I have had to suffer kidney stones too many times to remember how many. I think about seven, my last was last year with no medical intervention. It passed that time, but not without a lot of discomfort, bloody urine, and outright horrible pain. Ibuprofen was my friend to the tune of hundreds of mg per day, all I could afford at the time.
I have had lithotripsy once and LASER once. Lithotripsy is easy-peasy; LASER not so much. The difference (AFAIK) is that lithotripsy works before the stone enters the ureter, the tube between the kidney and the bladder.
Another thing. Kidney stones can be very difficult to treat. They don't always show up on diagnostics and unless they can be found, an appropriate treatment cannot be prescribed.
What I've found out about this...
Vitamin C can be a catalyst for generating stones. Avoid vitamin C supplementation at all costs. I attribute one particularly bad kidney stone attack to my supplementing with Vitamin C (the one fixed by lithotripsy -- the stone was too big to enter the ureter). When my cousin showed me a paper connecting the two, I stopped taking vitamins all together. You don't need them anyway, if you eat a well balanced diet.
Listen to the urologist!!! He or she will undoubtedly prescribe diet restrictions which should be taken seriously. No, kidney stones won't kill you. But damn! Sometimes the pain is so bad that one wished one could just end it all. Following the rules might not stop the stones, but it's a whole lot better if they're small and can be passed without intervention, albeit with some pain.
And another thing. Astronauts have high frequency of kidney stones due to living in micro-gravity environments. Calcium isn't needed to build up bones, so it leeches into the kidneys.
I know. Too much information. But I've had over forty years of kidney stones. I thought I'd share what I've learned.
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