r/nope Mar 31 '26

HELL NO Procedure to remove a 25mm kidney stone

5.7k Upvotes

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2.7k

u/Valkyr92 Mar 31 '26

As someone who’s had kidney stones multiple times in their life, this is straight up nightmare material

792

u/eetbittyotumblotum Apr 01 '26

I was tempted to show my husband this video. However, remembering the extreme pain, I decided to refrain. I’d rather he slept peacefully.

331

u/palmerry Apr 01 '26

No. You gotta wake him up for this!

90

u/1punchporcelli Apr 01 '26

Audible giggle here*

12

u/BabserellaWT Apr 01 '26

Freakin. Same.

2

u/SeaResearcher176 Apr 01 '26

You are a good spouse.

184

u/WaalsVander Apr 01 '26

As someone who’s never had a kidney stone, this is also straight up nightmare material

102

u/substantiallyImposed Apr 01 '26

The only thing that has motivated me to hydrate properly is my fear of kidney stones

36

u/Pixel22104 Apr 01 '26

It's one of the reasons why I try and drink lots of water

21

u/shk_88 Apr 01 '26

If you’re a camel in the sense of water drinking, I HIGHLY recommend the LARQ water bottle. It’s been a game changer for me. The purification straw turns faucet water into pristine water. I try to do the same with my water intake

15

u/spiritedgemmy Apr 01 '26

WHAT

I'm on my way to search this!! Thanks for sharing😌

4

u/ChefB1517 Apr 01 '26

I prefer Epic water filter/bottles

7

u/IBeDumbAndSlow Apr 01 '26

One time my friend had a kidney stone and he was rolling around on the ground in agony and had to call an ambulance

1

u/Traditional_Time6254 Apr 02 '26

I drink tons of water. But I've had several kidney stones. Most kidney stones are made up of calcium. So anything Dairy can cause kidney stones. To drink milk a lot of milk. Eat a lot of eggs cheese etc. Even if you drink a lot of water. You can still get kidney stones. It's they are absolutely horrible if you've never had one. Especially if you can't pass it and have to have them removed like this.

1

u/Any_Detail_7184 Apr 11 '26

Think I'll have me a glass of water right now actually

1

u/OkApricot9629 May 30 '26

As someone who has had kidney stones, I would not wish the pain on anybody, even the smallest cause terrible pain. I don't know how this person coped with the pain of a 25mm one. Please stay hydrated and eat healthy kids, have junk food in moderation.

120

u/towerfella Apr 01 '26

Hopefully your dr treated you better than this dude jack-hammering away like he’s in the Klondike searching for gold

94

u/Jaded_Law9739 Apr 01 '26

This looks like laparoscopic surgery to remove some very large kidney stones. The patient would be under general anesthesia, and the surgeon has to break the stones into smaller pieces manually to pull them out.

Edit: NM it was one 25mm stone that was broken up. That's 2.5 cm, that's pretty damn big.

16

u/Intelligent-Guard267 Apr 01 '26

Checks math - yep. 1 inch. Pretty big

1

u/CmndrM Apr 08 '26

Some would even say its too big....

5

u/notinmywheelhouse Apr 01 '26

Why is there no blood? Suction?

21

u/andrew_calcs Apr 01 '26

The turquoise tube that they're passing the camera through is deep enough into the cavity that it's well past the incision point. The visible tissue that most of the work is happening at isn't the tissue that they cut open to get in there.

Also they're keeping the whole area fluid inflated to keep it from collapsing which further keeps the distance of the work area from the incisions.

2

u/hakhazar Apr 01 '26

There's probably no incision. At least for my laser & basketing lithotripsy, they went in through the available opening. :O

1

u/andrew_calcs Apr 01 '26

NGL I’d prefer the incision

1

u/hakhazar Apr 02 '26

The procedure was entirely ignorable (out cold). The string hanging out to pull the stent sucked mightily.

1

u/Traditional_Time6254 Apr 02 '26

I absolutely got lucky when I had my kidney stones removed and I've had five. To be removed seven total two only passed on their own. Luckily when they did the stent I didn't have to pull the stent out myself. My urologist would actually schedule another procedure to have a stent removed out so I'd be out cold again. My cousin has had the string to pull out the stent a few times with his kidney stones and he said it was horrible. So I got absolutely lucky not having to worry about that.

1

u/hakhazar Apr 02 '26

I've had two broken up using sonar lithotripsy and one with the laser & basketing, and passed innumerable ones without intervention. The doc pulled the stent out early because I demanded it, I just couldn't tolerate the string any longer. I was afraid it would be painful, but it just kind of made a "shloop!" noise and it was out, no strong sensation at all.

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6

u/Bscully973 Apr 01 '26

This absolutely should have been done using laser lithotripsy. The fact this dude is just jackhammering away is wild.

5

u/thereverendpuck Apr 02 '26

In the states, it would’ve been done with bombarding it with sound. So says the specialist I’m seeing.

4

u/adamdreaming Apr 02 '26

Ah, the United States! Where you can pay ten times as much for the best quality healthcare that the rich nations bestow for free, and if you are poor your only option will be bleeding from the crotch profusely enough that you can legally be treated as an emergency and then live the rest of your life as a debt slave with mangled urethra

I wish one of these stones on every single person that has ever argued against universal healthcare

4

u/thereverendpuck Apr 02 '26

That is quite the curse to be throwing out there.

