I spent last Memorial Day in the ER, with pain like I had never known before thanks to a kidney stone. Apparently, it was small, but holy crap the experience was not pleasant. I was a big crybaby and they loaded me up with morphine just to get me to quit moaning and whining...
Happened to fiance' in April. Got caught in the small tube someplace, ER, Intense pain, 3 week later finally passed and it had a hook on it! Not Fun! Good luck!
New Years several years ago... On the bathroom floor in fetal position. Thank gosh for Percocet. People say worse than childbirth, but now I've experienced both, and I didn't think so. Any other opinions on that?
My kidney stone experience was far worse than all of my natural childbirths! It's incredible how two, infinitesimal stones can cause such excruciating pain! I was throwing up along with it. I really thought I was going to die! Gallstone pain runs a close second!
until a young university urologist prescribed sodium bicarbonate tablets (just tablet form of baking soda), which dissolves stones--softens them, smooths them over for easier passing. (No money for doctors in this! I had seen several urologists before.)
Also the product Uriflow (available on Amazon) seems to work for me in averting a stone when there's sign that one might be present.
I was pipelining in Northern Alberta, way (and I mean way) out in the middle of the bush in nowhere and it hit. Many hours later I finally got(drove myself) into a small town where the Doc saw me after hours and got some relief. Passed it a few hours later. Incredible pain.
This is the way kidney stones were described to me:
Put your palms together and spread your fingers. Put each finger of one hand between each finger of your other hand in various directions. What you have is a rough example of a kidney stone. Kidney stones tend to have a rough, scratchy surface. They grab and scrape the tube between the kidney and the bladder. It's especially bad when the diameter of the stone is bigger than the diameter of the tube. The stones don't need to be round, either. My first stone looked like an extremely tiny version of a Klingon two-handed sword. It took weeks for it to reach the light of day.
My last stone was stuck at the end of the tube where it gets a little tighter before emptying into the bladder. They gave me Flomax to relax the tube. I thought it was ironic, as I'm female.
I try to drink lots of liquids in an effort to prevent any more episodes. But then, our tap water in the desert is very hard so I don't know if drinking the water is helping or hurting.
It hit me while I was on the way to a friend's house to spend Halloween with her kids. I tried to phone my Mom to tell her what was going on, but I couldn't get the words in between the screams, because that's right when the thing decided to do some moving.
I was sitting in the hospital waiting room with my son after some particularly bad pain.
The triage nurses didn't pay much attention to me until all 6 ft. 4 inches of me fell on the floor on my knees and started whining. That got their attention and it got me an I.V. drip of morphine. God Bless Morphine Drips.
I passed an arrowhead shaped stone (ouch!) a couple of days latter. It was so small compared to the size of the pain.
It was in 1987... I'd only been married about 6 months. It was sudden and horrendous. I was in tears the pain was so bad. My sweetheart dragged me to the ER because I am not a crying sort, and I think I scared him when a really bad pain hit me and the tears ran down my face and I just sank to the floor like my legs had gone boneless.
I had to have surgery; I couldn't pass the stone no matter how much IV fluids they gave me and how many glasses of cranberry juice they pushed on me.
Apparently I have a problem absorbing calcium; the surgeon (urologist) said my stone was all calcium carbonate. Later I developed a whopping case of osteoporosis in spite of calcium and other meds.
To this day I cannot drink cranberry juice; it gags me even though I like those two Ocean Spray guys in the cranberry bog.
The pain started in June 2000, a couple times a week I'd have low to moderate pain. Towards November I was in moderate pain almost every morning. One Sunday afternoon in January the pain kicked in at extreme for about two hours straight. I finally decided it was time to see a doctor so off to the ER I went. I had no idea until I saw the doctor. I was glad to have some pain pills and finally found out why I was in pain for 6 months. Lithotripsy in February and pissing through a filter for the next month. Never had them again that I know of.
For those of you who have never had one, please count yourselves lucky! I had one years ago...and it was some the worst pain in my life, short of surgery. I never want one EVER again!!!
This was lunch conversation with strangers recently (part of a grief one day therapy group-about death, not kidney stones). A lady said there is a long list of forbidden food now: blueberries are super bad, potatoes? lettuce... many of her favorite foods. One guy didn't care what he ate, had several bouts...
Sorry you all had such a nightmare. They must have used whiskey for all sorts of "remedies" before pain meds... These people had ultrasound treatment...
Welcome to the club! I had'em three times. Third time I had two stones and had to have lithotripsy done. (Use of sound waves to break the stones) You feel like you have been punched in the side when they are done. And then you tinkle sand.
My first stone came about 20 years ago. I had to go into the hospital to have it removed because it would not pass. It was about the size of a small pea with little spines all over it like a sea urchin.
My second stone came about 5 years later and was the size of a quarter and I had lithotripsy to have it removed. To do this they insert a tube up your urethra so that the small pieces can pass and not cause pain. After it is all gone they put you on a table with your feet in stirups, I am a man by the way, and full awake put huge tweezers up...well you know where, and pull it out. That was the worst!!!!
Since that I have passed about 200 stones. I hardly feel them anymore.
