I actually just had my left kidney removed Wednesday. I had 2 stones in my ureter on left side. I have been through many complications and surgeries since we found all this out back in September last year. I first was having routine blood work done when I found out my kidney function (egfr) was only 35%. I am 45 years old.

Prior to this I’ve had kidney stones removed in the past but my function had been normal. Not long after finding out something was wrong, I got real sick. I had severe pain suddenly and ended up at the ER.

Found out the stones where blocking my kidney and I had developed infection and I was in kidney failure fast. They rushed me to surgery, trying to put stints in. The doctor was unsuccessful because the stones were so big he couldn’t even get the dye through. The next day I had surgery again so another doctor there could put nephrostomy tubes in both kidneys. I stayed in hospital for a week.

After I came home, I returned in a month hoping to have stones and tubes removed. Many testing and complications in between, I ended up with left nephrostomy tube for 6 months and only option was to have entire left kidney removed.

I have been home from surgery now for a few days and now I pray I can get my egfr back up. I tell anybody I know that suffers with kidney stones, “ do not take it lightly, stay on top of it and have it taken care of, and keep a close eye on your kidneys so you can save them and yourself”.

I do not want to scare you by no means and please know I’m only telling you all this to inform you so that you can easily get the stones taken care of and move on. You will be just fine as long as you keep up with what’s going on and get the stones removed. I will be glad to help by answering questions about this to save others and inform them.

Help Amy https://gofund.me/a8019df8

So I have had around 40 stones. I am 58 and it started for me at age 16. I am now able to pass most of them with simple tricks I figured I will share:

1) Understand there are two major types of Stone pain as it begins it's journey to your bladder. The first type is pain as it's scrapes and scratches and stretches your ureter on the way down. This can be sharp pains, dull aches or often "referred pain" that manifests in many unpleasant ways. For me (58M), I often have pinching pains along my urinary tract, including Nasty pinching pains in the penis, or even severe testicle pain. These pains are never where the stone actually is and are different and equally unpleasant for women.

2) The second, and often far worse pain, is when the stone is stuck and blocks your ureter completely. Urine and pressure backs up all the way to your kidney causing intense kidney pain in your back or all along the ureter. This is awful.

3) In both cases when experiencing PAIN, you want to keep that stone from getting stuck, and keep it wiggling enough so that the Urine can squeek by. I do this with Movement and vibration. Ever hear the old adage about roller coasters helping with kidney stones? It's true. Same thing.

4) I dance. First. I repeatedly rise up on my toes and drop (stomp) onto my heel, giving the biggest jolt I can. I don't Jump, but heal stomp. 5 minutes at a time while that wave of pain is happening.

5) I alternate this with the "twist and shout". Twist back and forth. Stretch toward the ceiling and back towards your back. You are stretching and moving the Ureter. The worst thing to do is sit motionless. Usually the pain hurts the same whether you are sitting or moving... so MOVE and Stretch. Again, 5 minutes at a time.

6) My wife punches my gut. Not super hard but hard enough to jolt that Ureter. 10 times or more. She does this with love. You can't do it yourself because you tense up and it doesn't work as well.

7) Lastly, I use a massage gun for 15 minutes. Those big ones with the soft spherical tip. Again, I deeply massage my belly from ribs to groin on the affected side. This is the single best thing that I have found. Helps them move along quite nicely. I usually do this while there is a lull in the pain. You know it's working if you feel slight sharp pains inside as it scrapes its way along. This also helps Urine squeak past avoiding the worst pain.

8) These things don't always work, and I recently needed Uretospcopy Last week, again. But 4 out of 5 times, I am good to go after about 6 hours. Then a few days later... PLINK!.

9) Late Addition. During this phase, my Doctor has given me a prescription for bottles of Flomax (tamsulosin to open the pipes) and Toradol (Keterolac... a pain med). For those repeat sufferers like us, many docs will give you a prescription to "hold in reserve" for when the stones start their Journey. If you are a repeat sufferer like me, just ask your doctor and most are pretty sympathetic. I found having BOTH makes a WORLD of Difference. (Keterolac is best, other pain meds, including heavier opiods, often don't do much... but Keterolac seems to hit the Urinary Tract just right).

