(*&^#^%$ Kidney stones

haven't had any, but a relative that struggles with it and walks in the mornings, got one moving as he walked and had to lay down in the road, he said he hoped someone would come along and run him over.?ÿ

Andy,

I was going to write about being stung five times in the face by hornets while lying inverted in a mud hole that I stumbled into while trying to escape and loosing my glasses, phone and ancient plumb bob; but that pales in comparison to what you are going through.?ÿ

IMVHO, a pretty nurse is better than some old fossil any day of the week. Be proud and show it when you can.

get well soon

Hope you don't have to have any further treatment than where they throw you in a tub and vibrate 'em until they crack up enough to pass. Take care Andy.?ÿ ?????ÿ

Andy,

I've had 4 episodes. I've found I stay healthier when I avoid doctors, so I toughed it out until the stone passed. The first time I passed two at once. To be so small.... they hurt like a piece of RIP-rap. Sounds like you have a tougher ordeal than i was handed. Get well!

@Andy Bruner

I have had a number of them so far. The first was when I was working a construction job in Mississippi and it came on at 10pm and oh dear god the pain. It put me on the floor of my camper for about 4 hours screaming and crying. The others were not nearly as bad but still quite painful. I seem to have recurring small stones and I am sure it has a lot to do with working outdoors in the heat and frequently get overheated and dehydrated because I sweat it out as fast as I can put it in.

I had a 6mm stone in January that required surgery.?ÿ Then had some complications couple days later and spent a day in the hospital.?ÿ Cat scan shows I have a few more still in the kidney (couple small ones and a 4mm).?ÿ They say 5mm is as big as will pass.?ÿ NO FUN AT ALL!!!

Former co-worker battles the same thing. ?ÿHis description of the agony involved was horrifying. ?ÿA couple of times he went through the blasting process.

I had one about a year ago. My urologist said that 100% of his female patients that had them said that they were more painful than child birth. When I was younger (and more foolish) I cut my arm to the bone with a chainsaw. That pain did not compare to kidney stones. I could not do anything other than let out an unending stream of expletives for 4 hours (wife was super impressed) until they gave me morphine.?ÿ Worst. Pain. Ever.

A few years ago, we were on the way to our project site and I looked over and my helper was pale and staring into space followed by agonizing pain every time the truck bounced.

Took him to the emergency room and they decided he had a kidney stone.

I remember my Grandfather Harris going to the VA Hospital to have a gall stone removed. Was the only time I can remember him complaining about anything.

I had one about 5 years ago.?ÿ 4mm, took about 4 days to pass.?ÿ The pain was off and on for the 4 days but I could take the pain.?ÿ They gave me Vicodin but I only took it when the pain got bad.?ÿ Then the last day starting at about midnight it got bad, really bad.?ÿ I also had the dry heaves.?ÿ At about 7 am my wife was taking me to the hospital because I couldn't take the pain any more and about 4 blocks away I could feel it pop into my bladder.?ÿ People that have never had one don't realize the pain is when its going from you kidney to your bladder, once in your bladder out it comes with no pain.?ÿ Mine was kind of flat shaped but had razor sharp edges.?ÿ

I had a scope run up my thingy and peed blood for three weeks.?ÿ Then a colonoscopy.?ÿ Then 8 days in the hospital.?ÿ I don't think those guys like me or something.

I get them from time to time because of my kidney disease. I can feel them, but they are tiny and usually pass without too much bloody complications.?ÿ ?????ÿ

When I was younger, I had one the size of a PEA. OMG!!!!!!!!!! It was THE worse pain EVER. Worse than having a baby!!! I begged them to knock me out, but...all they did was give me Tylenol, and IV, and some crap in my IV and said "We have to wait until it passes." Humph!!!!!!!! ???ª ???æ ???ÿ ???ú?ÿ

I heard from the Urologist yesterday (Friday) and they said I have an 8.9mm (how they can measure that with an CT Scan I don't know) in the ureter.?ÿ I'll find out next week what the next step is.

Andy

@andy-bruner

You know the answer. They try and bust it up or the go up there and grab it.

@just-a-surveyor

Yeah, the "go up there and grab it" is what I'm worried about.

Andy

@andy-bruner

Andy, I have never experienced the "grappler", that's what I call the device that they run up your willy but I'm assured it is as large and as painful as we all imagine it.

I just read on IMDB that William Shatner auctioned off his kidney stone for $75,000 so there may be some money making opportunities for you guys if you will just soldier through it.

My first one was the most painful thing I've ever experienced.?ÿ Apparently had been building for years and not wanting to let go of its nesting spot in my kidney until I jumped off a 6' bank onto the road below.

Knew I had knocked something loose but had no idea what I was in for later that evening.?ÿ Never knew that not being able to pee could be so uncomfortable.?ÿ Near midnight, Natasha, my wife took me to the hospital where they left me to sit for what seemed like a couple hours (probably 15 minutes).?ÿ Then took me into an intake room and asked a bunch of what I felt were irrelevant questions.?ÿ the only one I remember coming close to focusing on my present predicament was "on a scale of 1 to 10, what's your pain level?"

