Kidney Stone Pain ... Is It Really As Terrible As Everyone Suggests?

People who have experienced kidney stone pain speak almost reverently about the experience:

"Excruciating"

"I wanted to die"

"Absolutely the most horrible 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've had a kidney stone ...

"It was far worse than giving birth!"

Can kidney stone pain really be all that bad?

Fine, I can give you a definitive answer when I say ...

YES!

You see, I've had more kidney stones than I can remember over the last 20-plus years. I am a big, tough, ex-football player guy and many of the stones I have had have had me laying in a fetal position and whimpering like a baby. 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 evidence 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 providers and there are over 500,000 emergency visits due to kidney stones.

What Causes Kidney Stone Pain?

Strangely enough, physicians are not 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 assist regulate your important electrolyte levels. Urine moves from your kidney through narrow tubes referred to as ureters into your bladder, and then empties through a wider tube known as an uretha.

In some people, chemicals cyrstallize in the urine and form what is the beginning of a kidney stone. They are very small, but gradually grow over time. Most of the kidney stones, when they are small, actually pass out of the human body undetected through the ureter, bladder, and ethetha.

Troubles begin when these crystal stones grow larger. As long as they are in the kidney, they rarely cause problems.

But when then enter the ureter, that is when things can get nasty.

Typically, 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 like a barrier ... the kidney keeps pumping out urine, the urine gets blocked by the stone, and the kidney and ureter start to swell. It is this swelling that can cause this kind of excruciating pain.

Kidney Stone Shapes Once in the ureter, the muscles in the wall of the ureter try to squeeze the stone along it's method. Both the size and the shape of the stone affect how easily it moves along the ureter (I formerly had a 4mm "jagged" stone that ripped and tore its way down my ureter causing much bleeding and pain that was Much WORSE than a 10mm stone that was smooth and looked like a bullet).

(By the way, if you ever experience chills and fever throughout an episode, it might indicate an infection and you really, really need to contact a doctor immediately. You do not want to mess with an infection, especially a kidney infection.)

While the urine backup is what leads to most of the pain, it is also what can push the stone down and into the bladder and which usually stops the kidney stone pain.

If you're prone to kidney stone pain, you should be happy to learn there are natural methods that might help with the pain, help dissolve the stone, and help you pass it soon and fairy painlessly.

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