Worse than Childbirth? Passing a Kidney Stone for the First Time

The burning in my urethra dissipated quickly thanks to the flash flood nature of my pee.

Since being diagnosed with a kidney stone, I was told to hydrate liberally. And being an overachiever, I found myself urinating in double digit numbers per day to try to Get. That. S**t. Out. But let's rewind a bit. Because peeing out the kidney stone is actually the easy part. The real pain starts before.

At 4:30 a.m., on Saturday, January 2nd, I woke up in discomfort. But the New Year's Day hangover was a thing of yesterday. Plus, wasn't 2021 supposed to be, like, totally awesome after we left 2020?

At first, my disorientation led me believe it was later in the morning, and that perhaps I was roused by the sound of family members bussing about. So, I rolled over and over, positively annoyed at my state of consciousness, trying to slip back into my dreams. But the discomfort only intensified. And within minutes, the pain grew so bad that I couldn't ignore it.

Immediately, I could tell that there was something different about this pain. It felt like menstrual cramps, bloating, sore ab muscles, and a kick in the side all in one. And then times ten. Unlike any of the above, I felt no relief from stretching, using the bathroom, or turning on my electric blanket as a pseudo-heating pad.

Some people describe the pain like a stabbing knife. My pain was less stabby so much as "lead fist-y," constantly punching my abdomen. But therein lay another clue: the pain was localized to the right side of my abdomen. I felt it in the front, around the same line of latitude as my belly button (the equator if you will), and it continued around my side and into my back, all on the right side exclusively. This was certainly unique.

As I began understanding this was no ordinary ache, I turned to my good friend, Google, for answers. The onset of chills and nausea begot action. I needed help. But I didn't want to cry "wolf" before forming a hypothesis of my own.

Given my age, a young 20-something woman, and my symptoms, my research brought about a litany of websites about appendicitis. Down the rabbit hole I went. After doomscrolling through WebMD for about ten minutes, I was convinced. And thoroughly horrified. I felt sure my appendix might burst at any second. I cried, somewhat out of pain, but mostly out of fear. So what did I do?

I sent my mom a text.

Yeah, that was a pretty futile move. Whether executed as a result of my generational training or sleep-deprived brain fog, the world may never know. But at now 4:51 a.m., I knew I'd be lucky to wake her with a phone call, let alone a text message.

So, feeling too uncomfortable to get out of bed, I called her. And the hero she is, she answered. I might mention now that I'm living at home, and that my mother was just in her bedroom downstairs...getting a call from her daughter...at 4:45 in the morning. Groggily, she answered, and when I explained the brief events of the past 15 minutes, she was convinced enough to make the trek upstairs and check me out.

Now, you all know the ending to this story - it's a kidney stone. But I didn't know that at the time. All I had was the possibility of appendicitis from Dr. Google, and years of shaking off sports injuries which made me in the habit of downplaying hurt. So this led to my other doctor, Dr. Mom, to give me the world's most reliable panacea: ibuprofen.

I took it reluctantly, worried that if I masked the pain with drugs, my appendix would burst and I wouldn't know. And so I turned back to trusty Dr. Google to confirm that I had indeed done the Wrong Thing by taking pain meds. Dr. Google confirmed. So, while the abdominal discomfort eased after a half hour, my anxiety shot up. I stared at the ceiling, knowing that I mostly likely signed my own death sentence and it was all my fault. Dramatic, right?

Unable to return to slumber, I called my doctor at 7 a.m., using the nifty after-hours service.

An operator listened to my predicament and told me the on-call physician would contact me ASAP. Ten minutes passed, then 20, then a half hour. My eyelids actually started growing heavy on account of waking up at 4:30. And just as I thought I might sleep again, my phone rang. I explained my predicament again. And how I'd taken ibuprofen which helped soothe the pain. He responded in a minimalist, I-can't-belive-someone-took-advantage-of-this-service-god-it's-so-early-I'm-on-vacation manner.

"If the pain comes back, go in."

Okay, cool. Yeah. For sure. That's what I was thinking.

Since he didn't seem super-duper concerned my appendix was bursting as we spoke, I drifted off. And when the meds began to wear off about four hours later, sure enough, the pain slowly returned.

Feeling confident that I was a shoe-in for emergency surgery, I decided to take advantage of being at home to shower while there were no extra holes in me. I took a dump in the privacy of my own bathroom. I also didn't eat anything or drink something other than water. And then I asked my mom to take me to the hospital.

The doctor and nurse poked at my abdomen, motions which actually did not elicit extra pain. Sign 1 that it was not appendicitis. They asked me about my bowel movements. I'd had a painless, fat one before arriving. Sign 2. Blood, urine, and CT tests were ordered.

Around 3 p.m. that day, the doctor came in and told me I had a kidney stone.

I nearly cried from relief of having a diagnosis. And from not having to undergo emergency surgery. And from the pain that I was still in.

The stone sized up at around 3 mm in diameter. By the time I started having pain that morning until the time of the CT scan, it had already traveled two-thirds of the way down my ureter. (Distinct from the urethra, the ureter is the tube that connects the kidney to the bladder. And the bladder is connected to the urethra through which you urinate.) Based on these measurements, the doctor predicted I would pass the stone within the next couple of days.

Which brings me back to my burning pee from the beginning of this story. After taking pain meds, a ureter relaxer called Flomax, and practically drowning myself from hydration, I passed the stone the next day at home. At the time, I didn't know it. I anticipated feeling the stone exit my body, but I just felt a general burning. Really, though, with the volume of liquid I was expelling at such unparalleled velocity, it's no surprise that the pain was transient and the stone scooted out without my knowledge.

(I don't know this girl in the photo, but I relate.)

Plus, the paper (yes, paper) funnel they gave me with mesh at the bottom broke. This funnel was supposed to strain my urine and catch the stone. But it tore. No suprise considering what happens to soggy paper. I felt seriously duped. Like, could nobody design a cheap, kidney stone catcher that wouldn't break from high impact urine?

So, is a kidney stone more painful than childbirth?

I've since learned that kidney stones can be much, much larger than the one that plagued me. So large, they often require other interventions to break them down or surgically retrieve them.

Talking to a nurse who commiserated with my experience, she told me she'd rather go through childbirth again for her three children than have another kidney stone. I was shook. (I have not gone through childbirth myself.) But I should note where our experiences diverged.

The nurse's stone was so large, they treated her with Shock Wave Lithotripsy (SWL) to break up the big stone into smaller ones so she could pass them. This resulted in bruising all on her back. And peeing out a bunch of little stones rather than one big one. I couldn't even imagine. While I've read that kidney stone size isn't necessarily directly proportional to pain, I am absolutely positive she had it worse than I did. If not, childbirth will be a piece of cake for me.

Since I have yet to spring a child from my loins, I cannot state point-blank that kidney stones are more or less painful. From my experience and learning from others' accounts, it seems to depend on the stone. I can only imagine that childbirth will hurt more than a 3 mm kidney stone, but I am confident that ones larger than 10 mm (5+ mm stones often require intervention to pass) could be equally or more painful.

I sure hope I don't have another to find out.