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How long does it take for kidney stones to pass?
Hello, i am a 20 year old student and recently found that i have two kidney stones. I believe they have both moved from my kidney to my bladder and was wondering how long it takes to pass them through my urine once they are already in my bladder. These stones are 1mm and 2mm and also i was wondering to what extent the pain is going to be when i pass them?
I am a 68 year old male and approx 7 years ago I stopped counting how many kidney stones I had after I hit #30. Since then I've had at least 5 more anyway. My first stone was back in 87 and I had to have it surgically removed because of its size. That was not fun and neither was the plastic tube they left in me for a week or more so my ueretha could heal from being cut open during the surgery. Since then, all my other stones have passed on their own, although all of them required a visit to the ER for a shot of demoral to kill the pain. The stones all then passed within a day of going to the ER and upon leaving the ER, I had no more pain.
About 4 weeks ago today, I started getting that pain twinge at 4 AM that I know to be the beginning of a kidney stone. The pain quickly got much worse, but I tried to tough it out at home using prescription pain meds. It lessened the pain somewhat so that it was tolerable. The pain then went away completely within 7.5 hours.
The next day when I woke up, I had no pain but was urinating almost pure dark brown/reddish blood. That continued for most of the morning, but not with a great deal of pain.
Two days later, I was awakened at 3AM with the same old "stone pain", and it again progressively got much worse. Again, I took prescription pain killers and toughed it out..BARELY. That pain lasted again for 7.5 hours and then went away completely.
Two days later I was urinating what looked like almost pure blood again and I did so in the doctor's office. I am a VA patient so my primary care physician scheduled me for a Cat Scan the following day at the VA facility that does Cat Scans, about 50 miles away.
The next morning I was driving to have the Cat Scan done but I had to stop due to the severe pain I was having and I couldn't drive. I got to a nearby hospital emergency room and was seen immediately. They gave me a shot of demoral to ease the pain and did a Cat Scan there. It showed I had a 4.5 stone, that was half way through my kidney at that point. A second shot of demoral and then they sent me home after my wife picked me up with a prescription for Flomax, an antinausea pill, and hydrocodone pills.. The ER Doctor told me that 85% of stones under 5mm will pass on their own, but to strain my urine when I urinated and to drink plenty of water.
That was two weeks ago yesterday and since then, I have had three more different days where my urine looked almost like pure brownish/red blood and that lasted several hours after waking each time. Of course, I have not yet passed the stone and I'm drinking water,at least 8-12 oz bottles a day.and peeing my little brains out. I can't go out because of all the intake of water and having to strain the urine and basically I'm home bound until this one passes.
With all the kidney stones I've had in the past, with the exception of the first one,I have never had the blood colored urine with any of them and I have never had one not pass within a day of going to the ER and getting a pain shot of demoral. My big concern is the blood colored urine and the number of times I have now had that. Does that mean I have major infection going on at times? In between those times, my urine is not bloody but just clear.
If I don't pass this little baby on my own by next week this time, I am going to ask to see a VA Urologist at the main VA hospital and ask them to do whatever to get it out.
About 4 weeks ago today, I started getting that pain twinge at 4 AM that I know to be the beginning of a kidney stone. The pain quickly got much worse, but I tried to tough it out at home using prescription pain meds. It lessened the pain somewhat so that it was tolerable. The pain then went away completely within 7.5 hours.
The next day when I woke up, I had no pain but was urinating almost pure dark brown/reddish blood. That continued for most of the morning, but not with a great deal of pain.
Two days later, I was awakened at 3AM with the same old "stone pain", and it again progressively got much worse. Again, I took prescription pain killers and toughed it out..BARELY. That pain lasted again for 7.5 hours and then went away completely.
Two days later I was urinating what looked like almost pure blood again and I did so in the doctor's office. I am a VA patient so my primary care physician scheduled me for a Cat Scan the following day at the VA facility that does Cat Scans, about 50 miles away.
