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Kidney Stone Pain ... Is It Really As Terrible As Everyone Suggests?
Those who have experienced kidney stone pain speak just about reverently about the experience:
"Excruciating"
"I wanted to die"
"Completely the most terrible thing that ever happened to me"
"It's like a knife being stabbed in your gut, and then twisted"
Then it the old standby, the one everyone's heard, emphatically stated by any mothers who've had a kidney stone ...
"It was a lot worse than giving birth!"
Can kidney stone pain actually be all that bad?
Fine, I can give you a definitive answer when I say ...
YES!
You see, I have had more kidney stones than I can remember over the past 20-plus years. I am a big, tough, ex-football player guy and lots 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 not anything new, as scientists have actually found indication of kidney stones in an Egyptian mummy more than 7,000 years old (I bet I know what killed the unlucky pharaoh!). Over 3 million people visit health care providers and there are over 500,000 emergency visits due to kidney stones.
What Leads to Kidney Stone Pain?
Strangely enough, physicians aren't yet certain what causes kidney stones, but know why they can cause such pain.
Your kidneys filter your blood, creates urine, remove waste from your body, and help control your significant electrolyte levels. Urine moves from your kidney through narrow tubes known 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's the beginning of a kidney stone. They 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.
Troubles begin when these crystal stones grow bigger. As long as they're in the kidney, they hardly ever cause problems.
But when then enter the ureter, that's when things can get painful.
Usually, you feel a very sudden and very sharp, cramping pain in your lower back and side close to 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 kidney and ureter start to swell. It is this swelling that can cause such excruciating pain.
Kidney Stone Shapes Once in the ureter, the muscular tissues in the wall of the ureter try to squeeze the stone along it's way. Both the size and the shape of the stone affect how effortlessly 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 Much WORSE than a 10mm stone that was smooth and seemed like a bullet).
(However, if you ever experience chills and fever throughout an episode, it might indicate an infection and you really, really need to contact a doctor without delay. You do not 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 generally stops the kidney stone pain.
If you are prone to kidney stone pain, you should be happy to learn there are natural ways that might help with the pain, help dissolve the stone, and help you pass it quickly and fairy painlessly.
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