Kidney Stone Pain ... Is It Really As Terrible As Everyone Claims?
People who have experienced kidney stone pain speak almost reverently about the experience:
"Excruciating"
"I wanted to die"
"Extremely the most terrible thing that ever happened to me"
"It's like a knife being stabbed in your gut, and then twisted"
And then the old standby, the one everyone's heard, emphatically stated by any mothers who have had a kidney stone ...
"It was a lot worse than giving birth!"
Can kidney stone pain really be all that bad?
Fine, I can give you a perfect answer when I say ...
YES!
You see, I've had more kidney stones than I can remember over the past 20-plus years. I am a big, tough, ex-football player guy and most of the stones I've had have had me laying in a fetal position and whimpering like a child. I would have done anything, and I mean anything, to get a little kidney stone pain relief.
Kidney stones are nothing new, as scientists have actually found sign of kidney stones in an Egyptian mummy more than 7,000 years old (I bet I know what killed the unfortunate pharaoh!). Over 3 million people visit health care vendors and there are over 500,000 emergency visits because of kidney stones.
What Leads to Kidney Stone Pain?
Surprisingly enough, physicians aren't even sure what leads to kidney stones, but know why they can cause such pain.
Your kidneys filter your blood, makes urine, remove waste from your body, and help regulate your crucial electrolyte levels. Urine moves from your kidney through narrow tubes referred to as ureters into your bladder, and then empties through a wider tube referred to an uretha.
In a few people, chemicals cyrstallize in the urine and form what's the beginning of a kidney stone. These are very small, but slightly grow with time. Most kidney stones, when they're small, in fact pass out of the human body undetected through the ureter, bladder, and ethetha.
Problems begin when these crystal stones grow larger. As long as they're in the kidney, they rarely cause problems.
But when then enter the ureter, that's when things can get painful.
Commonly, you feel a very quickly and very sharp, cramping pain in your lower back and side near your kidney or in the lower abdomen. This sudden pain is often accompanied by nausea, and vomiting.
Once in the ureter, the stone acts just like a dam ... the kidney keeps pumping out urine, the urine gets blocked by the stone, and the kidney and ureter begin to swell. It is this swelling that can cause such excruciating pain.
Kidney Stone Shapes Once in the ureter, the muscle tissue in the wall of the ureter attempt to squeeze the stone along its technique. Both the size and the shape of the stone affect how easily it moves along the ureter (I once had a 4mm "jagged" stone that ripped and tore its way down my ureter causing much bleeding and pain that was FAR WORSE than a 10mm stone that was smooth and looked like a bullet).
(However, if you ever experience chills and fever during an episode, it might indicate an infection and you really, really need to call a doctor without delay. You don't want to mess with an infection, particularly a kidney infection.)
While the urine backup is what causes most of the pain, it's also what can push the stone down and into the bladder and which typically stops the kidney stone pain.
If you are susceptible to kidney stone pain, you must be happy to learn there're natural methods that might help with the pain, help dissolve the stone, and help you pass it quickly and fairy painlessly.