Joys of Kidney Stones

[SVT Wylde]

I had one about 8 months ago and it was a 6mm stone the was stuck in my kidney. I found out about it after waking up 2-3 times in pain that was so intense that I was sweating and about to pass out.

I see the urologist and lithotripsy shockwave therapy was not recommended due to the size. So then I'm admitted to the hospital and put me to sleep and go after it with a cystoscopy/laser procedure. This consists of putting a long flexible tube with a laser on the end of it, up your junk all the way into your kidney and they blast it to pieces with the laser and vacuum out the pieces. When you wake up the pain isn't to bad UNTIL they require you to pee before leaving the hospital. DAMN IT, it literally feels like pissing a stream of gas, that's on fire, with sand in it.

If that isn't bad enough, they leave a plastic tube called a stent left in place from your kidney to your bladder. This allows the ureter tube to heal and makes it easier to pass any leftover fragments. The tube is very uncomfortable at first but after a few days I really didn't notice it. There is a string tied to the end of it and it hangs out of your urethra (pee hole) ) and the end of the string is taped to your junk and you leave it in for 4-6 days. Deep breath here.....at the end of the 4-6 days you go back in the office for stent removal. I laid on a table undressed from the waist down and a nurse comes in and on a 1..2..3.. count she pulls the string and out comes a 12-15 inch plastic hose, along with a burning, painful pressure that feels like a hot pencil being pulled through your junk. The good news is I actually had the string removal method. The other method involves using the flexible cystoscopy (that's a little smaller than the diameter of a pencil) that is inserted in covered in a numbing jelly , you guessed it, your junk. It has a claw device on the end of it and they grab the end of the stent and remove the scope and stent as one piece.

I was told that eating a high sodium diet and dehydration led to mine and believe me, I have made some huge changes in my diet to avoid that procedure again. Smaller stones can be crushed with shockwave therapy but you still have some pain if the fragments are larger that 1mm.

 

[03Sssnake]

Ouch- stones are no joke! And as for the cost of anything medical these days, it's mainly due to the cat & mouse game between hospitals and insurance companies. I used to work in the medical device industry, so I know what certain things actually cost and are sold at.

Insurance companies try to minimize what they're paying out, which often leaves the hospitals upside down by affecting cash flow. In return, the hospitals have to charge more so that what funds they do receive can cover deficits elsewhere. Reduced state funding and enforced treatment of non-payers further affects the hospital's cash flow. Believe it or not, but the manufacturing side is not the culprit. Sure they make good profits, but a $12 device turns into $5000 when it's used in the hospital. My wife got charged $1200 for a bag of saline water that likely cost $3 to manufacture. Do you think the hospital buys the water at $1200ea? Nope.

As for the stone... I don't have any advice there except not to delay treatment. Best of luck!

I kinda figured the over inflated prices were do to the games between insurance companies and doctors. I have noticed most doctors seem to have an army of administrative folks to process paperwork/redtape type stuff for the insurance companies.


@SVT Wylde

Yikes! Your account and detailed description made me light headed.

 

[El_Joker]

If that isn't bad enough, they leave a plastic tube called a stent left in place from your kidney to your bladder......

Deep breath here.....at the end of the 4-6 days you go back in the office for stent removal. I laid on a table undressed from the waist down and a nurse comes in and on a 1..2..3.. count she pulls the string and out comes a 12-15 inch plastic hose, along with a burning, painful pressure that feels like a hot pencil being pulled through your junk.

I didn't know what to expect when it came time for my stent removal. I was glad my Dr. went with the string after reading up the alternative. To be honest, it wasn't terrible for my removal. It was much more uncomfortable than pure pain, and the relief from not feeling like I need to piss every 2 minutes compared to with the stent in.

 

[nuts501]

A few weeks back I felt as if I had food poisoning or just something I ate, typical signs of vomiting/etc. Didn't freak out and waiting it out for a few hours. It wasn't getting better and I was dry heaving to no end whenever I stood. A strong cramp pain kicked in the side and kidney area.

