What to Expect During Kidney Stone Surgery

When a kidney stone problem is quite severe, surgery is often recommended as the best course of action. There are different types of kidney stone surgeries though, and which one your doctor recommends will depend on how many kidney stones you have, how large the stones are, and where they are located within your urinary tract system.

If you have an infection due to the kidney stones, or if you're becoming septic, or your kidney is at risk of failure, these may also play a role in which type of surgery your doctor chooses.

If there are no severe complications or risks, your doctor might actually recommend that you try a non-surgical approach to getting rid of the kidney stones first. This usually involves going home, drinking lots of extra water, and taking pain medications for several days. The extra water can often flush the kidney stones out of your system naturally, so surgery isn't needed.

If surgery is needed though, there are several types available. A common one that's used when the kidney stones are small enough, is called Extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy (ESWL). This involves the use of special equipment which allows the doctor to pinpoint the location of the kidney stone. Then a shockwave is sent through your body from the outside towards the kidney stone. The shockwave breaks up the stone into smaller pieces which can then be passed normally.

The ESWL treatment is usually done as an outpatient procedure, but they do use anesthesia, and there can be some side effects. Often the doctor will also insert a stent, which is a small tube that goes into your bladder and up into the ureter tube to help the kidney stones pass.

When the kidney stones are too large to be broken down well by the ESWL, or they're in a location that can't be reached by that procedure, the doctor may perform a kidney stone surgery called percutaneous nephrolithotomy. With this surgery, a small incision is made in your back, and a tunnel is created into your kidney. The doctor then uses special tools to pull the kidney stones out, or break them into smaller pieces and then pull them out. This kidney stone surgery usually requires a hospital stay of at least a few days.

Sometimes a kidney stone located within the ureters tubes cannot be taken care of by the ESWL treatment. When this happens the doctor might perform a treatment known as ureteroscopy. With this treatment, a fiber optic is inserted into the urethra - which is where your urine comes out - and bladder into the ureter tube. He then locates the stone and shatters it with shockwaves or removes it with a cage type of device.

Technically none of these procedures is considered to be kidney stone surgery anymore. Actual surgery for kidney stone removal hasn't been done for about 20 years, because the procedures outlined here are considered to be much less invasive.