Kidney Stones

Sometimes people ask why someone goes through grief and pain.  One of the answers to that is that this is a fallen world.  As such, pain and grief will occur.  You don’t have to go looking for it.

Since pain and grief happen, another reason we go through it is because once through it, we can help someone else who is suffering a similar situation.

So, today I am talking about Kidney stones.  If your favorite search engine brought you here, I hope what I write will help.

First off, you have my sympathy.  You aren’t the only one going through the pain of a kidney stone.  This happens to be my first and if I get a vote, my last kidney stone.  At the time of this writing it has not yet passed and yes, it hurts.

I will now impart some wisdom that I’ve discovered through this ordeal.

1. Do what your doctor tells you.  Take the pills, drink the water.  Water will start to taste terrible you will be drinking so much of it.  The more you drink the (hopefully) faster that rock will make its way through.
2.  Even when taking the pain pills, you will feel pain.  A lot of it.  No change in position seems to help.  It hurts a lot, imagine what it would feel like without the pills.  Probably as bad as when you were first hit with the stone and had to see the doctor.
3. It will hurt bad enough that you won’t want to eat.  Nibble something.  Else you might cause further problems in other areas.  I have a stack of flour tortillas myself.
4. If it is your first stone, you have probably been advised to see a urologist.  This is so they can determine the type of stone and possible cause and therefore give you an idea on how NOT to have to do this again.  The doctor probably gave you a container and some strainers.  Use the container and if you see a stone, strain it out, else the paper strainer may eventually come apart from use. The frustrating thing here is that you may not get an appointment for weeks.  That’s how it has worked out here.
5. Calling the emergency room later when the pain is on you won’t actually help much.  The workers there are afraid people who call are pill seekers.  The more helpful person for us was to call our local pharmacist for suggestions.  The main one he had was drink water.
6. Having said that, there are three other things that have sort of helped me.
   1.  A hot bath to soak in when the pain is upon you seems to ease things.
   2.  A hot pad (in this case my wife soaked and microwaved a towel).
   3.  Walking.  When the pain is near blinding, I can’t do this one.  It seems to help only when there is the dull pulsing pain.

Rest assured, you are not the only one who has gone through this.  I’ve learned through my walk with Yaweh many things.  One is that no matter what happens to you, you aren’t the only one it has ever happened to.  Another is to help those I can reach and if I can reach anyone who needs help with this post, then great.

06/10/2017 – Stone finally came out.  I am free from having to take the pain meds.  The worst pain is when the stone is traversing the long tube from the kidneys to the bladder.  After that I felt nothing until just at the end when it popped out.  Then it was just a little poke.  There is tenderness in the right kidney area, but it doesn’t hurt.