Female here. I'd like to give an account of my recent experience with a kidney stone and its aftermath to offer anyone looking for information on a ureteroscopy. This is only my experience. Your mileage may vary.
History: I had a kidney stone in my thirties that passed on its own after a couple weeks of crampiness, nausea, then severe pain for several days. Fast forward decades later to a month ago when I got my second stone.
--Felt crampiness and queasiness for a couple days, which I attributed to some food I ate. It went away, and I forgot about
it.
--More severe crampiness recurred a week later accompanied by e a lot of blood in my urine. I felt kind of lousy, but I didn't have the truly awful and more typical kidney stone agony. I went to an urgent care center.
--The local urgent care center told me to go to the ER, which I did. They gave me a CT scan, and told me I had a 5mm stone stuck in the juncture of my ureter and kidney. It was causing an infection. I went on Flomax and a 10 day course of Bactrim. I still did not have the nightmarish pain of my first stone. The antibiotics cleared up the crampiness of my massive UTI the stone was causing.
--My urologist gave me two weeks to try and pass the stone but booked ureteroscopy surgery for me anyway if I couldn't pass the stone. I couldn't pass it despite Flomax, 3 daily liters of water consumed, jumping up and down, sipping lemon juice, hot baths, a huge massager vibrating machine I bought at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Two days before the scheduled surgery, an ultrasound show the stone hadn't budged.
--Got the ureteroscopy after the two weeks. My urologist put in a stent (no string) for two weeks. (Some people only get a stent for a week, but the urologist said my ureter was very small and needed more healing time.) He gave me prescript
ions for Pyridium for pain and Hydrocodone and two days of Cipro. I was tired and sore after the surgery, and it hurt to pee the first couple times, but I didn't need the Hydrocodone since the pain was bearable. Plus I didn't want to throw up the Cipro I needed to take. I also didn't want to become constipated for fear of disturbing the stent.
--The day after the surgery I took it easy. I basically had no pain, just fatigue. This was true for the two weeks the stent was in. (I read, and the urology office confirmed, that people who have some real pain due to the stent often feel a great deal of pain when it's removed, and are more likely to have complications. In fact, someone on this board has recently described her awful experience.) I was just darn lucky.
--The urologist took the stent out at his office after the assistant prepped the area with lidocaine to numb it. There was a noticeable tug, but no real pain. Four days have passed since the stent came out. I've been walking and biking. Voiding is not a problem at all.
Hopefully anyone who reads this will have the same experience. My urologist said this kind of "painless stone" that just sits there can be dangerous because it is still infecting the urinary system. The stone needs to come out one way or the other before it causes kidney damage.
Here are some links that I found useful:
GOOD DEscript
ION OF URETEROSCOPY:
http://urology.ufl.edu/patient-care/stone-disease/procedures/ureteroscopy-and-laser-lithotripsy/
2 WEEK STENT INFO: http://urology.osu.edu/22746.cfm
http://ask.metafilter.com/166949/Uretral-Stent-Removal
https://www.kaahe.org/health/en/15415-ureteroscopy-with-laser-lithotripsy/all.html
http://www.urologyspecialistskc.com/sites/default/files/Stent%20
Instructions%20
and%20
FAQ.pdf
Prior to removing your urinary stent, several things can be done to improve your comfort during and after the removal process. First, we recommend taking 500 mg of Naprosyn (naproxen) approximately 90 minutes prior to removing the stent. Second, consider taking one or two of your narcotic pain medications (Vicodin,etc) at the same time. Third, limit the amount of fluid you consume for the first six hours after stent removal. Please do not dehydrate yourself, but refrain from consuming unusually large amounts of fluid, especially if you start to experience pain in your back.
Post Edited (spouse21) : 3/13/2016 3:36:09 PM (GMT-6)