The next morning I was driving to have the Cat Scan done but I had to stop due to the severe pain I was having and I couldn't drive. I got to a nearby hospital emergency room and was seen immediately. They gave me a shot of demoral to ease the pain and did a Cat Scan there. It showed I had a 4.5 stone, that was half way through my kidney at that point. A second shot of demoral and then they sent me home after my wife picked me up with a prescription for Flomax, an antinausea pill, and hydrocodone pills.. The ER Doctor told me that 85% of stones under 5mm will pass on their own, but to strain my urine when I urinated and to drink plenty of water.
That was two weeks ago yesterday and since then, I have had three more different days where my urine looked almost like pure brownish/red blood and that lasted several hours after waking each time. Of course, I have not yet passed the stone and I'm drinking water,at least 8-12 oz bottles a day.and peeing my little brains out. I can't go out because of all the intake of water and having to strain the urine and basically I'm home bound until this one passes.
With all the kidney stones I've had in the past, with the exception of the first one,I have never had the blood colored urine with any of them and I have never had one not pass within a day of going to the ER and getting a pain shot of demoral. My big concern is the blood colored urine and the number of times I have now had that. Does that mean I have major infection going on at times? In between those times, my urine is not bloody but just clear.
If I don't pass this little baby on my own by next week this time, I am going to ask to see a VA Urologist at the main VA hospital and ask them to do whatever to get it out.
Sorry DestinedToBeAnRN76, but I cannot agree with your post with regard to the pain and suffering of having a kidney stone.
I am a female and at the age of 38/39 experienced pins and needles in my feet. Doctors didn't know what the matter was. I had alternative treatment with a reflexologist and aromatherapist who straight away said that I had a waterworks problem.
Some months later I started to have pains in my back just below the ribs. I also experienced renal colic (this is felt like uncomfortable wind in the belly depending on which side is ill). I experienced extremely severe painful back.
I had lots of infections when the stone started to move. I would pass pure blood, sometimes green pus, I also had vomiting and diarrhea all at the same time and extremely ill. I was prescribed with pethedine as normal pain killers had no effect. This went on for months before I eventually saw a urologist who was under the impression that my stone was in the bladder (which it wasn't). At one point the pain was so severe that when lay in bed ill, I was thrust into a sitting position.
Parts of my stone must have come out when I was extremely ill and in pain. But the rest of the stone got stuck in the ureter. I was sent to the hospital urgently by my doctor who came to visit me at home when I phoned the surgery and said I was too ill to come to my appointment (I did not ask for a home visit).
At hospital I was given pain killing injections on a regular basis and because of that I did not feel any pain. I had to catch my urine and put it though a sieve to catch the stone in the event it passed out. But nothing happened. I was wheeled in a wheelchair to get scanned and it showed that the stone was solidly stuck in the ureter. The urologist decided that I had to have an urgent operation to remove the stone and was told after the operation that it couldn't have waited any longer because the kidney had built up too much pressure from the blockage in the ureter. Any more delay would have resulted in the loss of my kidney.
My good kidney also gave me a lot of pain which was felt just below the rib cage at the front and at the back.
Since that time, I have had some problems when I have passed a lot of sediment with the urine.
You may already be aware that there are 4 main different types of kidney stones which are caused by different things and the Cystine stone is hereditary.
Someone did tell me to drink lemon juice and also have parsley to help stop the formation or to help dissolve a stone. I do not know if this works or not, but I have been drinking water with lemon juice and did pass sediment - so who knows!
As you all will be aware a kidney stone can be any size, some as small as a grain of sand. Even though a stone can be so small it can still cause a lot of problems as it passes down the urinary tract. If a kidney stone does not move, you would not know that you have one.
A doctor told me that I did not have textbook symptoms of a kidney stone, and to begin with I had been treated for depression.
And I agree with what people say - that having a kidney stone is worse than being in labour!
I am a female and at the age of 38/39 experienced pins and needles in my feet. Doctors didn't know what the matter was. I had alternative treatment with a reflexologist and aromatherapist who straight away said that I had a waterworks problem.
Some months later I started to have pains in my back just below the ribs. I also experienced renal colic (this is felt like uncomfortable wind in the belly depending on which side is ill). I experienced extremely severe painful back.
