You can see why they are painful to pass.
You can see why they are painful to pass.
Thank you to everybody who chimed in. I can’t find words good enough to tell you how much I appreciate it. What a great and wonderful friends you are. God bless each and every one of you.
I am a PA who has worked in Urology and now work in Emergency Medicine. I asked one of my patients what his first kidney stone felt like. “Well Doctor, first I was afraid I was going to die. Then I was afraid I wasn’t.”
A 2mm stone can hang out at the junction of the ureter and the bladder and not cause many symptoms or it may have passed into the bladder. The only way to be certain is to perform another CT and that’s expensive and a lot of unnecessary radiation so I would just wait.
Existing stones cannot be dissolved. Formation of new stones can be prevented. Mix one ounce of concentrated lemon juice into one quart of water and drink that every day. The citric acid will displace the oxalic acid in your kidney and form calcium citrate which is water soluble. Calcium oxalate is not and that’s what makes up 85% of kidney stones.
Last week I treated a 17 year old female who was having her second kidney stone. I told her she was a stoner to which she took great offense. That was refreshing coming from a 17 year old! I educated her about drinking lemon juice and her mother stated that she would see to it that this happened. Unfortunately the CT showed that she has another stone forming in the mid-pole of the left kidney that will drop someday. DEFINITELY a stoner!
The largest stone I ever encountered belonged to an unfortunate man who came into the urology practice for lithotripsy. The interior of his kidney was one giant 25mm mass of calcium oxalate. It is tricky to use lithotripsy on a stone that is inside the kidney due to the possibility of organ damage from the sound waves. The “stone” (more like a mineral deposit) was successfully fractured, a stent was placed in the ureter, and two weeks later I saw the patient in the office and he was still passing gravel. Ouch!
I had kidney stones back in June. It took me about 4 hours to pass it and I never went to the doctor. A month later my during a standard visit to my doctor they wanted to put a catheter in and look around. I told them NO. All a catheter would do is cause injury for no good reason.
There are several types of stones that the body can make. If you can take the stone to a kidney doc he can tell you which type it is and may recommend diet changes.
Keeping hydrated is key.
There is one type that is hereditary (and much less common). If you search for types of stones and treatments you will find a lot of easy to process info. She’s lucky it was tiny.
I had a kidney stone about 3 months ago. Most painful thing I have ever felt. I was vomiting uncontrollably. They did the scan and confirmed it. Shot me up with morphine and sent me home after about 3 hours.
It finally passed after about a week. Trust me, she WILL know when it passes. For me it felt like pulling a porcupine out backwards through my pee pee. It come out in 3 or 4 pieces. Pissed blood 2 or 3 times after but no problems since.
Drinking tea actually causes stones. If she drinks tea then she should stop drinking any tea.
[[1 stone about 2mm in size.]]
Anything under 5 mm will pass on their own- I have one now that’s 13mm- some get them much larger- ouch
[[Can anyone here speculate if we should be concerned about not passing the kidney stone by now?]]
No- they sometimes take several days to pass- She may have already passed it without realizing it if she isn’t still experiencing pain, or it may be just hanging out in a spot that isn’t painful right now- usually it’s when it blocks the urine from passing that it gets real painful. Sometimes the backup of urine creates enough pressure that it breaks the stone into smaller pieces and it will pass without realizing it- other times it just plain hurts like the dickens for a long long time- it’s a crap shoot with stones- you never know how they are going to pass-
Well reading through the comments it looks like many have stated what i said- Your wife is lucky they gave her pain meds- emergency docs around us just basically say “Suck it up buttercup- it aint gonna kill you” and never give [pain meds anymore for stones-
Ask the doc what type of stone it as as different stones are helped by avoiding different things- usually though, most people only have 1-2 stones in their life- others get them constantly-
Aint it amazing how somethin so small can cripple a full growd person? Uggh- If I were ever to curse an evil person for some reason, it would be to curse them with kidney stones and UTI’s and perpetually soggy socks
My first stone was about the size of hers, and it hung up in (and blocked) the ureter's entrance to the bladder. They say that the mind refuses to fully remember pain -- but, I do recall those two days with a blocked ureter as the worst pain of my life!
SO, if she does have onset of relentless pain, that may indicate a serious blockage. I'd recommend to her urologist that he do an "IVP" test, where they IV-insert a dye that is visible by fluoroscopy -- and causes the UT to vigorously try to empty itself. If there is a blockage, they should be able to locate it.
BUT -- if there is a blockage, the pain from the blocked IVP-induced purging pressure will likely make her "levitate" off of the IVP table! (OUCH!!!)
That should clue the urologist to invasively remove the stone. And, when it's gone, the relief is Heavenly!!
Pleas let us know how she fares. Meanwhile, prayers are lifted up for her -- from the deep northeastern Texas Piney Woods!
All the best...
TXnMA
How Long Does It Take to Pass a Kidney Stone?
Search domain www.healthline.com/health/kidney-health/how-long-to-pass-kidney-stonehttps://www.healthline.com/health/kidney-health/how-long-to-pass-kidney-stone
Size of the stone is a major factor in whether it can pass naturally. Stones smaller than 4 millimeters (mm) pass on their own 80 percent of the time. They take an average of 31 days to pass.
I would bet that I have had at least 100 of them, ranging in size from a half of a pencil eraser, to tiny. Not knowing what was happening with the first one, I thought I was going to die. Now I pass them with nary a thought.
Since the pain comes from traveling down the ureter, the tube between the kidney and the bladder, I imagine that hers has made it to her bladder, which means no pain. I have experienced no pain, just a weird feeling, from passing the stones, through the urethra, the tube from the bladder to the outside.
Good luck!
I read somewhere on the internet that beer is good for kidney stones. A logical extension in my opinion to lots of water.
If I was a dictator or a top cop, I’d utilize kidney stones as extreme torture.
Been there, passed that. I was happy for the drugs given to me by the ER.
The episode did reset my personal “pain value” of 10 to what a 10 really is....
Drink a lot of water. Get the flow going. Mine was 7 mm. A couple of operations and it was all set. They had me walking around with a stent for a week. Every time I moved it was like getting hit with a bat in my back.
I feel for your wife. Again...drink a ton of water.
Bookmark for hopefully never.
I was told by my urologist that the pain comes from urine backing up in the ureter, and once the stone moves to the bladder, the pain will end. She could have passed it and not noticed the stone in the trap, but it could also still be in the bladder. The last stone I passed stayed in my bladder for quite a while, at least a couple of days. I did eventually pass it with no pain, but there was a lot of blood, sorry for the graphic detail. He put me on an antibiotic in case of an infection. She needs to bring the stone in to the doc to have it analyzed so she knows what foods to avoid. She should drink a lot of water everyday, and at least the first glass of the day should have the juice of a half of a lemon in it. The lemon juice will help dissolve most stones and keep them from forming in the first place. If the stone grows too big to pass, it will have to be removed and I understand it’s not pleasant.
When people take calcium tablets WITHOUT magnesium it causes calcium to crystalize in the kidneys and cause kidney stones.
Talk to a doctor, not an on line pen pal..........
..if they are calcium oxalate stones, I’ve found not overdoing calcium supplements helps, and taking sodium bicarbonate everyday. Pill form is easier...