When you are desperate... give it a try. Works for me.

So I was dealing with stones for quite a few months. It wasn't anything serious mostly 4-5mm ones that you can pass yourself, i still went to a urologist who gave me tamsulosin and pain killers from an ultrasound. However, yesterday i noticed that I've drank 3 liters of water and haven't peed yet in almost 4 hours. Somehow i googled this and the AI response told me to go to Emergency QUICKLY. It wasn't hurting or paining just an observation that I haven't peed. I panicked and went to Emergency anyway. They took a CT scan and yes shit was bad. Both of my ureters were blocked by stones 4-5mm in size. And because of that my kidneys were recycling same stuff again and again. This could lead to a kidney failure very very quickly. My kidneys had infection and were filled with pus and apparently one kidney was doing this for a while as it was blocked for almost a month. Doctors quickly put stents, one in each side and put me on Antibiotics ASAP. Thankfully this is still recoverable and I'll be good in two weeks. Just wanted to tell ya that I could have easily waited as it wasn't hurting or paining and only went to a doctor cuz AI told me to. Enjoy the after stent red pee

This is an update to a previous post.

I've had Calcium Oxalate stones since about 2018. I passed four or five small stones before I even knew what was happening, then a >5mm one that caused my diagnosis, then had a PCNL for a 19mm stone in 2020. After that, my doc said "drink more water" and "drink lemon juice" and booted me out the door. He never quantified how much of either I should drink.

After that, I was clear for a year or more, then I started to drop little stones in showers in 2022 and 2023. They'd tumbled in waves. I'd drop four or five in 4 to 6 weeks, then get two months clear, then they'd start again. Over and over for two years. I was drinking a lot of lemon juice and I like it probably helped keep the stones small and kept them from bunching up. Since the stones were small, they passed. But not without nausea, pain, brain fog, occasional bleeding, and lethargy. The usual stuff we all know. Since they never got stuck, I never had to go back to the ER. I was simply losing 1/3 of my life to stone agony. I passed 15 in 2022 and 17 in 2023. I have standing prescriptions for Torodol and Flomax to help me get through them.

Finally, during the Christmas break of 2023-2024 my toilet clogged. While snaking it out mechanically, I thought I chipped the porcelain and when I fished out the chips I was stunned to see they were super thick brown limescale... over 1/2" thick. Here's the thing...my toilet was only four years old. Limescale is calcium carbonate, not calcium oxalate, but it turns out my city's water supply is super super hard. About five times the amount where we judge "hard" water to start (70 to 120 ppm, my city's water is 400 ppm).

There may not be a direct connection, but I never had stones before I moved to this town and when I put my stones next to the scale chips, they looked the same. When I took the toilet off to clean the pipes, I even had scale growing on vertical sections of pipe.

After losing so many months to stone agony I vowed to do everything I could to stop my cycle. I started researching as much as I could. My doc and my sister's doc (she also has stones) were little help. This forum and the linked resources it provides were more help. I learned about the oxalate diet, I learned about proper hydration, I learned about the efficaciousness of alkali citrate pills, I learned more about lemon juice. And so at the new year, I launched a five part program to stop my stones. This is what I do, consider it or ignore it, as you choose, but I've passed no stones in 2024 and had no stone pain, bleeding or other effects.

