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I used to get kidney stones. I've had four. All of them were very painful experiences. One of them occurred while I was out-of-state with two young children and without my wife. I won't get into what it was like to deal with the kids and deal with the stone too.
I found out that mine disappeared completely when I stopped drinking soda pop. If that sounds like a small sacrifice it wasn't. I loved Pepsi and wish I could drink it to this day.
Other recommendations:
1. Drink lots of water.
2. Drink cranberry juice, lemonade, lime aid, and grapefruit juice.
Knock on wood. I haven't had a stone now in seven years.
More to the above -- if you do not have a kidney stone until you are over 30 or so, it is likely that you will have only one, and apparently many (or most) people have one, but they do not often repeat, unless you are a chronic former, which usually manifests at an earlier age.
There is some evidence that Rosemary helps reduce the risk of stones, it is closely related to a plant that grows in Paraguay that is apparently very effective, but not readily available worldwide. ("Para-para-y", if you want to try to find some.) Paraguayans believe that nobody ever gets kidney stones in Paraguay. Rosemary in powdered form can be bought on line for a few dollars a pound, which will last for years if a small sprinkle is put into some food every day. I don't know if it will help, but if you're concerned, it can't hurt.
Cranberry juice is probably of no value, except that it will prevent an infection from forming in your urinary tract if you do experience the passage of a stone.
The length of time they take to pass is highly variable. The stone begins to cause pain as soon as it moves out of the kidney and into the ureter, a very narrow tube that leads from the kidney to the bladder. In the ureter, it is large enough to get lodged, and force the urine to back up into the kidney, which causes the pain. Your ureter eventually expels it, and that can take from a few hours to a few months, but if it takes longer than several hours, there will be long periods of relief, until there is another episode of pain as the stone works its way down. Once it reaches the bladder, it is much better. It will rattle around in there, with mild discomfort when it gets caught in the folds of the emptying bladder, until it blunders its way into the urethra, which is much larger in diameter than the ureter, and will then spurt out into the toilet. In men, sometimes it gets stick for a couple of days in the prostate, which is only mildly uncomfortable.
So I had pain on my right side lower part of rib cage. I thought maybe it was my liver so I went back to the ER. I had another CT scan and it's still in my kidney. They told me I may need a stint but after she explained how it's put in I told her no thanks. After doing some reading I seem to be a good candidate for shock wave. I will be going to see a doctor about this.
I know insurance will tell them what procedure they will pay for and that will be my only option. So does anyone know if shock wave is cheaper than putting a stint in?
They told you an alternative to ESWL is a stent? I haven't heard that one before. For me, I have had to have a stent after a laser litho due to really zapping the heck out of my ureter (swelling prevention), but never stated as an alternative. Additionally I have never had an issue with getting the litho (ESWL or laser via ureteroscopy) approved by insurance. If the stone is over a certain size - simply you have the choice to leave it alone, or zap it out. Lastly - the stent hurt like a @!%&@*!.
Mine is 4mm and the lady at the ER said they would recommend I get a stent. I told her what if I just do nothing? She said I could do nothing and pray it comes out naturally. But if the urine flow ever stops, urine trouble
She never brought up shock wave btw. I did go to a family doctor after my first ER visit that discovered this and was told it most likely come out naturally since it's small.
My pain was originally on my left side by my waist and was debilitating. This second time around it was on my right side but in my lower rib cage area but the pain was no where near as bad. I got a CT scan on both visits, is it possible I have multiple stones and they just missed it? I only wonder because why would the pain originally be on the lower left side but now be on the other side and higher up? I'm assuming the urinary tract goes down and not back up.
Oh, my bad - I read too quickly the first time re: stents/ESWL. If you have pain on both sides it would mean stones on each side, but the location of your pain is interesting. I *always* feel the pain on my flank, and if it gets really bad I feel pain all the way down to my bladder, etc. I haven't felt pain in the front.
Personally, since it is below 5mm, I would try naturally. Shockwave is no joke - you are put under general anesthesia (although I think some docs use a twilight method) and damage to the kidney is possible. Drink a lot of water to try to flush it out (60-70oz a day)! Other than that - you would need to know what kind of stones you are forming to know what foods to avoid, etc.
Mine is 4mm and the lady at the ER said they would recommend I get a stent. I told her what if I just do nothing? She said I could do nothing and pray it comes out naturally. But if the urine flow ever stops, urine trouble
My mom had a stone and it stopped the flow of urine on one side and she got a septic infection.
Well, I went to a Urologist today and a month between the 2 cat scans showed it hasn't moved. He said it looks like it's between 5 and 6 mm and not 4mm. I agreed to do a stent after he told me it wouldn't hurt nearly as bad as the pain I felt that made me go to the ER the first time. He said on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being what I felt a month ago. It was a 3. So they'll go in and zap it and pull it out and leave the stent in for a week or 2, then I'll go back to have the stent removed. I'm sure removing the stent will be the worst part considering I'll be asleep when they go in.
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