Surviving Kidney Stones: My Experience

I am still perplexed by my recent episode of kidney stones. As a healthy young woman who exercises and eats right (most of the time, anyway), I was shocked by the ability of three miniscule stones to put my life completely on hold for about ten days.

I had experienced symptoms for a few days before I realized the severity of my problem. I woke up in the middle of the night with a strange pain in back. I now know that pain was coming from my left kidney. However, at the time, I couldn't recognize the pain-I had never had pain in a kidney before, and to be honest, I thought my kidneys were much lower than where that feeling was coming from. Maybe I hadn't paid a lot of attention in anatomy. I thought maybe I pulled a muscle when I was running.

I also had some chills and body aches. I wondered if I was getting sick. I took a day off of work, but then felt fine by noon. I thought maybe it was all in my head.

I started having some pain when I urinated. It was nothing unbearable, and I figured I had a urinary tract infection. I went to see my doctor. Although the urinalysis didn't show any infection, there was blood in my urine and he also figured it was a urinary tract infection. I got antibiotics.

After three days and the full dose of anitibiotics, I still felt not quite right. Then I woke up early one morning, with pain in my back, pain in my lower abdomen, nausea, discomfort during urination, and the chills. I had never been in such pain in my life. I remember crawling around on the floor; my legs didn't seem to work. When I did stand up, I was significantly leaning to my left side. I really felt like I was being stabbed. It just took my breath away, and I know it scared my husband.

The night before, I had decided to put conditioner on my hair and leave it on all night. My hair had been dry lately, and I thought maybe that would help. In considering going to the ER, I kept thinking about how greasy my hair looked. At first, I thought maybe I could manage a shower. Then I thought maybe I could just wash it in the tub. In the end, I knew neither of those would be a realistic option.

My husband took me to the emergency room. Even before going to CAT scan, the doctor seemed fairly certain I had kidney stones. By this point, I was in intense pain. I remember being unsure of what was going on around me and having difficulty carrying on a conversation. I was trying to breathe through the pain as if I was in labor. They started an IV, and it took several doses of varying narcotic pain meds before I could carry on a conversation.

Once the radiologist read the CAT scan and the stones were confirmed, the emergency room doctor told me that the stones (he thought there were two) were small and would pass on their own. His idea was to send me home with some hydromorphone and encourage me to drink lots of water.

I had a strange reaction to this. Frankly, I was terrified to leave the ER. I didn't want to go home. I had never been in this much pain before, and the thought of being "on my own" was scary. However, the doctor said that typically people are not admitted for kidney stones. (I found out later that this wasn't exactly true.) I put my shoes on very slowly.

I went home. I took the meds. They seemed to help for a while. I was able to watch TV, check my email, talk on the phone to my family and friends...I even washed the conditioner out of my hair, although part of the reason I did that was because I knew I might have to go back to the ER. However, as my husband and I watched the Bachelor that night, I knew I was in trouble. I remember telling myself to try to make it to the end of the show and then re-evaluate. When the show was over, I was throwing up.

I knew the pain was causing nausea, and it created a couple of problems. First, I couldn't keep the water down. I had been told that drinking lots of water was the only way to flush out the stones. The other issue was that the pain was getting worse because the meds (which weren't really working well at that point) wouldn't stay down. This time we went to a different ER. It had been recommended by the first ER that I go to a different hospital if we should have to return because the first hospital did not have a urologist.
When we got to the ER, all of the beds were full. Seriously? For about ten minutes, I was on the waiting room floor. I was also afraid of vomiting, so I had my husband grab a bag for me. I'm not sure if this helped me to get a room more quickly or not.

They got my pain controlled quickly with morphine. The doctor came in and suggested I be admitted for pain control. I agreed-particularly because the morphine from the IV was incredibly effective. They checked me into a room upstairs just before midnight. It was a long night but my pain was controlled.

I didn't see another doctor until morning. He was a hospitalist, and he recommended I see the urologist. At first, I didn't see the reason. I had been told my stones were very small and would pass without intervention. However, the urologist looked at my scan from the day before said he wanted to do surgery to remove the stones. I hadn't even met the urologist yet, but my response was "Sign me up." I was scheduled for surgery at 5 p.m.

I called my husband, who had gone home to let the dogs out, and told him I would be having surgery. I was pretty excited about it, particularly because it meant that the end was in sight. The nurse immediately took away all my food and drink. I wasn't in much pain the day while I waiting for the surgery. Urinating was not comfortable and I wasn't moving very fast, but I really felt great compared to the day before. Thank you God for morphine. Some people from work came to visit me, and I think I was in a decent mood.

As I expected, the surgery was later than 5 p.m. I remember becoming very uncomfortable right before the surgery. I'm not sure when they took my morphine pump away, but this could have been the problem.

After surgery, the doctor met with my mother in law and husband. He said that I had three kidney stones. One had come out cleanly, and two had crumbled. Because two crumbled, he had to insert a stent between my kidney and bladder. He seemed positive that the kidney stones, although small, would NOT have passed without intervention. Apparently, I have some narrowing in my ureter, and the stones would have remained indefinitely not matter how much water I drank to try to flush them out.

I stayed in the hospital until about 5 p.m. the next night. At this point, the stent was making me miserable. It was holding my ureter open so that the pieces of kidney stones would pass, and it just was really uncomfortable. I always felt like I had to pee, but when I did pee it was excruciating. I still had some pain in my back and lower abdomen.

A few days later, the stent was removed. I had figured the contraption would be about three inches long, but it was actually two feet long! When I saw it, I realized why I had been so uncomfortable. For the next few days, I was still moving pretty slowly and had some pain that came and went, but the worst was over.

I find kidney stones interesting because I've heard that they are one of the most painful conditions you can have (I know it's by far the most pain I've ever been in). Yet, they are regarded as rather minor. Of course, there can be complications if they do not pass, but doctors are comfortable sending you home to tough it out. It was smart, in my case, to opt out of toughing it out after one day and return to the ER. I knew I had made the right decision when the urologist insisted that I would not have passed the stones.