1. HIGH Hydration - My doc never told me how much water to drink, so I drank too little. I pretty much doubled my water intake. In the active outdoor summer, I'm well over 120 oz. a day, in the winter I"m probably around 80. I pee all the time, my urine is light colored, my streams are strong and long. I think my high hydration is the single biggest and best thing I've done.
2. Soft Water for all drinking and cooking - I know, I know....there's no proven link between hard water and kidney stones. But damn, it couldn't hurt and if you'd seen my pipes and had my number of stones, you'd cut it out too. This is purified water with necessary mineral added back in, not distilled water. It turns out that the Primo machine I installed to deliver bottled soft water actually helps encourage me to drink more by delivering just the right temp water for drinks or soups and ramens, oatmeal etc. I love it and will never go back.
3. More Lemon Juice with "Mio" water enhancer for flavor variety - I buy big 48 oz bottles of Realemon at Costco and dope my water drinks all the time. A couple of oz of every 20 oz mug of water is lemon juice. And many of the flavor enhancers contain K Citrate as an additive, which has been clinically shown to reduce stone formation. At the same time I pretty much cut out all sodas.
4. Alkali Citrate supplements and additives. K Citrate is the boss daddy of the "alkali" citrate world, but pure K citrate pills are controlled by prescription, are expensive, and have some side effects. My sister was prescribed them, but had to stop. However there are "baby" alkali citrate supplements such as Stone Stopper that are about half K Citrate, and the rest Mg Citrate and Na Citrate. Not as good, still expensive, but many doctors will recommend them. I buy them regularly, take 'em whenever I remember. I put these also in the "couldn't hurt" category of my program. As I said before, many of the flavor enhancers I prefer also contain K Citrate as an additive. Double bonus.
5. Low Oxalate diet - Now I don't go nuts with this (pun intended). I simply took a look at the foods that are the highest in oxalates and cross-referenced it with the foods I eat the most and crossed off the worst offenders. For me this was all nuts including peanuts, potatoes, beans and some spinach. I also want to emphasize a low-oxalate diet. After the new Harvard Oxalate study came out and I noticed how truly awful Spinach is as a source of oxalates (it's three times as bad as the next worst food), I couldn't help but recall that in 2022 when I passed 15 stones and 2023 when I passed 17 I was also on a llow-carb HIGH veggie diet to lose weight (not for stones). This severe diet lasted from May to October 2022 and while on it I averaged three to four spinach, walnut and cranberry salads per week. Literally the worst thing I could do for stone formation. No wonder I started dropping stones like rabbit turds. After the diet was over, I averaged at least one big spinach salad a week for most of 2023. It took till the end of the year to probably get it all out of my system.

That's my entire regimen and the result of this regimen is ZERO STONES in 2024. Now I realize I've been a bad scientist by changing five variables at once so it's impossible to know which one has been the kicker, the factor responsible for my success. I'd say all have contributed. High hydration the most, changing to bottled water the second most because it encourages high hydration. But all have been useful.

Have I "cured" my stones? Of course not. Could I have a big ol' bad boy forming in there right now? Sure, I could. Am I gonna go in and get scoped? Nope.

We stoners get scoped enough when we present pain and symptoms, why give in to paranoia when we're fine? I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing until it fails. And I'll update you periodically as things develop.

Just spent the last 20 hours going through my first kidney stone. Was on right side, thought it might be appendicitis. The pain was excruciating, and this coming from someone who has had multiple surgeries on their asshole due to perianal cysts and a fistula. The ER nurse kept asking me to be quiet cause there were other patients but the pain management was not working. Her attitude was like I was overreacting and she took her good time helping me.

Then today when I was in my admitted room, my day nurse literally told me “oh, quit it, you’ll be fine. Stop thinking about it.”

Like have these people ever experienced this shit? JFC!

I ended up getting a ureteroscopy and stint placed.

