1 cm Kidney Stone, not bothering me (yet)
Posted , 3 users are following.
Over the last 15 years, I have had three kidney stones which I have passed. Once each blocked the ureter, the pain was beyond horrible. I knew I had a fourth one and today I had an ultrasound, and it is now 1 cm in size. That is probably too big to pass. My doctor says it could move tonight, or never move. I currently have no symptoms. I am trying to decide if I should have lithotripsy to break it up before it causes me some serious pain and agony. Would you just leave it alone and hope it never bothers you, or try to have it broken up?
0 likes, 2 replies
Jaguar22 chris_64723
Posted
My doctor did mine with a laser during cystoscopy why wait until you have to be hooked up to morphine ?
Luna_Sea chris_64723
Posted
1cm is not passable, but if it's not bothering you, it can wait. The only thing is to not let it get too big. Continue to go in every three to four months to check it's growth rate because there comes a point where it's too big for non-cutting methods and you don't want to have to be cut open if you can avoid it. Some people experience chronic pain from kidney stones sitting in the kidney, but if you aren't having that issue and your urologist doesn't feel it requires immediate treatment, you can go either way. If it moves into the opening of your ureter (called an obstructive stone), you are going to need to get it out quickly. It won't be quite as painful as passing a stone, but you will feel pretty bad (in my case, it was intense cramping, back and abdomen pain.) I was bedridden during these events, but hydrocodone mostly alleviated this pain until I could have my lithotripsy.
One of the reasons you might consider treating it now is because the smaller it is, the better it is going to respond to lithotripsy. The bigger it is, the more lithotripsy treatments you might need. I'm currently holding a 5mm in my left kidney. It's currently not really bothering me other than a twinge now and again, like it has moved around. I go back in a few months to check its progress. I have the option of treating it at anytime, but I'm watching it at the moment. Technically it's a passable size, but my left kidney has a deeper than usual lower pole that prefers to hold my stones rather than letting them pass through.
I might also add...if you are in the United States (like myself), you can calmly wait until it becomes a problem and despite ridiculously expensive "out of pocket" healthcare, this is the one area where it benefits us...we get treatment almost on demand. If you are in a country with socialized healthcare (I say this since quite a few members on here are), it seems a struggle to get scheduled in for stone procedures and stent removal, so the quicker you get on the list, the better. I'm not saying the system in the US is better (I wish we had affordable healthcare), but I have noticed quite a few members that live abroad have had stents for an unfortunate amount of time (months) because of the backlog of kidney stone patients.
Also, if you are just getting shockwave lithotripsy, try to avoid getting a stent. It's usually not necessary for shockwave lithotripsy unless you have an unusually narrow ureter or it's swollen/inflamed, but occasionally one runs into urologists that place them no matter what the procedure.
Whichever way you decide to go, good luck!