Since I hadn't considered asking anyone to put me down yet, I figured there must still be room on the scale, so I said "7 or 8".?ÿ They then took me to an ER treatment room and I thought "Finally!?ÿ Now were moving in the right direction."?ÿ They had me lay down on a gurney and said the doctor would be there in a couple minutes.?ÿ?ÿ

After what seemed like 6 hours - I'm sure it was at least an hour based on the amount of moans and groans coming out of other nearby patients who were being likewise neglected - Natasha seemed to get quite concerned about my complete lack of color, rapid shallow breathing and profuse sweating (at least that liquid wouldn't have to go through my kidneys), so she went to find a doctor or nurse.

Seems there had been an auto wreck and a rare shooting (happens about 2 or 3 times a year in our little burg and that night had to be one of them) all the doctors were tied up with that.?ÿ Upon hearing that, I tried to convince myself that those patients had it worse than I, so I should exercise patience and pray.

About this time, Natasha thinks I'm about the toughest person she's ever met.?ÿ The truth is that when I cry, I do it silently and I think I was nearly bawling by then.

A little while later, Natasha goes back to find any doctor or nurse to help me.?ÿ Most were still attending to the couple folks with mangled limbs and the dude with holes where they didn't belong, but they did send a nurse.?ÿ A mean, impatient, sadistic nurse.

First thing she does after looking me over contemptuously was ask the obligatory "What's your pain le..."?ÿ ?ÿ "15!!!"

Natasha fills her in on my symptoms, including the fact that I haven't been able to pee for several hours.?ÿ Nurse Ratchet pokes and prods at my abdomen, I think just to see what expressions she can get my face to make and what colors she could make it turn.?ÿ I'm sure she delighted in the in the face where I about bit through my lips trying not to scream while my eyes distended out of their sockets by an inch and a half or so, and got at least mild amusement from the assortment of winces and snarls, all done in various shades of green and purple.?ÿ While I was white knuckling the edges of the gurney, Natasha was staring to look around for something to smack across Ratchet's head.?ÿ The nurse must have sensed the protective she-cat emerging because she switched tactics.?ÿ She decided the thing to do was to shove a catheter up my....

I had never had that done before and hope to never have it again.?ÿ I'm sure she found one that was for a horse, and although she made a show of lubricating, I'm sure she wiped it off when we weren't looking.?ÿ It felt like she was trying to shove a 60d spike into me.?ÿ I recall hollering "THAT HURTS!!!" in the same voice I used hundreds of times on active construction sights when the radios failed.?ÿ In other words, I was heard in all parts of the hospital.?ÿ Natasha later said how impressed she was that I hadn't yelled out something profane (I recall that one of my moaning & groaning neighbors had a couple young grandchildren nearby).?ÿ

Not yelling something profane during her best efforts to break me must have impressed Nurse Ratchet, because after a few unsuccessful?ÿ attempts to lance my bladder, she stopped and said something about seeing if she could get me something for the pain.

The rest of the evening is still a blur to me.?ÿ Maybe I passed out from the pain or maybe the nurse did get me something for the pain that mercifully knocked me out or at least wiped my memory of the rest of the painful evening.

sometime between then and waking up the next day, they had taken xrays and inserted a stent that would at least allow the kidney to drain.?ÿ The stone was about 30mm x 20mm x 20 mm ( about the size of my thumb from tip to 1st knuckle) and had completely mishapen the tube between my left kidney and bladder before lodging there and causing a complete blockage.

Being a small town with a small hospital, they shared a uroligist with a clinic in the next town of similar size about 40 miles south.?ÿ I spent the next two days in a hospital be being periodically pumped with morphine (weird, burning stuff) while they let the stent do its thing.?ÿ I never knew the human body could hold so much liquid.?ÿ I think my 1st good release was well over a gallon.

The hospital and clinic also shared the lithroscopy (sp?) machine, and it was right in the middle of the 2 weeks or month that it was at the other town's clinic.?ÿ Although the stent had allowed the kidney to mostly drain, having that thumb-sized rock in a position no such object was ever meant to be and the partial blockage that still persisted made the ride to the next town pretty torturous.?ÿ?ÿ

The machine uses ultrasound to bread kidney stones and rocks into small buts of kidney sand & gravel.?ÿ After I had regained consciousness, more or less post-procedure, the doctor said this was the densest kidney stone he had ever encountered and that he hadn't been able to break it up as much as he would have liked.

?ÿ

Leon, your doctor lied to you, stones larger that 5 mm will pass.?ÿ My largest to pass was 7mm x 9mm x 14mm and would have made a fine small game arrowhead.?ÿ It happened in the man's room at work a couple days later.?ÿ The pain was intense, but fortunately, so brief that I hadn't had time to scream.?ÿ I just got a gasp out as I narrowly avoided dropping to my knees and making a very embarrassing mess of myself.

That was about 10 years ago and fortunately hasn't recurred to that extent since.?ÿ Had one large stone blasted before it got to a critical point, but nothing else significant since.?ÿ I occasionally pass stones about the size of a grain of sand, and every once in a while, one in the 1 to 2 mm range.?ÿ Those cause some temporary discomfort for somewhere between a couple minutes to a couple hours, but nowhere near as bad as could be.

Andy, if the ultrasound option is available to you, I highly recommend it.?ÿ The couple grand of cost is worth avoiding the several days of excruciating pain you would go through to pass even a moderately sized stone.