The night I suffered my first attack I was in the ER. When I finally got a painkiller I was given Demerol, right in the IV. I felt like I was floating an inch off of the bed. “Pain? What pain?” After that I understood how folks could get hooked on painkillers. We just don’t know how good the simple lack of pain feels.
Yeah, same thing happened to me. I was vomiting and writhing on the hospital bed. The nurse asked me my pain level and I managed to say “ten”. Finally she gave me a demerol shot. A few minutes later she came by and asked my pain level, and I had to say “zero”. The worst pain I’d ever experienced completely disappeared in a few minutes.
I caught two of my stones, the first one because they wanted to test it; I can’t really remember why I caught the second one, maybe just curiosity. They were both tiny, like grains of sand. It’s hard to believe something that small can cause that much pain.
:smack: I meant ‘though you don’t get to have a kid when it ends’
They told me I needed to catch mine for testing, but on day four I suddenly had to ask my wife to stop at a little gas station in Vermont, dashed into the bathroom, and there it went. :rolleyes: Eh, good riddance you little bastard.
Birthed 3 kids with 2 of them I was already suffering from the staghorn kidney stone in my left kidney. Unlike normal stones these guys are silent as in pain until one day you realize you have been on antibiotics for a couple of years for UTIs and sinus infections and your back really hurts to the point you were diagnosed with scoliosis… leaning away from the stone.
18 months of various ABX, and an ultrasound only to be told nothing was wrong with me. I had a meltdown and the urologist sent me for an XRay and, hey! Surgery! Your entire left kidney is a stone! The ESWL pretty much killed what was left of my kidney but I did get to pass a stone the was like a pea cut in half (thankfully through a catheter type tube). Today they don’t use ESWL on stones as big as mine was.
The difference in giving birth and passing stones is that with giving birth the pain comes in waves (contractions) that are long but have breaks in between. Passing stones equals intense constant pain that doesn’t stop until the stone is gone. And I appreciated my babies a lot more than any of the stones or sand I passed.
The last time I passed a stone I did Lamaze breathing which impressed the nurse. She was also impressed on how much morphine it took to get me to relax. The doctor who did the catscan was amazed that my kidney was still working at all.
I’m on lifelong daily Nitrofurantoin since they couldn’t remove all of the stone. Without the ABX the stone regrows but with it… it still grows but slower. 2 mm bigger the last time it was checked about 5 years ago. It’s like not fun coral in my kidney.
Just curious if it would be possible to pass a stone while giving birth. If it has been done, I’d like to know how that went.
I’ve had three kidney stones, and am very, very fortunate in that NONE of them were painful. A little nausea, and a slightly uncomfortable feeling as it actually passed.
My brother and sister, on the other hand, have both had very, very painful kidney stone episodes.
As I said, I am very, very fortunate.
Does the pain in the moment actually matter then if it’s distorted in memories? Like, I could imagine someone suffering from ptsd after a particularly painful kidney stone, less so with childbirth (unless it’s a exceptionally difficult birth).
I had a kidney stone, once, several years ago. The pain was horrible, worse than my heart attack.
My wife birthed 3 kids.
Whenever I bring up the kidney stone vs. childbirth debate, my wife tells me “no uterus, no opinion.”
I’ve had two kidney stones. They were both horrific experiences. The last one, I felt a twinge near my kidney that I think I could describe as discomfort. Within five minutes, it had ramped up to painful. I just made it to the bathroom in time to begin vomiting. I vomited for maybe three minutes, then passed out from the pain. Woke up an undetermined amount of time later and began vomiting again. I couldn’t even get my phone out of my pocket to call anyone. I finally managed to get just enough air to say ‘OK Google call <wife>’ I think I said something like ‘Bathroom, work, help.’ She came and I helped me to the car. I made it to the ER and just cried for hours. They put me on a morphine drip which didn’t help, but the Fentanyl dulled it enough that I could talk. It was not a fun experience.
Question from an ignorant XY-chromosomer here:
I have read something to the effect that childbirth pain is considered tolerable by many women because of what it results in - a child being born. Does that mean tolerable only “after the fact,” or does it actually alleviate the physical pain of labor itself somewhat?
I’ve had both and the answer is, it depends. My first delivery was horrible. Way worse than any of the kidney stones that I have passed. But my second delivery was a breeze (thank you, epidural!) and a walk in the park compared to kidney stones.
IME it is only tolerable after the fact. You see a beautiful baby & forget how miserable it was.
