The Pain of Kidney Stones

By: Kevin Ho Posted on: 2008-10-11 ** Print Article ** ** Copy Article ** - Category Feed

Article Summary: Many people will go through life and not experience the pain or symptoms of passing kidney stones. Little do they know that they probably pass them and don't realize it.

For those people who have kidney stones and experienced the passing of them, than this information is old news to you. However, I have learned in over 20 years of having kidney stones that how and when people pass them is so much different. Kidney stones develop in the kidneys and eventually drop and travel to the bladder. The stones are made up of different types of substances from within the body. Over 80% of the stones in people are calcium oxalate based. This happens to be the type of stones that I have and frequently have passed over the years.

Now, the average for people who will pass or get kidney stones is reported to be 1 in 20 people. I have personally talked with or consulted with numerous doctors over the span of some 20 odd years while dealing with kidney stones. Each had a different perspective on the number of people and why. First, in the poorest nations of the world, imagine trying to get hospital care, let alone see a doctor. A lot of these cases would go unreported therefore the number of actual people passing stones is a little higher. Also, you have to take into account the number of people from around the world that drop and pass stones and never realize it. When they go to urinate the stone is so small that it just flows freely unnoticed through the urine.

Also, several of the doctors came to the same conclusion that the size of my stones would remain constant. Another words, they would always be the same size. That is probably the one bit of advice that has remained true over the years.

Kidney stones are made of salts and minerals in the urine that stick together, creating small "pebbles" formed within the kidney or urinary tract. They can be as small as grains of sand or as large as golf balls. Kidney stones are a common cause of blood in the urine and often severe pain in the abdomen, flank, or groin. One in every 20 people develops a kidney stone at some point in their life. The doctors that I talked with came to the same conclusion that everyone develops kidney stones of some sort. They just don’t now because the size of the stone is so small that it doesn’t cause any problems, so they pass unnoticed. Also, some people experience the passing of a stone only once in their life. They are the fortunate ones. The rest of us are the ones that continually seem to be passing stones and suffering the pain along with them.

I can only describe the pain that I have experienced over the years and how some were more excruciating than others. The first stone that I passed over 20 years ago was something that I will never forget. It was in the middle of the night when I awoke with a dull pain in my abdomen. I thought that it was nothing more than a stomach ache and didn’t want to wake anyone else up. My mother, who was up reading her novels came into the living room where I was on the couch holding my stomach in pain. She asked me what was wrong and I told her that this was the worse stomach ache that I ever had. My mother was a nurse and of course an expert, as most mothers are, of getting to the cause of the problem immediately. After about fifteen minutes of seeing me in the prenatal position she knew what it was or had an idea of what it was. My mom got my dad up and dressed and they helped me get dressed to go to the hospital. My mom mentioned something about kidneys and I kept complaining that it wasn’t my kidneys, it was my stomach. I remember in the car her explaining what was happening to me, but I couldn’t understand as I was gasping for air while trying to cope with the pain. When I checked into the hospital and the nurse was asking me questions I just wanted to wrap my hands around her neck and strangle her. I remember the nurse taking my vitals and my blood pressure and heart rate were highly elevated due to the pain. The nurse said that something is going on to cause the elevations, NO KIDDING!!!

They put me in a room and started an IV on me while they took some blood samples and I was told that an x-ray will be taken as soon as possible. After I was taken for an x-ray and returned to my room I was violently kicking and hitting the bed rails so the nurses restrained me to prevent any injury to myself. The pain felt like a knife inside my stomach with someone twisting the blade over and over again. When the x-ray came back, the on duty physician came in and told me that I was experiencing a kidney stone and that he prescribed morphine for the pain. About a half hour later after they started a morphine drip I started to relax and felt much better. It took about six hours before I could actually urinate from the time since the attack started. What a relief it was to finally pee and than I went into shock at the color of the urine. The nurse was standing next to me as I was still weak and she told me to be calm as the color was caused by blood in the urine. That didn’t make me feel any better, it actually scared me. She said that my urine will clear soon and that the doctor would explain the bleeding.

