@LeastComplicated: Your daughter’s condition seems pretty serious. Many make trips to the ER for kidney stone related pain & nausea.
I am NOT a medical professional, but I do know that you should ask your daughter’s doctor about Flomax (generic is Tamsulosin) for increased urination (along with healthy intake of water) & an anti-nausea medicine called Ondansetron–which is a tablet that dissolves under one’s tongue for quick relief from nausea. These are both prescription medicines. Again, I am NOT a medical professional. I point out these medicines as something to discuss with your daughter’s doctor.
Kidney pain will drop you to your knee. It is the worse pain I’ve ever felt in my life. So bad you just want to be knocked unconscious with the nearest available narcotic. Waaay more pain than giving birth without any pain killers which for mefelt like a walk in the park after passing kidney stones for years. Tell your D to keep pushing the fluids and best of luck to her, I’m really happy for her that her pain is not unbearable.
I was having pain and vomiting for years (8th grade to sophomore year) that I initially wrote off as menstrual cramps and finally discovered a stone lodged in my ureter that was causing hydronephrosis and blockages in one of my kidneys. It’s a good thing that you found the stone so fast because doctors were not able to locate my stone until it was extracted. I don’t think I had the same procedure as your daughter, but be sure you monitor her health after as I ended up getting a pretty bad UTI after the stent placement
@Publisher “Your daughter’s condition seems pretty serious. Many make trips to the ER for kidney stone related pain & nausea”
Yes, that is how she was diagnosed last Wed. night/early Thursday morning. We were in the ER from 11pm to 3:30am. The ER doc prescribed her the nausea medication that you recommended and she’s taken it twice in the past week. We’ve been in touch with the urologist, his staff, and the hospital staff every day this week (two Dr’s appts this week). She’s had a CT scan, an X-ray, and two urinalyses (the last one two days ago). Both the ER and the urologist told us to go to the ER again if she had unbearable pain or any other complication like fever, or inability to urinate.
I’ll ask about the Flomax, but my thought is that they’ve come to the conclusion that the stone is not going to pass on it’s own. The instructions she’s been given re fluids is to drink enough to keep her urine pale yellow - but she hasn’t been told to increase fluid intake. I’m not a doctor either, but I’m betting that’s to keep the hydronephrosis in check. I’ve read that there’s also a med that relaxes the walls of the ureter, but the urologist didn’t prescribe that either. I’ll ask about both tomorrow as she has an appt in the am to discuss the surgery instructions and for a general check up. Then a call with the hospital staff on Monday to probably discuss surgery instructions again, and finally the surgery at 7am Tuesday. Since she’ll definitely be passing the pieces of the stone after the procedure, if it goes as planned, perhaps they’ll prescribe the Flomax post procedure?
@ahardboiledegg That’s terrible! I can’t imagine a kid having to deal with that for years! I’ll be sure to monitor her afterwords, and fortunately, she’s good about telling me when she’s not feeling well.
Fluid build-up can be irritation. (Same as any swelling with injury.) So just situational. If they called it mild, I’d guess that what they think, not a near blockage. There are also labs that can be affected by the irritation. I’d guess the urinalyses were to rule out infection, which can happen with blockage and be quite serious. The other warning sign is if you stop peeing or the volume reduces drastically.
But I think you’ve googled a lot of the info. I wasn’t prescribed Flomax at any point.
Many of us have kidney stones that go undetected until they cause trouble. Sometimes, the small ones are just monitored, not considered a problem yet. But 5 (or 4-5) is really the upper limit one can naturally pass, afaik. You’ll want to ask when she comes back for a regular check-up. I go about every 6-12 months.
Not much to add, EXCEPT … I had a 2nd kidney stone (so I knew what it was) when I was 9 months pregnant. This was a very painful stone. They induced labor so I had pain from both at the same time! I passed stone during labor. Best part about it was that I got an amazing baby boy out of the deal!
Drinking lots of water is not a cure to prevent all kidney stones. It depends on the type of stone and without testing one that has passed, you can’t know. Sometimes there is no particular reason why someone forms stones. I, unfortunately, am in that category. I drink more water daily than anyone I know and I still form stones. And that childbirth comment isn’t only a common saying, it is absolutely true!
I have had kidney stones more than two dozen times, the first was when I was in college. I have passed them all with the exception of the first. I do know a couple of people who have had lithotripsy, with no issues. If her stone is that large and it’s already in her ureter, that is clearly the best option.