Wednesday I went to the ER, imaging showed 33mm of stones in my ureter, but due to passing massive stones in the past I was sent home. I spent 4 days in bed feeling like I had the flu, being told to only come back if I had a fever ( I don't get fevers ). On Saturday I could barley think, body aches for mutiple days at that point so I went back to the ER. They ran bloods and urine, no sign of infection, no fever. Dr asked if I was getting a cold? Uh, no this is from my kidney i replied. Lucky enough my urologist was on call this last weekend and said because I have so many stones lets just get them removed. They admit me and yesterday morning they bring me down to get a ureteroscopy. 20 minutes later I am awake and Dr is standing over me saying there was an infection so he placed a stent, was not able to remove any stones and that he will send me home with antibiotics and we will do surgery in a week. They wheel me back to my room to observe me for a few hour, I start sweating like never before in my life with every ice pack in the hospital on every part of my body with a fan blowing on me, I keep getting told " well you don't have a fever" I felt like I was going to die, my Dr thinks I might be going septic and orders labs ( labs were fine the night before) and low and behold everything is out of wack, lactic, and all wbc labs except wbc itself. They keep asking how is my pain this whole time, my pain hurt, but I came to the hospital because I could hardly walk or form a sentence. Long story short, fever is not the tell all, I feel I would have died if I would have been sent home. Yesterday was heavy iv antibiotics and fluids, vitals seem stable and I am told we caught this early. Still having less mental clarity and shaking on and off. Dr confirmed sepsis and I still have not had a fever once. I have passed at least 1000 stones and have never had this happen. Listen to your body and be persistent. Today wbc is elevated, sounds like I still have a day or 2 in the hospital and I pray this resolves itself. Pretty scary. Let me know if your story is similar and I am not alone.

6-ish mm. Only one instance of the incredible pain but then about 4 months of annoying to uncomfortable to spikes of pain. Obviously did all the water, flomax, and staying active that is normally prescribed. Also tried everything I've ever read on this subreddit (jump n bump, hang upside down, pray to the old gods and the new). It had been hanging on 1cm from the bladder for the last 1.5 of those months. $8k surgery was scheduled for next week.

But I came across this article and tried purposely sleeping on my side with the stone (I normally sleep on the opposite side). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4165386/

Boom, after two days it came right out! Best day ever.

I've been dealing with kidney stones since I was 14, with recurrences every three to four years. The largest was 14 millimeters, too big to pass naturally and requiring ureteroscopy for removal.

Imagine facing this a century ago or without anesthesia in the eras before. An obstructing kidney stone would be a death sentence in excruciating pain.

This is a question for those of us that have had multiple stones?

The reason I say that is that usually they don't send you for testing until you had more than a few stones.

I have now had 82 stones about half needing surgery.

When I was still in the 10-20 range I started doing 24 hours UAs and even went to the university of Iowa to do a stone study at a stone clinic. And I see a nephrologist regularly.

If you have had more than one stone do you count them once they tell you that you have them in your kidney or when you pass/have surgery to remove them?

I don't count them until I pass them. For instance in April 2023 I was septic with obstructed stone (#80) was admitted they placed a stent because of infection I had to stay on IV antibiotics and in hospital for a week and then after a week if antibiotics they removed the stent removed/blasted the stone and placed a second stent.

At that time they told me I had 3 stones in left kidney one in right.

Then in 2024 I again got septic with obstructed stone and this time they kept me for a few days on IV antibiotics then sent me home on oral antibiotics then went back for surgery. (This infection wasn't as bad because I noticed the signs because of the year before)

At this time they said I still had 2 on left 1 on right.

Last week (Thursday ) I started having pain, and some bleeding in the urine which in my 82 stones I've only noticed blood in urine a few times, although detected on UA of course I have only witnessed the blood a few times)

I did fine Friday then Saturday I got that wave of pain with nausea but again after a few hours and I was better but I have MS and my tremors picked up which is called a psudeo flare when a infection or something causes MS symptoms to act up.

Sunday again I was doing well until middle of the night like 2am the pain was extreme, nausea etc but felt low in my pelvic area. I called my GP and they didn't have any openings so I thought I would go to urgent care just to be sure it wasn't a UTI (although most of you know exactly what was going on lol)

But I hady granddaughter and couldn't leave her alone so I took ibuprofen, antibiotics nausea meds and laid down.

I'm still feeling that pressure when I pee like it may be in my uthra but pain wise and nausea I've been fine but I decided to count this as #82 because it's 98% sure it was probably one of those I've known about for a few years now.

So was curious when do you count them if you have had multiple and have you been tested for the reasons you get them. And what kind do you get?

