Kidney stones are solid little rocks that are formed in your kidney. The most common causes are dehydration combined with a diet heavy in urates, oxalates, phosphates or carbonates, although they can also be caused by some forms of bacterial infection. Parents who have had kidney stones often pass this amazing ability on to their offspring.

THANKS DAD!

The formation of a kidney stone is not inherently painful, in fact, usually one does not even know it's happening. Only when said kidney stone decides to travel down the ureter do you become VERY AWARE of its presence, because you will immediately WANT TO DIE.

Kidney stone pain is primarily caused by the scraping of the ureter by the stone as it very slowly moves its way through your body. The stone can move either up or down, and unless it continues on its downward journey, it's going to be there for quite a while. The resulting pain has been described as the worst that has ever been experienced by man, and is usually generalized near your side and back. My mother's friend, who is also a mother of 2 described the process of passing a kidney stone as exponentially more painful than the process of childbirth.

Because of the stone scraping against the ureter walls, when a kidney stone is present, urine will usually have traces of blood in it, or could quite possibly be almost all blood.

Another side effect of kidney stones is horrible nausea combined with profuse and frequent vomiting. As the stone travels down (or up) your ureter, it makes the ureter vibrate in such a way as to produce instant nausea and horrible projectile vomiting, no matter what type of food you may have consumed at the time, you're going to see it again. Say hello to Mr. Bile for me, too, if you'd be so kind.

If you are sure that you have kidney stones, your primary care doctor for the ailment will most likely be a urologist.

When you arrive at the urologist, the waiting room will be filled with predominantly old men who most likely have penis problems. They, in turn, will probably see you, and, will assume that you, also, have penis problems.

Usually, a urologist can't really do anything for you except send you off to other places. Usually, they'll send you off to the imaging place to get frequent x-rays and to endure many other forms of torture that involve not eating for a day, and then injecting you with low-level radioactive fluid to take x-ray pictures of your glowing insides.

Once you do this, you bring these pictures back to the Urologist, and he or she will tell you that you indeed, do have a kidney stone. You, your insurance company, or some combination thereof will pay several hundred dollars to learn of this knowledge, with the only problem being that YOU ALREADY KNEW THIS FACT BEFORE SPENDING SEVERAL HUNDRED DOLLARS AND MAKING SEVERAL DOCTOR'S APPOINTMENTS.

If they see that the kidney stone is in a proper place, they may offer you a form of treatment that doesn't really sound appealing at all.

One method of destroying a kidney stone is shockwave therapy. Basically the process consists of surgeon aiming an instrument at your side and blasting it with big shockwave vibrations in order to smash the stone. This usually involves local anesthetic and a hospital, and is the better of the two common procedures used.

The second method is horrible, and some sort of masochist must have made it up for fun on his lunch hour or something.

In the second method, you are put under general anesthetic, at which point they take a very long stretched out hanger like device and jam it into your urethra like a pipe snake. Next, they wiggle it all the way through all of your internal tubing until the kidney stone is reached, and then yank it out. You are under general anesthetic, so you will most likely not feel the brunt of the pain, but I've been told by the Urologist that everything hurts quite a bit when you wake up.

But at this point, it's not over. Apparently, when you stick a hanger like device into the urethra, the urethra reacts badly and decides to close up as to never be violated again. Your urethra is smart, much smarter than you in fact. This is very very bad, because, hey, you need it for stuff. So, the only way to prevent this from happening is to insert a straight plastic tube into the back of your urethra to prevent it from closing and to keep it functioning. THEN YOU GO HOME FOR A WEEK.

You go home with the tube in! YOU HAVE A BIG PLASTIC TUBE IN YOUR URETHRA! You have to walk around with a big plastic tube in your urethra! You have to sit down with a big plastic tube in your urethra!

If someone asks you what is wrong, you can say, I HAVE A BIG PLASTIC TUBE IN MY URETHRA!

If everyone on earth spontaeously dies, you will still have A BIG PLASTIC TUBE IN YOUR URETHRA, and no way to get it out.

It's plastic! It's a tube! It's in your urethra!

That can't possibly be good on any level.

The doctor will then reassure you that you may feel some discomfort or pain, but also that many people have gotten along nicely for the week without any discomfort or pain whatsoever. THESE PEOPLE ARE INSANE. You will not be the one without the discomfort, you will be the one with the horrible, unending, tube-caused urethra pain. They expect you to walk around, and act casual! With the tube! in the! and the urethra! and clowns! space monkey! SWEET LORD ALMIGHTY.

Then a week later, they put you under local anesthetic and take it back out.

Well, nevermind that, who the hell becomes a Urologist anyway? You have to look at wangs all day. ALL DAY! Every day! Old men's penises day in and day out! You have to engage in penis banter possibly every weekday with your patients. You have to read up about penises at least once a week to stay current with today's penises and penis related technologies. Even for homosexuals, this can't possibly be fun.

You're telling me that these people slaved through several years of medical school, only to intern at hospitals for a couple of more free years, only to end up in a private practice that has a big picture of a wang on the wall, cut in half to display all the internal working parts? WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? Do they have friends? I mean, what the fuck?

Hmm. I think that's it. Here's a quick synopsis of the symptoms, in case you think you may have what is being described :

Of course, if you are a woman you are probably not going to be going to the urologist -- I'm not exactly certain, but chances are you will be going to the gynecologist. Kidney stones occur much less frequently in women, so it may never come up.

Also, you could have guessed, but I have a great deal of experience with kidney stones, and god damn, I'm only 22. I've had 6 so far -- the first one when I was 17. So yes, it doesn't just happen to old people.

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