Anyone had the pleasure of these? I wanted to curl up and die today. Thankfully the Lortab kicked in.
BTDT a couple of times now. Whats weird is that they’re kinda common for people in VA.
I feel for you.
My first time was within a week or so of finishing a basic SWAT school a couple years ago. I was not hydrating well during the class and was urinating blood for a short time after finishing. Thought little of it. A few days later I started to feel nauseous and generally ill and within an hour I thought I was dying. I had no point of reference for this type of pain prior to the occasion. I was thinking “abdominal aneurysm” or some kind of equally horrendous thing. Was just short of calling 911 when I realized it is a kidney stone. My father has a long history of them.
My wife (a massotherapist) did some abdominal massage, which seemed to help ever so slightly. I could not stand from the pain and was starting to vomit, but eventually made it upright. I ended up aligning myself with the corner of a dresser in my bedroom, and working the corner the into the lower left side of my abdomen to massage it as deep as I could. This apparently loosened up the stone and allowed it to travel down to my bladder. I might of just gotten lucky because I know of others that have had intense pain for hour upon hour. I could then feel the stone in my bladder (pinchy, stingy), but the worst was over. I passed it the next day with little pain.
Since then I’ve had another stone that was much, much less horrific (within a year). I usually stay pretty well hydrated and hope that helps to some degree. It is the most pain I’ve experienced so far in 42 years. Am hoping it is not a annual thing.
Dude I had a 6mm stone that they had to blast away with lithotripsy but not until I had been to the ER three times, had a stent installed and took more pain meds than I can remember. I had mine for a month and it was awful. We could win the war on terror if we could give AQ kidney stones.
No it’s not. We’re in what’s called the kidney stone belt. Stones are extremely high in Virginia (NC, SC, GA, etc). Ice tea is a huge contributor as is sodas. I have a whole list of foods and drinks to avoid or at least reduce if anyone is interested.
I drink water (and only water, except for my morning coffee) like it’s going out of style now.
If kidney stones had a marketing slogan it would be “When morphine just isn’t enough.” 
I have been shot, stabbed, bombed, and fallen off a cliff. The worst pain I have ever had is a kidney stone. Eff getting one of those again.
M4arc is right - water is your friend. Soda is not.
My kidney stone was by far the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced, worse than my GSW. I discovered that I was allergic to morophine in the hospital when I had a nasty allergic reaction.
Diet apparently has a lot to do with it. Ease off on sodas, take it easy on dairy products, black pepper, and be sure to drink plenty of water. Water is all I drink unless I’m at a restaurant, and then I have iced tea. Sodas only rarely…I think I’ve had one coke in the last 6 months.
Well the Dr. didn’t say anything about a kidney stone belt but did say that kidney stones way more common here in VA vs. say CO where they rarely ever see them.
I agree. My last my kidney stone was so bad it was worse pain than I had when I had appendicitis. My appendix almost burst on the way out during surgery and to me kidney stone pain is worse…for my last kidney stone they gave me Dilaudid through my IV and 20 seconds later all was right with the world.
WTF? When did you get shot?
I can’t remember what they gave me but it was supposed to be seven times stronger than morphine and I still was in so much pain I was throwing up uncontrollably in the ER. Even some fireman were shocked.
The first time I had kidney stones was when I was 16. It is easily the worst pain I have ever felt. My parents had to take me to the hospital and I ended up laying curled up on the floor in the waiting room until they finaly hooked me up to a morphine pump. I ended up staying over night so they could break up the stone so I could pass it. Then last year I passed a few smaller ones which still hurt like hell but I was at least used to the pain. I think the worst part though is constantly feeling like you have to pee but being unable too.
I had one back in '06 right before my first daughter was born. It was 7mm and stuck in my ureter causing my right kidney to stay full of fluid. Had to have the lithotripsy to break it up.
My dad has had 22-23 of them now, though it’s been quite a few years since his last. Two of them were on Christmas morning a few years apart. I sure hope I don’t have that many…
Dr. Pepper (apparently serving as both my primary physician and dentist), iced sweet tea, and not staying hydrated well when working hard in hot weather are the likely culprits in my family. I remember dad’s first HUGE one (which they went in and got, the hard way, with a basket) looked basically like a Dr. Pepper jelly bean.
Wow, I thought drinking arizona ice teas instead of the usual 32oz soda was going to help prevent stones. :eek:
What about iced coffees and such? Are they likely to contribute to stone formation? I drink 2 a day from Mcdonalds.
Sweet tea, my friend…and no, I’m not joking.
My urologist told me that coffee goes through you so fast it doesn’t matter.
Chocolate is a big contributor as well. I didn’t really question him; I’ll do whatever he says to prevent another stone.
No you’re not.
I have about 5 Arizona diet Green Teas a year. I don’t like sweet tea at all. I drink 3-4 diet sodas a week I really need to quit drinking them all together. I’m drinking about 20oz of coffee per day, in the summer I cut the coffee intake in half. I drink about 1-1.5 quarts of water a day and I know I need to drink more water.
At my old job I worked outside all the time and drank 2-4 gallons of water in the summer and about 1 gallon per day in the winter.
I’ve had heat stroke twice where I actually passed out and was taken away to the hospital for IV fluids (once in 1988 and again in 1993) and have come pretty close a couple of other times so whenever I’m sweating a lot I’m downing the water mixed with some gatorade like it’s going out of style. I like Propel too in hot weather. This is the main reason I never take training courses in the summer months. I don’t even like matches in the really hot weather for the same reason. I’d rather be cold than hot.
I can understand your pain. I was a kidney stone manufacturing company. After 13 years, 19 surgeries and too many stints to remember, they finally found a overactive parathyroid gland. Since they removed it I’ve been stone free now for 2 1/2 years. Knock on wood! 
M4arc, consider yourself lucky. I was told by the E.R. that they don’t start blastin until the stone gets to 10mm. I had to wait 3 months for my 8mm to piss out. Looked like a gnarly space rock.
had one in February. It sucked. I had to have the bugger shocked out of me because after a week, the thing hadnt moved at all.
I decided to quit drinking Dr. pepper and started drinking sweet tea every morning. i think that’s what did it to me. Now I’m 90% water, 6% juice, and 4% tea.
Thank God for Demerol.
I had one a couple years ago. I’m also ultra-sensitive to just about every pain med out there, so those were a no-go. They told me it was a 2mm stone and it would pass, but they were seeing it in two dimensions. It was more like 2mm x 7mm. I had it for over a month and couldn’t get it to leave the kidney, so a friend that works for a urologist gave me a sample of Flomax (the prostate stuff). Apparently, that stuff enlarges the “pipes”. An hour after taking the pill I could feel it moving down to the bladder and I spit it out the next day.
The offender, or what was left of it after haphazard toilet bowl retrieval:
I paid to have it analyzed, started avoiding the stuff that caused it, and have been stone-free so far.
As others have already testified, the pain is brutal. I’ve had two episodes with the stones and they had me talking to myself like an idiot and marching back and forth in desperation. The first was about 5 years ago. The following month I started to have pains again and went straight to the hospital. I told them it wasn’t bad at all compared to the previous month’s pain. After they finished running every test known to man, they rushed me into surgery, as my appendix was rupturing. That was a tickle compared to the stones of the month before.
About a month or two ago, I got hit again. It wasn’t as bad as the first time but it did have me marching again… 
Sodas are definitely a no-no. But I’ve been drinking cranberry juice like it was going out of style. It’s supposed to be very good for the kidneys.