I had lots of infections when the stone started to move. I would pass pure blood, sometimes green pus, I also had vomiting and diarrhea all at the same time and extremely ill. I was prescribed with pethedine as normal pain killers had no effect. This went on for months before I eventually saw a urologist who was under the impression that my stone was in the bladder (which it wasn't). At one point the pain was so severe that when lay in bed ill, I was thrust into a sitting position.
Parts of my stone must have come out when I was extremely ill and in pain. But the rest of the stone got stuck in the ureter. I was sent to the hospital urgently by my doctor who came to visit me at home when I phoned the surgery and said I was too ill to come to my appointment (I did not ask for a home visit).
At hospital I was given pain killing injections on a regular basis and because of that I did not feel any pain. I had to catch my urine and put it though a sieve to catch the stone in the event it passed out. But nothing happened. I was wheeled in a wheelchair to get scanned and it showed that the stone was solidly stuck in the ureter. The urologist decided that I had to have an urgent operation to remove the stone and was told after the operation that it couldn't have waited any longer because the kidney had built up too much pressure from the blockage in the ureter. Any more delay would have resulted in the loss of my kidney.
My good kidney also gave me a lot of pain which was felt just below the rib cage at the front and at the back.
Since that time, I have had some problems when I have passed a lot of sediment with the urine.
You may already be aware that there are 4 main different types of kidney stones which are caused by different things and the Cystine stone is hereditary.
Someone did tell me to drink lemon juice and also have parsley to help stop the formation or to help dissolve a stone. I do not know if this works or not, but I have been drinking water with lemon juice and did pass sediment - so who knows!
As you all will be aware a kidney stone can be any size, some as small as a grain of sand. Even though a stone can be so small it can still cause a lot of problems as it passes down the urinary tract. If a kidney stone does not move, you would not know that you have one.
A doctor told me that I did not have textbook symptoms of a kidney stone, and to begin with I had been treated for depression.
And I agree with what people say - that having a kidney stone is worse than being in labour!
Flomax, does NOT break up the stone. Flomax helps relieve the pressure you feel in the bladder, as well as dilates your ureters to help your body pass the stone with less discomfort, and ease of getting it out of the urethra.
Oxycodone is just generic Percocet narcotic. An ER doctor told me it's comparable to the pain relief strength of Dilaudid. I am always given the Dilaudid for my kidney stone attacks in the Emergency Room via intravenous injection. I never had to start the Percocet, until after 14 hours of uninterrupted pain relief with the Dilaudid. It's so much better than Morphine. It never causes a headache like Morphine does.
Oxycodone is just generic Percocet narcotic. An ER doctor told me it's comparable to the pain relief strength of Dilaudid. I am always given the Dilaudid for my kidney stone attacks in the Emergency Room via intravenous injection. I never had to start the Percocet, until after 14 hours of uninterrupted pain relief with the Dilaudid. It's so much better than Morphine. It never causes a headache like Morphine does.
The only time there would be a restriction placed on a narcotic fill, is if a different fill was done not too long before the next script was written. Doctor's now have to follow a very tight protocol, meaning the diagnosis has to fall under a specific diagnosis for the narcotic prescription to be written. The reason for the prescription cannot be the same, even if it's the same diagnosis as before. The dosing instructions have to be written differently. Sometimes the prescription cannot be for the same drug, or if the dose is different, the doctor must clearly write for a stronger medicine, or a lower strength medicine. Federal Drug Administration keeps record of each patient, and the narcotic prescriptions that the patient has received, and filled on each script written. Restrictions for any patient can be tightly restricted, if the patient has had several within a short window of time. The reason for such stringent rules for narcotic prescription prescribing, is because of people who abuse the use of narcotics, by either recreational use, illegal selling and distribution, and accidental or intentional overdose, which can lead to death. Doctor's are audited each time a narcotic script writing creates a pattern with one, or many patients. A need for pain narcotics diagnosis must be clearly stated in the patients Federal Doppler record for narcotic prescriptions.