I played WebMD and saw the sign could have been an appendix issue so I finally caved and went to the ER. Come to find out I had a 8mm stone and it was pretty much blocking on my right side. Gave me some pills and a Urology appt.

Stone was too large to pass or break up since it was so low, so surgery was the only option. Was a very odd feeling having a stent left in but it did make the removal much less a painful; that's the plus I guess.

I thought the pain of the stone was bad enough...but thank the modern medical system for making it worse. I have great insurance so out of pocket is actually not too bad. I'm just shocked when it comes to anything medical these days.

Surgery - $16,000
Dr. - $2000
Misc - $800

The ER is the part killing me. Almost $20000 for 1.5 hours, and that is NOT including the CT scan. So all in all, a single stone cost arounf $40000.

My mini rant I guess.

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[nuts501]

Guys, I had a steady run of kidney stones a few years back and found a proven remedy to safely remove them without the need of medicine or surgery.
I got sick and tired of paying hospital bills due to kidney stones and was ready to try anything to get rid of them. This is not a sales pitch, it’s a proven remedy that you’re getting for free.

My wife came across a home remedy online and the creator was selling the recipe for $50. I’ll give it to you for free.
It can be used for prevention or removal of kidney stones that are in the tract or in the kidney itself.

These are the ingredients needed to make the recipe:
-2 Liter Coca-Cola refrigerated
-1 Gallon Water
-8 oz of cooked and puréed asparagus
(Usually 2 bushels)

Step 1: prepare and cook the asparagus, then purée (seasoning is optional)

Step 2: Drink the entire 2 Liter Coca-Cola within 1 hour.

Step 3: Consume the 8oz of puréed asparagus within 15 minutes.

Step 4: Drink as much water as you possibly can within 30-60 minutes.


-The Phosphorus in the Coca-Cola dissolves the kidney stones(85% of all kidney stones are calcium) into sediment that looks like pepper. When it dissolves the stones, the pain is gone almost immediately.
-The asparagus is a natural diuretic that opens the ureter tubes from the kidneys to the bladder.
-The water flushes the sediment out of the ureter tubes safely into the bladder. It’ll look like you’re peeing out pepper.


I’ve been using this natural remedy faithfully for almost a decade, and it’s yet to fail me. My last kidney stone on x-ray was 8mm x 10mm. They told me I was going to need surgery. I used the remedy and it took about 24 hours to pass all of the sediment of the dissolved stone.

Trust me guys, save your hard-earned money for your Mustangs!!!


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[CV355]

Step 2: Drink the entire 2 Liter Coca-Cola within 1 hour.

Step 3: Consume the 8oz of puréed asparagus within 15 minutes.

Step 4: Drink as much water as you possibly can within 30-60 minutes.

I'm definitely going to remember this in case of future need. However... That much soda with a lot of asparagus could actually put you in the hospital for excruciating gas buildup. Might want to pop a GasX first. All jokes aside.

 

[IronSnake]

I've been plagued with them in my life for a long time. And I'm relatively young.

The irony is I didn't have insurance, and I noticed certain things help flush my systems out. I would drunk Cranberry juice concentrate, chug a mountain dew, chug a ton of water, pop one of those little pain pill things that help with your urinary tract and numb it, and pass it in a day.

 

[ssssnake]

So how do you get one of these rocks into you in the first place?

Did you eat it by accident at a funky restaurant maybe Chinese food I would imagine or fast food?

Or is it from sex? The stone maybe is passed from the vagina from a bad yeast build up from who the **** knows what?

Srs.








Semi srs.

Well, I've had five. I hate them. I read the other day that part of the problem is LACK of sex. No wonder. I've had all of them since my husband passed away. I haven't had one in over a year, and the only thing I've changed is adding lemon to my water. The last one was still high up so I qualified for the water treatment. The only thing was I still had sediment in my bladder, so they kept that stent in for over a month. Damn! It was terrible. When they took it out, I danced around it saying, "**** you, **** you, **** you!" I DON'T WANT ANOTHER STONE.