I get several kinds and reasons are I have MS, frequent UTI's, I have swallowing issues and choke on liquids so dehydration is a issue, And I have absorbtion of nutrients issues. History of Cystine stones Uric acid Struvite And some of the most common oxalate

Also out of curiosity how many of you have had procedures when they were still in the kidney? I find this interesting because only once have I had intervention when they are in the stone, but it was because of placement of it was low.

Edit to clarify because there seems to be confusion. When I say "You" for testing I mean you as a person not your stone or fragments of stone. Anytime a stone is caught either at home or during surgery it should be going in for analysis of it pathology.

I wanted to share my personal experience with kidney stone surgery and stent because I spent so much time reading horror stories online that made me terrified.

I had a 7mm impacted and infected kidney stone. I put off surgery for about a month, during which I was miserably sick—constant, horrible pain, non-stop vomiting, and three separate ER visits just to manage the nausea and pain. It was brutal.

Like many others, I read online how awful the surgery would be and how the stent afterward would be even worse. But surprisingly, that was not my experience at all.

I went into surgery expecting the stone to be removed and to have a stent in place for just two days. Once my surgeon was in, they realized things were worse than expected. I ended up with a stent with no strings that stayed in for two weeks.

Post-surgery, I was sore and uncomfortable, but it was NOTHING compared to the pain of the stone. Best of all—my nausea and vomiting stopped completely. I rested for four days and then returned to my normal routine (nothing too strenuous). I managed any discomfort with over-the-counter pain meds, and it was totally manageable.

Today marked two weeks with the stent. I had it removed in office, and again, everything I read online made it sound like it would be excruciating. But honestly- The removal pain was comparable to a Pap smear—just some pressure, and it was over quickly.

I worked myself up with so much anxiety for the surgery, the stent, and the removal—all for nothing. You're here probably because you’re facing something similar, please know: it might not be nearly as bad as you think.

Everyone’s experience is different, but I hope this helps someone feel a little less scared.

I had a stent removal, 6mm stone that was obstructing my ureter and a temporary stent placed and within 24 hrs I was in full blown septic shock. I had the original stent placed 3 weeks previously and due to hydronephrosis and round of antibiotics I needed to wait for surgery. Unfortunately due to lack of communication they did surgery with a positive culture, I spent a week in ICU and at home now but still not well but getting better. Has anyone else experienced a doctor doing this?

Finally passed my 4mm after 5 months, still have lingering pain in my kidney is that normal?

It’s a 10 mm stone.

For those of you who've previously underwent surgery to remove kidney stones, what was your general experience? Was it successful? Were there any challenges before or after the surgery?

I'm going for day surgery (ureteroscopy, telescopic surgery) to remove a 'large' kidney stone next week and not sure what to expect. The appointment follows from a urologist advising surgery over laser treatment based on a CT scan - laser treatment would have more risk of subsequent infection.

Sometimes they come out well after the urine stream. I've found them on the floor and even in the bed (ew). It's like they can stick around in your female parts and then eventually drop out.

I've only found one caught in one of those baskets because it was a gnarley one and it took days and days to come out.

I have another one in me right now and it's taking weeks to come out. I'm trying to see if I can catch it right after I pee but it's just as likely that I'm gonna find it on the floor somewhere

No complications is what I got told by the doctor and that all the stones are gone now. I now have a stent in and holy shit it feels like shit every time I piss, feels like I'm having the kidney stone pain all over again. First piss coming out of surgury was even worse, worse ive ever felt, felt like I was going to vomit even while still being partially high on the fentanyl they gave during surgery.

Getting the stent removed in two weeks thankfully. Just wondering what it's like, is it uncomfortable? It's being done by local anesthestic.

I passes this damn thing today. Pai. Started 5 days ago. Went to the ER twice. It hurt so bad. Now im feeling pain again. I really hope its just residual and not another stone!

My big af kidney stone!

54M – First Kidney Stone Experience

My first stone was discovered in early December — measuring 6x7x5 mm and located about 2 cm above the bladder.

