Pain Releaf before kidney stone surg.

[mattskramer]

I was diagnosed with 8.5mm kidney stone via C-T scan Monday morning. On Tuesday I had pre-op x-rays, blood work and urinalysis done. My Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL) won’t begin until Monday – 5 freakin’ days from today!!! In the mean time, I was prescribed Hydrocodone (Valium/Tylenol at 5mg/500mg per tablets). I’m to take 1 or 2 of those tablets every 4 to 6 hours for pain. My lower right flank pain feels like Mike Tyson trying to punch and claw his way out of my hip. DAM# it hurts. I’ve also seemed to have lost my appetite and lost some bowel movement times (I have not been doing “number 2” as often as I had a few days ago and I don’t know if that lack is related to the stone). I’ve been pushing 2.5 pills every 4 hours some times. I hope I don’t suffer overdose. I was told that I could get a stint. I turned it down. I don’t know what trouble, embarrassment, cost, nuisance, and pain it might cause versus the benefit. Sometimes I am a whisker’s width from deciding to go to Emergency Room. Yet, after I take (overtake) pain medicine, I fell okay for a few hours. Any advice?

 

[del]

I was diagnosed with 8.5mm kidney stone via C-T scan Monday morning. On Tuesday I had pre-op x-rays, blood work and urinalysis done. My Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL) won’t begin until Monday – 5 freakin’ days from today!!! In the mean time, I was prescribed Hydrocodone (Valium/Tylenol at 5mg/500mg per tablets). I’m to take 1 or 2 of those tablets every 4 to 6 hours for pain. My lower right flank pain feels like Mike Tyson trying to punch and claw his way out of my hip. DAM# it hurts. I’ve also seemed to have lost my appetite and lost some bowel movement times (I have not been doing “number 2” as often as I had a few days ago and I don’t know if that lack is related to the stone). I’ve been pushing 2.5 pills every 4 hours some times. I hope I don’t suffer overdose. I was told that I could get a stint. I turned it down. I don’t know what trouble, embarrassment, cost, nuisance, and pain it might cause versus the benefit. Sometimes I am a whisker’s width from deciding to go to Emergency Room. Yet, after I take (overtake) pain medicine, I fell okay for a few hours. Any advice?

call your PCP and go to the ER.

 

[strollingbones]

i bet they have your ass on vicodin.....that stuff sucks....for some it works for some it doesnt....you need to call your doc and get them to change the pain killer

 

[Valerie]

Hydrocodone is codeine and Tylenol. Codeine can actually make you constipated, so I wonder why they put you on that? Drink lots of water and lie flat on your back, that might help a little. Call your doctor.

What Are the Treatments?

If you've had a kidney stone once, you're at an increased risk for another one. A urologist is frequently involved in deciding whether you'll need an extensive medical evaluation, including testing the amounts of various minerals in your urine, to assess further risks of stone formation.

If your kidney stone is small, it may pass out of your body on its own, within a few days or weeks. Your doctor will most likely prescribe only plenty of water at first -- at least 3 quarts a day -- and a pain medication. A soak in a warm water bath or a hot-water bottle can also help ease the inevitable discomfort.

You may be asked to urinate through a strainer so the stone can be recovered and analyzed. Once the stone's composition is known, your doctor can prescribe medications or suggest dietary changes to help prevent another kidney stone. With calcium oxalate stones, your doctor may prescribe a thiazide diuretic, which prevents recurrences by decreasing the excretion of calcium in the urine.

If complications develop, such as an infection or total blockage of the ureter, the stone must be removed. Depending on its size, type, and location, the stone can be removed in one of several ways. It may be taken out either by conventional surgery or, more commonly, with a thin telescopic instrument.

If the stone is lodged in the kidney, you'll likely have an incision in your side so the surgeon can access the kidney. Lithotripsy, which uses high-energy shock waves to break up kidney stones without surgery, may be used to remove some kidney stones.

Understanding Kidney Stones -- Treatment

Kidney Stones - Medications

Medicine you can buy without a prescription, such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs), may relieve your pain. Your doctor can give you stronger pain medicine if needed. NSAIDs include aspirin and ibuprofen (such as Motrin and Advil).

Your doctor may prescribe medicine to help your body pass the stone. Calcium channel blockers and alpha-blockers have been shown to help kidney stones pass more quickly with very few side effects.11 Ask your doctor if one of these medicines can help you.