The only places you should feel any pain at all from the kidney stones, is in the ureters, if you're female. (the ureters are the tubes that carry your urine from the kidneys to the bladder). In Females, once the stone(s) reach the bladder, it should be no pain at all, and it doesn't take long at all for the stones to pass when you urinate, the stones will be carried out of the bladder, through the urethra. Females have a short, short urethra, which is why little to no pain is felt once the stones reach the bladder to pass in the urine stream, through the urethra, to the outside of the body.
In Males the stone has to travel through the penis, and is painful to pass because it is a longer trip for the stone to travel once the stone is passed out of the ureters, to the bladder, and through the urethra in the penis, to the outside of the body. Males have two ureters like females. However, the Male urinary tract is slightly different in that the stone(s) pass from the ureters, then to the bladder, then through the urethra (inside the penis), and it is long and narrow, and the stones cause a great deal of discomfort on the way outside the body, in the urine stream.
In Males the stone has to travel through the penis, and is painful to pass because it is a longer trip for the stone to travel once the stone is passed out of the ureters, to the bladder, and through the urethra in the penis, to the outside of the body. Males have two ureters like females. However, the Male urinary tract is slightly different in that the stone(s) pass from the ureters, then to the bladder, then through the urethra (inside the penis), and it is long and narrow, and the stones cause a great deal of discomfort on the way outside the body, in the urine stream.
I am having my 2nd bout with Kidney stones, I am 36 years old, strong male. I have an extremely high threshold for pain ( ive broken finger playing football and, set them right there and kept playing). Kidney stone make me cry like a little girl scraping her knee.
I knew I was having one a week prior to to the pain, my pee was the color of Apple Juice (blood in urine). I was hoping that it was just a small one. My last one was 2-3 MM and passed in one day after my ER visit.
I had to go to the ER 2 days ago, I always drive myself ambo costs to much but if you cant stand the pain call an ambo to get seen right away, sat in waiting room an hour, got back they atleast gave me meds before blood work to take the edge off. I was released 4 hours later with a prescription of Diladid (sp. there)... went home, and had to go back within 6 hours of leaving, the pain was even more intense than it was when I went 12 hrs before. This time I was left in waiting room 3 hours before getting back (which was insane). This time they atleast gave me a cat scan. It is a 6-7MM stone. This time they gave me Oxycodone and Flomax ( to break it up). Today I am still feeling pain, but it has moved to the front of the belly which has less pain than in the flank/back area. Other than drinking ALOT of water, there is not much you can do but suck it up and take the pain meds they give you. I drink 4 bottles of water daily on a normal day, with kidney stones I will drink about 16 bottles a day (one an hour). Good luck with your future stones.
*** I had a hard time getting my narcotic prescriptions filled. There is some kind of DEA restriction on the pharmacy giving them out. MAKE SURE YOU GET YOUR MEDS FROM THE HOSPITAL PHARMACY YOU WENT TO!
I knew I was having one a week prior to to the pain, my pee was the color of Apple Juice (blood in urine). I was hoping that it was just a small one. My last one was 2-3 MM and passed in one day after my ER visit.
I had to go to the ER 2 days ago, I always drive myself ambo costs to much but if you cant stand the pain call an ambo to get seen right away, sat in waiting room an hour, got back they atleast gave me meds before blood work to take the edge off. I was released 4 hours later with a prescription of Diladid (sp. there)... went home, and had to go back within 6 hours of leaving, the pain was even more intense than it was when I went 12 hrs before. This time I was left in waiting room 3 hours before getting back (which was insane). This time they atleast gave me a cat scan. It is a 6-7MM stone. This time they gave me Oxycodone and Flomax ( to break it up). Today I am still feeling pain, but it has moved to the front of the belly which has less pain than in the flank/back area. Other than drinking ALOT of water, there is not much you can do but suck it up and take the pain meds they give you. I drink 4 bottles of water daily on a normal day, with kidney stones I will drink about 16 bottles a day (one an hour). Good luck with your future stones.
*** I had a hard time getting my narcotic prescriptions filled. There is some kind of DEA restriction on the pharmacy giving them out. MAKE SURE YOU GET YOUR MEDS FROM THE HOSPITAL PHARMACY YOU WENT TO!
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