When they have to go in and retrieve a stone that is stuck in the ureter (small tube between kidney and bladder), they put you under in an out-patient procedure and grab it with a so-called "basket." Then they leave a flexible stent in the ureter, which is supposed to help you heal. The stent has a loop on each end to keep it from moving out of place. It is about the thickness of coat hanger wire, and you get horrible kidney stone-like cramps every time you urinate for about two weeks until they take it back out. But here's the rough part: When they take it out, they give you no pain killers or sedatives. The urologist grabs your deal and runs a periscope unceremoniously up into your bladder. He looks around and finds the stent loop, then runs a cable up through the periscope and grabs the end of the stent and quickly yanks it out, down from ureter, into the bladder, and out the urethra, until it kinda goes "boink" onto the the palm of his hand. "You'll feel some pressure," he warned. But the pain was exquisite and traumatizing. Why do they do stunts like that?
Lithotripsy is now the preferred procedure for a stone that will not pass on its own. basket retrieval is used in more difficult cases. They now almost universally knock patients ut for either procedure.
A stone, or urinary calculus, is formed in the kidney. it sometimes remains dormant and asymptomatic in the kidney throughout a person's life. most stone-producers are not so lucky, though. The stone, if it leaves the kidney, must pass through the ureter connected to the particular kidney, and then into the bladder. There is still some discomfort, but the worst pain occurs as it passes through the ureter. once it reaches the bladder, it should make its way out through the urethra. This can cause weird discomfort -- even itching -- but this process is usually relatively quick. Once in a great while a male in particular may have a urethra that is especially smal or scarred, making it extremely difficult for a stone to pass, but such is rare.
One Who Posted Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > When they have to go in and retrieve a stone that > is stuck in the ureter (small tube between kidney > and bladder), they put you under in an out-patient > procedure and grab it with a so-called "basket." > Then they leave a flexible stent in the ureter, > which is supposed to help you heal. The stent has > a loop on each end to keep it from moving out of > place. It is about the thickness of coat hanger > wire, and you get horrible kidney stone-like > cramps every time you urinate for about two weeks > until they take it back out. But here's the rough > part: When they take it out, they give you no pain > killers or sedatives. The urologist grabs your > deal and runs a periscope unceremoniously up into > your bladder. He looks around and finds the stent > loop, then runs a cable up through the periscope > and grabs the end of the stent and quickly yanks > it out, down from ureter, into the bladder, and > out the urethra, until it kinda goes "boink" onto > the the palm of his hand. "You'll feel some > pressure," he warned. But the pain was exquisite > and traumatizing. Why do they do stunts like that?
Mary Baker Eddy -- who claimed that all sickness was an illusion caused by corrupted spiritual thought and could be corrected by "prayer"* -- had 'em. Her household attendants gave her morphine shots.
*Their "prayer" is actually a form of self-hypnosis.
I've been a member of the Kidney Stone Club since I was 18 years old. Two years ago I had a stone so large (2cm x 1.6cm) that I had to have two surgeries to have it removed.
firstone was after sex when I was 21. sunday of course, and back then you called the doctor. I vomitedin the shower several times but didn't want to go in dirty.
I knew immediately what it was because my dad and uncles had them. It was that bad it was the only possibility.
Now, I have never been pregnant, so I never got to ccompare. But the most horrid acute pain ever.
we met the doc at the office and he said it was a musccle spasm after sex. gave me a shot of demerol and I walked down the hall sideways and puked. sentme home, then 2 hours later begged hubby for er.
took them 8 hours to diagnose. they thought i was drug seeking because of age, even though puke and I coud not pee. they kept yelling at meto pee but i ccouldn't they would not giveme anything either. so they finally did a cath adn urine full of blood.. oh,maybe thats why you can't pee.
morphinedidn't work. i wanted to die.
next timewent to bigger hospital and got stadol. now I can take norco but run to the doc and drug up.
no one deserves thispain,except a pedophile orrapist, or maybe js.
i have cushings and they are part of that. hope to get surgery soon for cushing and get rid of a lot of yucky.
sex.....sheesh.....muscle spasm, it's called orgasm.
Oh ya....had my first one in 1983...was travelling back from a trap shoot 100 miles away with my wife. The was pain beyond belief...thank GAWD I had her to drive. We got to the hospital and a shot of morphine and but I passed it before they could x-ray me....and then in 2013, 13 days after my first total knee replacement I got another one. It was a jagged "boulder"! 7mm x 5mm...stuck in the ureter between my right kidney and bladder. And being in Lethbridge, Alberta, the kidney stone capitol of Canada (in the US it's Savannah, GA), our urologists are kept stupid busy. It was "Kidney Stone Week" at Chinook Regional Hospital. I waited for 33 hours for them to get to me....thank GAWD for morphine. Anyway my doc went in and blasted it...and put in a stent so my ureter wouldn't go into spasm and close off...and I dealt with burning urination for 3 days before I could remove the stent. The upside is that my doc said if my kidney stones only happen every 30 years I should be good. I'll be 95 by then!!!
Ron Burr
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/2015 12:30AM by Lethbridge Reprobate.