9 Kidney Stone But Docs Say Not Causing Pain

[Gmccumber0412]

I am 42 yrs old. Have been in severe debilitating pain for the last 5 1/2 months. The pain started suddenly and has not stopped. It's mostly in my right back. It starts couple inches from my spine and runs under my rib cage downward out to my flank. I have 2 pains in the front directly under my rib cage about 2-3 inches down from my sternum. CT scan revealed 9 kidney stones all. 7 are 2mm and 2 are 1mm. I'm 5. Ft tall 109 lbs. the only experience I ever had with kidney stones was when I was pregnant. Passed a lot of blood then nothing, little cramping in low back and it was over. This pain has sent me to the ER twice. I was vomiting a lot back in June and lost 16 lbs so they took my gall bladder out. The vomiting and acid reflux stopped but the pain in my back and front under rib cages remain miserable. The doctor say those 9 stones filling up my tiny kidneys are not causing my pain because they are not obstructing. Oh and I forgot to mention there was blood in my urine in the ER, none now. My pain is greater when my bladder or stomach is full and when I do too much physical activity. It seems better in the morning.  Message and heating pad help a little, but I wake 10 times a night, every time I roll over. I cannot take pain killers due to nausea, so I dose myself with 2 Flexerill and Ambien cr to just try to get some rest. My back and stomach hurts so bad I can't mop or do dishes. I'm going up to the Mayo Clinic on Nov 30, because I've gotten 5 different diagnosis. This is the most recent and I don't have a whole lot of experience. Has anyone had this many stones in their kidneys and not been in pain? I just don't believe my doctors.

[DrHolland]

Hi Gmccumber0412

It's your friendly urologist here.

I often see patients with CT scans done for other reasons such as liver problems, colon, etc, and we "accidentally" see kidney stones. Many of these are small <5mm and nonobstructing, meaning there is no swelling or hydronephrosis in the kidney. Most of these patients do not know that these are present and are surprised to hear that they have kidney stones.

I do have some patients that swear they feel their nonobstructing stones. After we rule out other causes I am ok with treating the stones with either ureteroscopy or ESWL, so long as the patient agrees with me up front that the stone removal may, or may not treat their pain.

Good luck to you!

Dr. Holland

[Unclebuck257]

I wish I had some answers for you, but I don't. Your symptoms appear to mimic a kidney stone attack at times, but the lack of blood in your urine at this point would seem to show something else is going on. I am not a physician so I don't want to advise you of anything under these circumstances. Please let us know what you find out and our prayers are with you.

[Rachel0717]

Would you mind sharing the 5 diagnoses you were given? My son also has pain for approx 8 months and multiple punctate stones on right and we are continually told they should not be the cause of the pain because they are in the kidney. But when he's passed things he seems to have periods of relief a few days before or a day or two after. His pain seems to be spasma though, not consistent. Still, when his sono only showed one small stone he had no pain, when his pain returned he again had blood in urine and multiple stones.