Kidney stones suck!

[Jabba]

Left the office at 11:30 thursday to go to the ER with a stone.

about 24 hours later I was discharged with oral pain meds to wait it out. 

About 5:00 PM yesterday, I passed the little bastard.  5mm x 2mm and it had a lot of weird little projections on it.  Seems to be made out of mortar. 

No fun at all.  Still a little weird feeling as I wear off the pain meds.  I am not feeling great.

Life goes on.

Suck!

Jabba 

[The Anvil]

About 5:00 PM yesterday, I passed the little bastard.  5mm x 2mm and it had a lot of weird little projections on it.  Seems to be made out of mortar. 

Mine looked like a grain of salt with big fangs.

Yes they do suck, hardcore.

[Oss]

been there aint never goin back

hope you saved it as the stones can tell you what to watch out for

oxalate etc   drink more water from now on

[Momz]

You should sell your stone on Ebay,
People will buy anything these days.

[Cattman]

Drink lots of water and cut back the ice tea/pop. Been there done that at least 15 times. WHATEVER YOU DO. NEVER, NEVER,EVER let them try a manual extraction.

[donaldcc]

 
Lithotripsy??  Blast those suckers.

 

[Jess from VA]

Probably the worst night of my life in a freezing, filthy ER.... refused to take off my shoes, the floors were sticky.  Raised hell when they left me untreated and unseen except by triage for 2 1/2 hours after I walked into the (nearly empty) ER at 9PM..... I wouldn't go for 8 hours of increasing pain at home, till I thought I might just pass on.  Resident (rookie) Dr got even by undermedicating me all night.  Sent me home the next morning, said it probably passed, woke up the next afternoon, and still had not passed the bustard, but wouldn't go back to the hospital.   Refused to pay the Dr portion of the medical bill for three years.... they turned it over to collection and I begged them to sue me (I wanted the resident on the stand), and they finally went away.

About  85 percent of stones are calcium (the other 15 percent are rare).  My mother had terrible (multiple) stones before untrasound and they once cut her in half on the OR table to remove one in the 50's. 

We take 250mg of magnesium daily, which absorbs calcium (and never take a multivitamin that contains any calcium) and have never had another stone.  If yours was calcium, or you don't know (like mine), I highly recommend the magnesium.... no ill affects, and no stones ever again. 

[KY,Dave (AKA Misunderstood)]

Been there twice and hate it. Heal up buddy. 

[John Schmidt]

Couple years ago I spent a week in the hospital with a stone that didn't pass after the jerk in ER sent me home. Was the Monday before Thanksgiving, he told me it was approx. 5mm in diameter and anything over 4mm often won't pass. So I asked why in blazes are you sending me home? His answer...that's our normal protocol. Oh yeah, let me tell you what I think of your "normal protocol." I then told him I'll be back and when I return I'm coming for YOU. Sure enough, Thanksgiving afternoon it had reached the point where the pain meds didn't phase it so I was back in the ER and I asked for that same dr., guess who was nowhere to be found though was supposed to be on duty. A specialist happened to be making rounds, took one look at the CT scan and had me admitted, been with that urologist ever since. They tried to zap it with this tiny laser thing inserted up through the bladder, but it was so infected from blocking the passage he was afraid to do it. So, he flushed it back into the kidney, flushed out the whole area, then inserted a stent which he left in for two months. What a literal PITA, I was unable to do anything, but at least it kept the stone from trying to pass. Eventually, that kidney started functioning again but I almost lost it due to the idiot ER doctor. The urologist prescribed two things; potassium citrate and allopurinol. They help combat gout, which is a similar deposit I'm told, and I've not had anything since.

[WylieGibbs]

Something I learned a few years ago to use with patients trying to pass a stone is to put them on Flomax. I prescribe it twice a day until you pass it.

Relaxes the smooth muscles in the ureters. Has worked well.

WG

[The Anvil]

Something I learned a few years ago to use with patients trying to pass a stone is to put them on Flomax. I prescribe it twice a day until you pass it.

Relaxes the smooth muscles in the ureters. Has worked well.

WG

I was given Flomax. I didn't necessarily notice that it helped with the pain, but I did pass it shortly after starting it.