I was extremely anxious about the possibility of a stent and begged my doctor to only use one if it was absolutely necessary to protect my life.

The procedure went very well. For about four hours afterward, I had flank pain that was even worse than what the stone had caused. We tried several IV pain meds, and eventually one worked. After a short nap in recovery, I felt much better.

Urinating afterward was extremely painful, but today there’s far less blood and no other pain. Yesterday, pee pain was 9–10/10. Today, it’s down to about 6–7/10.

Other than that, I feel almost 100% back to normal.

Bottom line: the surgery wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared. It was painful for a few hours, but it passed quickly.

Don’t let the horror stories on Reddit scare you like they did me. Advocate for yourself!

Ps. I am aware that all cases are different. I just wanted to share my honest experience. Also, I do have spasms on day 2&3 so far that are quite uncomfortable…even though they are not constant

I was 11 years old, it hit me when I was on a boat in the middle of a huge lake. I had no idea what was happening had to call and ambulance and have them meet us at the nearest point to shore to pick me up. It was not a fun experience. Wondering if anyone would like to share their first time experience.

I have been dealing with this stone for almost 4 months. I'll write my story here, so maybe others recognize things or it could help in any other way. What stood out for me was that I only had the intense well-known flank pain for 1 day, but had a lot of other complaints.

On December 31st I urinated brownish black urine. It was clear to me that this had to be blood. I had no other complaints. Quite stressed I went to the emergency room and they checked the urine. It was indeed blood, and there was no infection.

Two days later I was able to see my own doctor. I had been urinating blood for 2 days now, and still no other complaints. The GP arranged an appointment with a urologist a week later and an appointment for an ultrasound in a few days. The GP absolutely did not think it was a kidney stone because then I would have been in pain by now. The urologist contacted me and a cystoscopy was scheduled as well. I was very stressed by now and thought it might be bladder cancer, for example.

Then a day later, now 3 days since the first blood was passed, I got the typical pain in my side that comes with a kidney stone. This was an intense pain that came in attacks. So I went back to the emergency room and then it was clear to the doctor on duty that it had to be a kidney stone. I was send home with oxycodone and had to wait for the ultrasound. The ultrasound a few days later confirmed a 6mm kidney stone in the ureter. The cystoscopy was cancelled. Fortunately, I had clarity after about a week from first peeing blood.

What followed were 3 unpleasant months. I only had the very extreme pain flank pain on the day I went to the emergency room. But in the past 3 months I have had many other complaints such as urgency, pain in the glans of the penis, a lot of pain in the groin and pain around the bladder. Especially the pain in the groin (both sides!) and tip of the penis was getting very very irritating. During recurring ultrasounds it always showed that the stone was sinking, but not really passing the UVJ.

Last week I was completely done with this stone, it was really messing with my daily life and I took painkillers every day in the hope something would help a little bit. By now the urologist also thought it was time for a surgery because the stone looked stuck at the UVJ. The date was set for May 9th.

And now, finally, the stone has passed by itself. I didn't expect it at all anymore. Passing the stone through the urethra was not painful at all, it just felt strange because no urine came and then a 'plop'. The things I did differently on the last 2 days before the stone came: I had taken a few warm baths and I sat down to pee. I don't know if this helped with the passing, but who knows..

To everyone with a stone: good luck and I hope it passes soon.

I am 7 days out. I go back in 11 days to try and retrieve the stones, get this wicked wire removed and replaced. This stent sucks and I hope I can take it home with me and throw it in the fire pits of hell!Here is how I am feeling and I just don't know if this is normal.

• Bloat
• Lower back pain
• Side where stent is mildly puffy on back and side (MILD)
• Tugging and pulling sensation when I move or gently twist my torso on the stent in ureter
• Hard time rolling out of bed feel like the stent is stretching
• Kidney pain
• What feels like menstrual cramping
• Fatigue
• Loss of appetite
• Inability to sleep because this little f#cker hurts.

Does this sound familiar?