I met with my personal physician the next day and he explained everything that had to do with kidney stones. What an eye opening experience it was for me. I had never heard of kidney stones before or knew of anyone that had them. My doctor explained the process of the kidney stone as it forms in the kidney and what I call, dropping to the bladder. The stone, which is actually a crystal, passes down the ureter, a narrow tube between the kidney and the bladder. If the stone gets blocked in the tube, this is where the pain comes from as the stone is being pushed. Some stones with very sharp edges, cut the lining of the ureter tube. My stones have been measured between 4mm and 5mm. I feel sorry for anyone that have stones bigger than that and can only imagine the symptoms that they go through.

I will never forget when my doctor told me of the pain index of kidney stones. He had his own index for measuring the pain of kidney stones which wasn’t based on scientific evidence, but only of his personal experience. He measured the pain levels as such: (1) cancer (he didn’t define as to what type) (2) heart attack (3) kidney stones, and (4) pregnancy. He told me that the only reason that he ranked pregnancy last was because he had never experienced being pregnant. He personally experienced the first three.

The calcium based stone that I was diagnosed with years ago is believed to be caused by excessive amounts of calcium in my body. In fact, excessively high amounts of calcium, which could be hereditary or it could be from my diet alone. I know the first time my doctor gave me a list after my first stone was analyzed, it literally said that I shouldn’t eat any type of food again. I was to live off of celery and carrots for the rest of my life. Well, that just wasn’t going to happen. However, I didn’t want to go through the symptoms and pain all the time, so I did start changing my diet. I cut out milk and cheese which were at the top of the list. I used to drink two gallons of milk or more a week and I loved cheese. I travel a lot and I used to live in Europe and Africa. You can’t live in Europe and not be around cheese at some meal. I eventually learned to cut it out of my diet along with the milk, butter and the hardest to give up, chocolate.

Over the years I have passed kidney stones in the deserts and jungles of Africa, Europe, India, Central and North America. The easiest one I passed was at sea on a fishing boat. We were in a light storm, but the boat was shifting side to side and I was lying on a bench in the galley area. With the boat rocking it kind of made it easier on me as I was in the prenatal situation just turning back and forth. I literally didn’t have to do anything as the sea did it all for me as I lay there on the bench. That attack lasted about four hours, but seemed to go by instantly with the storm helping out.

The worst attack that I had was on a British Airways flight from London to San Francisco. We were three hours into the ten hour flight and just finished eating dinner and they were getting ready to dim the lights for the movie. I started to get sharp pains in my abdomen and back at the same time and immediately got up to go to the restroom. I noticed that I couldn’t urinate, so I knew right away what was about to begin for me. Within a half hour the pain was so unbearable and I didn’t want to scream to alarm the passengers. I started walking around the cabin to take my mind off the pain. I talked with one of the stewardesses to clarify what I was going through and thank goodness she knew about kidney stones from her father having them.

I must have walked around that plane a couple hundred times. Trust me; walking does help relieve the pain as it takes your mind off of it. I know that everyone on that plane thought that I was idiotic, but I didn’t even notice or care. The stewardess even walked with me several times as we talked about London which assisted in passing the time. The pain finally subsided an hour before we were scheduled to land. I must have been in the restroom for at least a half hour waiting to pee and when I finally did, it was like a dam bursting. Depending on the stage of pain that you go through, once the stone moves your body returns to normal levels, but you can feel so drained. So much of your energy is used to battle off the pain and you do not realize it until after the episode.

I do not maintain to be an authority of kidney stones, nor do I want to be. I can only enlighten you of what I have personally dealt with for over twenty years and different alternatives that I‘ve tried. From olive oil to cranberry juice, you name it and I have tried it. Diet is the first detail you must concentrate on. Since 80% of the stones formed are calcium based, reduce your calcium intake and this will assist in the frequency of kidney stones. I still drink cranberry juice and believe that it does assist in some way, at least for the kidneys, but it is not an overall cure for stones. There is a juice mixture that assists in reducing and breaking up the size of the stones which dramatically helps in passing them. Depending on your
Circumstances it doesn’t hurt to try them and see if you can obtain satisfactory results.

Article Source: http://www.upublish.info

About the Author:
Kevin Ho
The author, Kevin Ho, travels full time for a living. http://www.globalimpressions.info

Keywords: kidney+stones, kidney+stone+information, what+are+kidney+stones?, pain+from+kidney+stones

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