 

[ssssnake]

Iced tea might be a factor when combined with something else or you have to have a tendency toward them, because the GF drinks a ton of iced tea and she has never had one. But she doesn’t drink the canned shit so that migh play into it as well

I asked my doctor what caused stones. Lack of water, drinking tea, eating beets, chocolate, nuts and spinach. I don't drink tea - only water and coffee, I hate beets and only eat small amounts of spinach. Then, they want me to do away with two of my pleasures - chocolate and nuts. Damn.

 

[jacker1991]

LOL, such a funny game.

On a serious note, sorry to hear about it. They are really painful, my poor grandma had one.

 

[MDShelby]

Well how about a kidney stone being a blessing? Had one a year ago that had to be extracted via surgery in January. It actually made it to the bladder. The doctor found a spot of cancer in my bladder and removed it. Have had follow up scope and will continue to have follow up, to some degree, probably the rest of my life as bladder cancer has a 90-95 percent recurrence rate. Otherwise the cancer may of spread through more walls of the bladder and into other organs (prostate!) before symptoms appear. But yeah, stones suck. Follow up urine collection testing proved inconclusive on a possible cause.

 

[ssssnake]

Well how about a kidney stone being a blessing? Had one a year ago that had to be extracted via surgery in January. It actually made it to the bladder. The doctor found a spot of cancer in my bladder and removed it. Have had follow up scope and will continue to have follow up, to some degree, probably the rest of my life as bladder cancer has a 90-95 percent recurrence rate. Otherwise the cancer may of spread through more walls of the bladder and into other organs (prostate!) before symptoms appear. But yeah, stones suck. Follow up urine collection testing proved inconclusive on a possible cause.

Wow, 90-95 percent recurrence? Never sleep Fred. I've been cancer free for 20 years, but my chances of colon cancer were upped by it. That's what my mother and others in my family died of. Sooo, every five years, I have my colonoscopy done. Glad you had that stone.

 

[MDShelby]

I have had plenty of cancer in my family so I have been vigilant. This was the first reported bladder cancer as far as I know. Glad you are doing well and remaining proactive.

 

[RDJ]

I asked my doctor what caused stones. Lack of water, drinking tea, eating beets, chocolate, nuts and spinach. I don't drink tea - only water and coffee, I hate beets and only eat small amounts of spinach. Then, they want me to do away with two of my pleasures - chocolate and nuts. Damn.

Kind of goes to show they are next to clueless about what really causes them so they take a shotgun approach to how to avoid them. One of the ER docs said the only even close to sure way to tell how your diet MIGHT need to be changed is to send one to thr lab and have it analyzed.

 

[RDJ]

Mine seem to hit at the worst possible times. First one hit whe I was working night shift at the CIA. Pain was so bad I was in the shitter taking off my clothes in an attempt to cool down. Didn’t work. So drove myself to the hospital since there was no way I was going to go out in an ambulance. I put the lumbar support full on and by the time I got there the pain was pretty much gone. Doc said I was lucky in that it had apparently passed into my bladder so all I had to do was wait to piss it out.

Second one was the one that started in China. On the plane from Tokyo I had a guy offer me some vicodin I took him up on it.

Third one I passed in Iraq. Morphine became my new best friend and drug of choice. Wonderful stuff. I seem to get one about every ten years. Hopefully I have made enough lifestyle changes that I won’t have another

 

[ssssnake]

I went to the hospital for my first stone and waited, and waited, and waited. I remembered another time in the Emergency room, when a wailing woman with a broken toe was taken in BEFORE me, when I had a broken wrist. They had already taken me to the back this time, but that was it. So, I got up, started pacing and groaning LOUDLY. Before I knew it, I had a warm blanket and a shot of morphine. Bliss. A squeaky wheel does get the grease.