How do you diagnose kidney stones?
One of the most common
presentations is the flank pain on one side. It sometimes radiates down
into the stomach, and it can actually radiate down into the genital
area. That type of pain is pretty commonly seen in stone patients.
Sometimes there's nausea and vomiting. Those type of symptoms are something that gives us a clue that this may be a stone.
The CAT scan is the gold
standard for imaging for kidney stones. That's usually the way to
diagnose it. You can't do it from a blood test or anything else.
Why do people say that they are so painful?
What it does is, it
blocks the flow of urine in the kidney, and it causes backup. And it's
an excruciating pain. A lot of people do describe it as worse than
childbirth.
When the system is
trying to push urine out, what happens is: your kidney and your ureter
-- they have this muscle propagation that goes down the kidney into the
ureter -- when it's trying to push and the stone is blocking it, you get
these intense pains. That's why we call it colicky, it comes and goes
and it's extremely painful and the main reason for the pain is the
backup of urine.