There is no way that anyone could write the SAT if they’re having kidney stone pain. That pain is completely debilitating and you can barely sit still, let alone take a test. It is impossible for anyone who hasn’t had an attack to understand what the relentless pain is like. Consider the absolute worst labor pains and multiply that by 10, 20, sometimes 100 times.
Oxycodone works but I rarely use it because it makes me feel so awful. Other medications that are often prescribed are Demerol, Tramadol or Toradol. An anti-nausea drug is also suggested. Not every drug works for everyone, nor even for every attack for the same person. I know when an attack is coming. Those twinges warn me that it’s likely to start soon. I never travel without my kidney stone meds along with me. Often a kidney infection or UTI accompanies a stone, and that can make things worse.
Sending good wishes for a successful procedure on Tuesday.
Agree that drinking lots of water does not prevent the formation of all kidney stones, but it does cause them to pass through one’s urine when small. This is a very important distinction brought to light by @alwaysamom in post #47.
Many people form & pass kidney stones without ever knowing that they had kidney stones. Water intake is the key.
P.S. But drinking an adequate amount of water may prevent the formation of kidney stones due to the constant cleansing & flushing of the kidneys. For one of average height & weight, six 8 ounce glasses of water per day is reasonable.
P.P.S. But I am NOT trained in medicine, so it is best to discuss this with one’s doctor.
Yeah, she did take it. She’s been symptom free for four days. If not for the crazy difficult reading section on the SAT, (confirmed by about 4,000 kids on Reddit) she’d be feeling great >:P .
Just two more days and she’ll have this problem behind her we hope.
The literature states 10, not just 6, of those 8 ounces glasses of water per day. But if less water yields consistently pale/clear urine it would work.
Update on my daughter. She had her procedure on Tuesday and I have to say that it has been very rough on her. She had no symptoms for five days before the procedure, but the recovery has been hard.
She vomited once in recovery, then they rushed to discharge her, vomited again on the way home, and about four more times that night. She couldn’t drink or eat anything and threw up her pain meds. The nausea meds, which dissolve under the tongue, didn’t work. She was in a lot of pain. I called the surgeon at 11pm and got a wishy washy response on what we should do, and he basically said use your best judgement about taking her to the ER. He said some people were just extra sensitive to the procedure and she might need to spend a day or two in the hospital if she couldn’t hold anything down.
We gave it another few hours and she managed to suck on some ice chips and Popsicles and slowly got better, but she still threw up several more times and probably consumed only about 500 calories with very little fluids in those first two days. Yesterday, three days later, was the first day she ate anything substantial and could drink decent quantities. If not for the fact that she was still urinating well (I don’t know where it was coming from, but the Dr. said they gave her lots of fluid during the surgery), I would have taken her back to the hospital. She’s very tiny and just doesn’t have much meat on her bones to store energy or fluids.
Today she seems to be feeling a lot better and has been eating and drinking well.
The weird thing is that the Dr. said that he felt they broke the stone up in to sand sized particles. She has only passed less than 30 particles, most of them very very tiny, but very sharp. About four are like course grains of sand and easy to see. I’d say that 99.9% still is in her ureter. The instructions said it could take 4-6 weeks for all the fragments to pass! Her urine is still a little bloody but not nearly as bad as it was right after the procedure.
All I can say is that I’m glad we got the procedure moved up as she definitely would not have been ready to go to school four days later. I also think she’s going to be drinking a LOT more water in the future. She doesn’t want to have to deal with this again.
So I’m currently in the ER with my DH who has an 8mm kidney stone! Remembering this thread and it’s been very helpful. He is in enormous pain and has been vomiting for a few days (we originally thought food poisoning).
Because it’s a holiday they are going to try to get him pain free and nausea free and send him home until next week when they can do a procedure.
Got the estimate for DH’s procedure. JUST THE HOSPITAL portion is $17,000. WTH?? I can’t wait to see the breakdown of cost. DH’s OOP maximum is $7,350, so I guess that’s what we’ll be paying. Ack.
@LeastComplicated --“She vomited once in recovery, then they rushed to discharge her, vomited again on the way home, and about four more times that night.”
What did they say at discharge? You say they rushed to discharge her. Did they give you any instructions on what to do if she had trouble?
Glad she’s feeling better now but it’s ridiculous to send people home before it’s time and it happens WAY too often. Glad you called the doctor and put him on notice.
