any pain in the bladder or penis. I also never had the telltale “plunk” that comes with passing the stone. The second doctor (I wised up and ditched the first quack for a more considerate sawbones) also detected crystals in my urine and theorized that the stone or stones had been small and disintegrated on their way from kidney to bladder.

Since then I have made several lifestyle changes. I drink water like a fish, have totally cut out all carbonated beverages*, exercise regularly, have decreased the amount of animal protien in my diet, and limit my caffiene intake to one (admittedly large) cup of coffee in the morning. Hydration is my watchword. I have, thus far (knocking on the biggest block of wood available), not experienced a recurance of the stones and had only one minor kidney infection.

*My carbonated beverage ban includes beer most of the time. This fact has been the subject of some debate in a related thread on these boards, and if anyone has any relevant science on whether or not it’s OK for someone who is trying to prevent a recurrance of kidney stones to drink beer, I’d love to hear from you. But at this point I can only trust my own experience. I have, on occasion, been out seeing a band in a club which served only beer and had several while watching the show. Minor pains in the renal system caused by crystals cascading down from the kidneys usually happen the next day after these little relapses. This does not happen if I drink wine or liquor. YMMV.

20

A single incident several months ago - A very sudden attack that occurred precisely at the moment I shifted position while lying on a couch, reading. Started bad and quickly got worse. I have a fairly high pain threshhold, but this was by far the worst pain I have ever experienced - I came close to passing out in the emergency room. I had initially thought it was either a reocurrence of a unsolved case of duodenitis I had a few years back or else a perforated appendix. However apparently at some point I either passed it, it broke up spontaneously, or it was just some sludge rather than full stone. The pain relieved abruptly while I was sitting talking to the triage nurse and I do mean abrupt - One second I was sweating and gray-faced, the next there was nothing. It was an almost unbelievable relief. CT-Scan turned up zilch, but since there was microscopic traces of blood in my urine, they’re pretty sure that was what it was.

I had a couple of brief moments of comparatively mild “flank pain” in the few days afterwards, but nothing since. The head of the urology department at my hospital was of the opinion that I wasn’t likely to have numerous repeat episodes and so far he has been correct. His prescription was simply to stay hydrated ands perhaps add a bit of concentrated lemon juice to my daily water intake - Apparently in his HO specialized diets are largely worthless ( but I wouldn’t necessarily take that for gospel ).

  • Tamerlane