I have never had a kidney stone.
I have had a gallbladder attack - which, as with kidney stones, you hear women comparing to childbirth, and saying the gallbladder is worse.
I have given birth, twice. With failed epidurals both times. Oh, and the second time was a c-section. That was not all that much fun.
By comparison, the gallbladder attacks (over several days) were a slightly-doubled-over walk in the park. I’d definitely choose that over childbirth - the only truly intolerable part was that I developed unremitting ITCHING of my hands and feet, that had me sleepless for 48 hours.
I would assume a kidney stone would be far worse than that, and quite possibly worse than childbrith. I hope I never find out for sure.
With anesthesia (where you’re unconscious), in principle we can’t actually prove whether it works, or whether it just makes us forget hours of excruciating pain. Although it’s implausible that it would also suppress the physiological symptoms that usually accompany pain, so I think we can be reasonably sure!
A more realistic question: how often do patients wake up in excruciating pain during an operation because of a screw-up, the OR staff cover it up, and the patient forgets?
It’s hormones, specifically oxytocin that flood the post-partum female body after birth and while breastfeeding continues. It contributes towards a type of ‘maternal amnesia’ that causes women to quickly forget the intensity of the labor itself and to focus upon the baby.
I had four kids. After the first I said, ‘Never again’. But I did it again, and only remembered how bad it was when I was in labor again. And then twice more.
If women remembered how painful their labors were, the human race would have died out many generations ago. Nobody would have had more than one kid. 
I think that, if anesthesia were merely a pain-masker, it would show in strong levels of muscle tension and super high blood pressure, and a patient waking up utterly exhausted and traumatized.
7th. Up, and was pretty well, but going to the office, and I think it was sitting with my back to the fire, it set me in a great rage again, that I could not continue till past noon at the office, but was forced to go home, nor could sit down to dinner, but betook myself to my bed, and being there a while my pain begun to abate and grow less and less.
Anon I went to make water, not dreaming of any thing but my testicle that by some accident I might have bruised as I used to do, but in pissing there come from me two stones, I could feel them, and caused my water to be looked into; but without any pain to me in going out, which makes me think that it was not a fit of the stone at all; for my pain was asswaged upon my lying down a great while before I went to make water. Anon I made water again very freely and plentifully. I kept my bed in good ease all the evening, then rose and sat up an hour or two, and then to bed and lay till 8 o’clock.
Diary of Samuel Pepys, March 1664
Sounds like Pepys was unaware that a kidney stone causes the most pain passing through the ureter, from the kidney to the bladder. Once it reaches the bladder, there’s usually little pain involved in it passing out through the urethra. I’ve talked to some people in the 21st century who were similarly unaware of this.
Me too.
-MMM-
The first time I had kidney stones I was a nursing student. I was doing research at the hospital the day before clinical practice. I started having back pain, and blamed the cramped conditions and old chairs. The back pain got worse and I started feeling nauseous and having diarrhea. Although I wasn’t finished doing my patient research I could no longer concentrate on my patient charts and decided to go home and come in early to finish my research before my shift at 7 a.m.
I left that hospital caught a bus home, and halfway across town, I realized I was going to be very very sick. I got off the bus at the university, made it inside a bathroom door, projectile vomited and barely made it to the toilet before the other end emptied contents. The pain was blinding and I saw blood in the toilet … I didn’t know if it was blood in my urine or my stool but as soon as I thought I could leave a tiled environment I got out of there and (pre-cell phones) called a cab… to another hospital ER. I could barely stand when I got out of the cab, and ER attendant basically scooped me into a wheelchair. (it was weird because I was wearing nursing student ID and a lab coat)
I had to call my clinical teacher to report that I wouldn’t be at the hospital the next morning. She had seen me about 90 minutes earlier so she was wondering what was going on. Fortunately, she could hear the overhead page in the background so knew I was at a hospital. “Its either a kidney stone or my insides have liquified” was apparently what I said. (This is from her report. I really have no memory of making that call.) The hospital called my parents based on notes in my file. I spent the next 36 hours in some sort of Demerol haze. It didn’t touch the pain, it just made me not care.
My son was born by c section after hard labour without my cervix opening, and he was in distress. A few days later my staples ripped open and I had to have packing dressings to my wound from mid-December to the first week of April. I’d still pick child birth.
The only good thing was the kidney stones were over quickly and didn’t require orthodontia.