[Mr. Nuts]

Had over 60 of them in my left kidney several years ago. Would have one about every two weeks so I got real familiar with the procedure. ER doc was often a friend of mine who also suffered stones. Eventually had to have kidney surgery and blasting too.

My ER doc friend says they often withhold the good meds (fetanyl, etc) because they get scammed so often by drug addicts. The oral meds aren't usually powerful enough to relax the tubes, and the pain is so bad that people just end up throwing them up. My doc says "they don't work very well when they are on your shoes". Addicts actually bring in blood drops for their urine test and little stones from the parking lot to place on their abdomen to show on the xray as if it were in the kidney. I've had to insist on the good meds many times and they often delay them for many hours to make sure you are legit. They know when they give the good stuff whether or not you were faking because the addicts will immediately go to sleep and the real suffer just gets massive relief but is still conscious. Its unbelievably good when you've been throwing up in pain for hours to get immediate relief with that IV drug.

Knowing the above I always showed up to ER with my xrays, ct scans, and a letter from the doctor. They still gave me crap about half the time. They would usually cave when I told my wife to get me out of there and take me to a "real" hospital. Bastards just don't know how bad it really is unless they have had one themselves.

My dad always had them and he relaxed the tubing with Jack Daniels. Not as good as a fetanyl mix, but probably more effective than hydrocodone or oxycodone which is usually what they try to stick you with if they have doubts about you.

NOTE: NEVER mix the alcoholic pain meds with the pill kind or you might be out of pain permanently...

[John Schmidt]

Something I learned a few years ago to use with patients trying to pass a stone is to put them on Flomax. I prescribe it twice a day until you pass it.

Relaxes the smooth muscles in the ureters. Has worked well.

WG

My dr. had me take Flomax while in the hospital, and wanted me to continue with it due to age related prostate issues. I can't handle that stuff on a daily basis, makes me totally useless and sluggish. If I break the capsule open and take half it's fairly good, but he changed me to Uroxatrol (sp?) and it works great. Now they have a generic for it, costs me $7/30 days, works just as good and I don't feel sluggish and wiped out all the time like Flomax does. I have to laugh at my dr., for a long time he didn't believe me when I told him I don't ever get up at night to go. He flat out said no man in their 70's does that, then my wife walked in and he asked her. She set him straight. Going on 74, still don't.

He asked me once why I don't have some of the usual age related stuff, or at least as bad as many. I told him I have no idea but felt that as a person ages, you reap the benefits of the quality or type of life you led.

[WylieGibbs]

Something I learned a few years ago to use with patients trying to pass a stone is to put them on Flomax. I prescribe it twice a day until you pass it.

Relaxes the smooth muscles in the ureters. Has worked well.

WG

I was given Flomax. I didn't necessarily notice that it helped with the pain, but I did pass it shortly after starting it.

Just meant to speed the process up.

[fudgie]

You lucky. I hear story of what happens to men with stones on how its treated!  Lucky they pass now or shock them out.

[Jabba]

They gave me morphine right away.  Nothing.  Then toradol.  That fixed it and I thought I was going home.  

Then it came back.  I could feel it moving.  It hung up 1" from my bladder.  I had pain all night and was on PCA Dalottid (sp?).  That made me sick.  Another dose of toradol, and I was good.  They did a CT scan early, and they knew what it was and where it was.  Then sent me home on pain meds and flomax.  It passed about 4 hours after 1 dose of flomax.  5mm x 2mm.

My last one was made of citric acid.  They said stop drinking grapefruit juice.  I did.  This one is RED and looks the same as the last, but I am NOT drinking grapefruit juice at all.  They are supposed to follow up this week for a lab on it.  I have it in a jar.

The pain was bad.  Not the worst ever though.  I kept rating it at 8/10 when they asked.  unless I had toradol, then it was 0-2.  Another clue I wasn't a junkie... I wanted the non-narcotic.  

Pretty good now.  Still a little sore... but doing a LOT better.

Jabba

[Jess from VA]

5mm x 2mm 

Holy sh!t

They are supposed to follow up this week for a lab on it.  I have it in a jar.

If they don't destroy it in the pathology exam, ask for it back.  Be fun to hit it with a 12 gauge at 5 feet.   LOL

I'd had worse pain for sure (burns), but my stone hit 7-8/10 for 15 hrs with no let up.