If you get more kidney stones despite drinking more fluids and making changes to your diet, your doctor may give you medicine to help dissolve your stones or to prevent new ones from forming. You may also receive prescription medicine if you have a disease that increases your risk of forming kidney stones. Which medicine you take depends on the type of stones you have.
Medication Choices
Medicine to prevent calcium stones

About 80% of kidney stones are calcium stones.1 Calcium stones cannot be dissolved by changing your diet or taking medicines. There are medicines that may keep calcium stones from getting bigger or may prevent new calcium stones from forming:

* Thiazides (such as hydrochlorothiazide, chlorthalidone) and potassium citrate (Urocit-K) are commonly used to prevent calcium stones.
* Orthophosphate (Neutra-Phos) is sometimes used. It has more side effects than thiazides or potassium citrate.

Medicine to prevent uric acid stones

About 5% to 10% of kidney stones are made of uric acid, a waste product that normally exits the body in the urine.1 Uric acid stones can sometimes be dissolved with medicine.

* Potassium citrate (Urocit-K) and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) prevent the urine from becoming too acidic, which helps prevent uric acid stones.
* Allopurinol (Lopurin, Zyloprim) makes it more difficult for your body to make uric acid.

Medicine to prevent cystine stones

Less than 1% of kidney stones are made of a chemical called cystine.1 Cystine stones are more likely to occur in families with a disease that results in too much cystine in the urine (cystinuria).

* Potassium citrate (Urocit-K) prevents the urine from becoming too acidic, which helps prevent cystine kidney stones from forming.
* Penicillamine (Cuprimine, Depen), tiopronin (Thiola), and captopril (Capoten) all help keep cystine dissolved in the urine, which makes cystine-type kidney stones less likely to form.

Medicine to prevent struvite stones

About 10% to 15% of kidney stones are struvite stones.1 They can also be called infection stones if they occur with kidney or urinary tract infections (UTIs). These types of kidney stones sometimes are also called staghorn calculi if they grow large enough.

* Urease inhibitors (Lithostat) are rarely used because of their side effects and poor results.

What To Think About

If you have uric acid stones or cystine stones and are taking medicine to prevent more stones from forming, you will most likely have to continue taking that medicine for the rest of your life.

Some struvite stones (staghorn calculi) form because of frequent kidney infections. If you have a struvite stone, you will most likely need antibiotics to cure the infection and help prevent new stones from forming, and you will most likely need surgery to remove the stone.

 

[Sarah G]

I was diagnosed with 8.5mm kidney stone via C-T scan Monday morning. On Tuesday I had pre-op x-rays, blood work and urinalysis done. My Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL) won’t begin until Monday – 5 freakin’ days from today!!! In the mean time, I was prescribed Hydrocodone (Valium/Tylenol at 5mg/500mg per tablets). I’m to take 1 or 2 of those tablets every 4 to 6 hours for pain. My lower right flank pain feels like Mike Tyson trying to punch and claw his way out of my hip. DAM# it hurts. I’ve also seemed to have lost my appetite and lost some bowel movement times (I have not been doing “number 2” as often as I had a few days ago and I don’t know if that lack is related to the stone). I’ve been pushing 2.5 pills every 4 hours some times. I hope I don’t suffer overdose. I was told that I could get a stint. I turned it down. I don’t know what trouble, embarrassment, cost, nuisance, and pain it might cause versus the benefit. Sometimes I am a whisker’s width from deciding to go to Emergency Room. Yet, after I take (overtake) pain medicine, I fell okay for a few hours. Any advice?

Tylenol has never worked for me. I had some awful tooth pain from a fracture in it and the only thing that worked for me was Advil.

 

[Amanda]

I doubt you could OD on that little amount even if you were taking 4-5 pills at a time, but you can get hooked very easily. I agree the constipation is prolly from the pills, they tend to dry people out. Call your doctor or go to the ER, life's too short to suffer needlessly.

 

[strollingbones]

drink beer....around here they tell you to try to pass the stone by drinking heavily....

 

[Emma]

If you can't control the pain by taking the medication as ordered, then you need to call your doc. Narcotics are constipating. The med contains tylenol, and the max dose (of tylenol) in 24 hours shouldn't exceed 4000 mg.

 

[Emma]

I was told that I could get a stint. I turned it down. I don’t know what trouble, embarrassment, cost, nuisance, and pain it might cause versus the benefit.