Glad you're better.   

[donaldcc]

 They are supposed to follow up this week for a lab on it.  I have it in a jar. . .

Jabba

Jabba, where is the pic of deadly demon of pain?   ???

[fudgie]

Duladid is good stuff. Partner just gave some a hour ago. I think 1mg of duladid is equal to 6 mg MS (morphine). Must be why they limit us to 2mg. 

[WylieGibbs]

Toradol is an anti-inflammatory. It works.

"Give me the good stuff" Oxycodone is not good enough. You have to be kidding me. What a bunch of pussies. Stay out of my ER.

Why dont you guys have a plan with your primary care provider. Have your pain med of choice and flomax and toradol scripts filled and ready to go. Stay the hell home. You are not going to die from a kidney stone.

[Jabba]

I like the toradol.  It worked.

I just don't know why they didn't give me the flomax earlier.  If they knew they were going to.  No big deal either way.

I still ain't QUITE right.  But I am still WAY better than Thursday.

Jabba

[Jabba]

Duladid is good stuff. Partner just gave some a hour ago. I think 1mg of duladid is equal to 6 mg MS (morphine). Must be why they limit us to 2mg. 

They gave my 5.0 of Duladid Thursday night, and it helped a lot, but I think it was the Toradol that did it.  Then I was on PCA Duladid all night.  It made me sick I think.  I am not really a fan of the opiate pain meds.  I know why we have them... and value their existence, but they all seem to have side effects that I don't like.

Jabba

[rmrc51]

My son went through the same thing. These god damn things look like internal meteorites. Glad that you're over the worst of it.

[czuch]

I'm a recent member of the club. I had one that was the size of a jellybean. It got hung up where the ureter passes up in your side.  They were gonna let me go home after 9 hrs in the ER and then changed their mind because I had a blood and a urinary tract infection. The doc said I was about 20 hours away from room temp. Up we go for a stent. 2 1/2 weeks later we go in to laser it into sand. 2 weeks we go in for stent removal. HOOOBOY that was sumthin!!!!!!!
Right there in the Dr's office. Local with the wife watchin.
 She asked if I could see it, I said no, she said good. I screamed. I've been through alot.
I've been shot, ass kicked real bad, fell outta trees/helicopters/planes/a car.
She said it looked like  magician's hankie comin outta his sleeve. The stent went from my kidney to the bladder. But its how it came out that caused me to dammmmscream.
I felt better before we left the office.
Prayers of comfort for you Jabba. And all us in the club.

[donaldcc]

did you pee that out or pick it from your nose?  ugly looking sucker.

[Tundra]

Probably the worst night of my life in a freezing, filthy ER.... refused to take off my shoes, the floors were sticky.  Raised hell when they left me untreated and unseen except by triage for 2 1/2 hours after I walked into the (nearly empty) ER at 9PM..... I wouldn't go for 8 hours of increasing pain at home, till I thought I might just pass on.  Resident (rookie) Dr got even by undermedicating me all night.  Sent me home the next morning, said it probably passed, woke up the next afternoon, and still had not passed the bustard, but wouldn't go back to the hospital.   Refused to pay the Dr portion of the medical bill for three years.... they turned it over to collection and I begged them to sue me (I wanted the resident on the stand), and they finally went away.

About  85 percent of stones are calcium (the other 15 percent are rare).  My mother had terrible (multiple) stones before untrasound and they once cut her in half on the OR table to remove one in the 50's.  

We take 250mg of magnesium daily, which absorbs calcium (and never take a multivitamin that contains any calcium) and have never had another stone.  If yours was calcium, or you don't know (like mine), I highly recommend the magnesium.... no ill affects, and no stones ever again.  

Good to know Jess,
I've passed them several times, calcium type. I drink lots of milk daily and take one a days with calcium  Time for some modification.

[Jess from VA]

Don't get me wrong Doug, some calcium is good for you (us).... but if you have stones that are calcium, it's time to cut down on intake.  I drink a lot of milk, almost all skim.

[Jay]

Nasty looking buggers!  Am glad to say I've not had any.  I guess a shot of Seafoam now and again is working for me!