Your doc should have explained all of that to you. Since he obviously didn't, call him and ask.

A stent is to keep the opening of the ureter patent.

Ureteric stent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[mattskramer]

Thanks everyone. I got a powdered laxative and a more powerful anti-pain medicine (by prescription). I’m feeling quite a bit better. At least I’ll live another week. I’m still a bit nervous about having lithotripsy Monday. They said that I will be x-rayed during it and that I would be under anesthesia. Shucks. Without understating my idea too much, I thought that they would just dump you in a big vat of water and vibrate it really hard.

 

[Diuretic]

I had one in 1973, I still cringe when I think about it. I went to the emergency section at the hospital, the nice doctor gave me some painkillers and told me not to enjoy the pink, fluffy cotton wool feeling. I got admitted, it passed naturally. The day I got out I went on the booze with a bunch of mates to make sure I flushed out every last little grain of it (as if I ever needed an excuse).

I empathise with you matt, not that that helps of course, but the pain is blinding.

 

[Big Black Dog]

I've passed two kidney stones in my lifetime. Yes, Vicodin was a wonderful thing. I would take two, as directed, and I didn't have a clue as to what planet I was on. Drank lots of water to help flush it out and jumped up and down and screamed like I just won the lottery when it finally passed. I sometimes wish they would have done surgery to get them out but they weren't all that big according to the Urologists. However, I did learn one thing while passing kidney stones. If men were the ones that had the babies, no family would ever have more than one!

 

[Emma]

I had one in 1973, I still cringe when I think about it. I went to the emergency section at the hospital, the nice doctor gave me some painkillers and told me not to enjoy the pink, fluffy cotton wool feeling. I got admitted, it passed naturally. The day I got out I went on the booze with a bunch of mates to make sure I flushed out every last little grain of it (as if I ever needed an excuse).

I empathise with you matt, not that that helps of course, but the pain is blinding.

I had a huge one and no pain. 'Course, the kidney wasn't functioning any more (that's kinda how we figured that out lol). Doc didn't realize it at the time when he did the IVP. He just thought I was amazingly stoic

 

[Emma]

Thanks everyone. I got a powdered laxative and a more powerful anti-pain medicine (by prescription). I’m feeling quite a bit better. At least I’ll live another week. I’m still a bit nervous about having lithotripsy Monday. They said that I will be x-rayed during it and that I would be under anesthesia. Shucks. Without understating my idea too much, I thought that they would just dump you in a big vat of water and vibrate it really hard.

Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) for kidney stones

Photos:

 

[jillian]

I was diagnosed with 8.5mm kidney stone via C-T scan Monday morning. On Tuesday I had pre-op x-rays, blood work and urinalysis done. My Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL) won’t begin until Monday – 5 freakin’ days from today!!! In the mean time, I was prescribed Hydrocodone (Valium/Tylenol at 5mg/500mg per tablets). I’m to take 1 or 2 of those tablets every 4 to 6 hours for pain. My lower right flank pain feels like Mike Tyson trying to punch and claw his way out of my hip. DAM# it hurts. I’ve also seemed to have lost my appetite and lost some bowel movement times (I have not been doing “number 2” as often as I had a few days ago and I don’t know if that lack is related to the stone). I’ve been pushing 2.5 pills every 4 hours some times. I hope I don’t suffer overdose. I was told that I could get a stint. I turned it down. I don’t know what trouble, embarrassment, cost, nuisance, and pain it might cause versus the benefit. Sometimes I am a whisker’s width from deciding to go to Emergency Room. Yet, after I take (overtake) pain medicine, I fell okay for a few hours. Any advice?

Glad you got the meds changed and that you're feeling a bit better.

 

[Emma]

No offense, matt, but it sounds like your doc didn't do a very good job of explaining things to you (re: the stent and ESWL).

 

[Liability]

They hurt like HELL.

The only worse pain I have had was when my gall bladder almost exploded inside me. (And I live in constant pain for other reasons, so on the pain scale I think that judgment is pretty right much on the money.)

The advice you got right off the bat from del was, imho, the best advice and I don't think any rational purpose is served by waiting.

Call your doctor and get some immediate assistance.

 

[Emma]

Matt, I hope all goes well for you today.

 

[strollingbones]

gee matt...hope all goes well too....i was with you on the vat of water thing..guess not ...

whatever they are doing...it beats the basket up the urthea