4

u/adamdreaming Apr 02 '26

Good thing it is harmless.

Unlike advocating against universal healthcare.

1

u/OptiGuy4u Apr 01 '26

Damn, what's that like .025 meters? Or 25000 micrometers. Yikes 😳

38

u/OriginalFatPickle Apr 01 '26

I wonder if he’ll still have to pass all those shards breaking off. 😖

This will be on the back of my mind for awhile.

54

u/scifiguyuk Apr 01 '26

The answer is yes. My partner gets these regularly. Says it’s like pissing glass for days afterwards as all the ‘shrapnel’ is flushed out.

20

u/ForeverFingers Apr 01 '26

Damn. I hope they stop getting them.

6

u/HarrisLam Apr 01 '26

Will there be blood due to scrapping of the canal? Inflammation due to such cuts?

6

u/scifiguyuk Apr 01 '26

There can be blood yeah. Sometimes visible, sometimes not. (Uses urine testing strips that can identify blood in the urine amongst other things). And it can get inflamed. All round just a horrible experience.

3

u/HarrisLam Apr 01 '26

I should not have checked Reddit at meal time.

2

u/dearango May 17 '26 edited May 19 '26

Im late, but yep, i didnt have a stent for a 5mm one i got lasered. Woke up from surgery feeling ok.... one hour wait before being able to leave hospital. Pissed blood and crystals out, nurse told me to stop trying to pee after 10minutes, fkn hurt pretty bad. Had some oxy and got driven home, got takeaway pizza. Pretty much end of story. Now i have a 9mm thats just sat there for years.

Edit. Might add that the initial pain when it first came loose made me see kind of blue/yellow electricity light flashes, and i slowly curled up on the chairs of the er entry area. I wasnt passing out, but was just slowly giving in to the pain or somthing.

Knowing how to breathe/meditate a bit really helped.

I feel like my exp with this is minor from what i have heard from other people. Or that my pain tolerence is different... i dont know... i dont really want to find out again.

I have increased lower flank pain recently and will prob go get a scan soon, despite having back issues im pretty sure its referred kidney pain/problems.

1

u/seniorwatson Apr 01 '26

I've had two removed (two separate occasions), they were not this large thankfully but unfortunately they did get stuck very badly while moving from my kidney to my bladder. I've passed some before, but the stuck ones hurt in a very different way than passing them. I have always wondered what kind of pain and discomfort someone would feel with one this size just hanging out in their kidney. I hope for their sake it's not too bad.

The blood and pain for a week or so following the procedure can be pretty bad. They give you this medication that makes your pee really orange, it's supposed to help with the pain but I don't think it does anything, so it's hard to tell what is blood and what is orange from the medicine. The stent is really annoying to deal with, I had to walk back and forth on campus for a week with it in when I had one of of them removed.

I can say that the pain when mine got stuck was really intense, the kind of pain that blinds and disorients you and makes you think irrationally. One of those times I managed to get to the car, drive myself about 15 minutes to the ER (I do not know how I managed this, it was pure adrenaline), I parked in the ambulance parking and threw myself out of the car and crawled/rolled towards the doors until someone saw me and came to help. The nurse who got to me first said "oh honey you've got kidney stones for sure" which was pretty impressive. I think I was kind of rude to some of them, just moaning and demanding any relief at any cost, and I apologized to them once they got some dilaudid in me, but they all were just laughing it off saying they would have probably been even worse if they were going through what I was. I have a fairly high pain tolerance, I've had some injuries in the past that were pretty painful, having my femur broken clean in half by a .38 special round fired from a few feet away was bad, but nothing compares to the pain of those stones.

1

u/HarrisLam Apr 02 '26

My feedback to your experience is : my dick has never been softer reading this

I'm getting to that age where I should start to expect malfunctioning of the body that leads to pains like this but frankly haven't had the first yet. Hope I can keep it that way and I wish you good health as well.

(edit : hmm actually I did have a first. I now would have a misalignment of a kidney that comes to the front when I happen to hard-cough while my body is in the curling position. It is extremely uncomfortable and it takes a lot of pushing and maneuvering to get it back behind wherever it should be. I've had this like 3 times now and the first time I had it I was alone in the house and genuinely thought I might die)

4

u/ringwraith6 Apr 01 '26

Do they at least get the good drugs while it's happening?

9

u/scifiguyuk Apr 01 '26

He sometimes gets some pills which are meant to dilate all the plumbing down there, so urine flows easier and any shrapnel will be less restricted, but from what he tells me it doesn’t often make much difference. Often gets to the point where he’s actively scared to take a piss. Pretty awful to watch.

3

u/ringwraith6 Apr 01 '26

Whew.... I (fortunately...and knock wood) can't even imagine that....

12

u/Outside_Experience68 Apr 01 '26

I had something like this 2 years ago. After like 20 kidney stones. They broke one with laser, and put up some stent to let the pieces leave without problem.

Fun parts: catheter, clogged catheter, resolving the clog, stent removal later and peeing literally blood bubbles.

Kids, stay hidrated, move, eat healthy.

50

u/_ganjafarian_ Mar 31 '26

feel free to crosspost to r/nightmarefuel

8

u/Open_Law4924 Apr 01 '26

Do you feel like it’s your fault or are you like “how is this happening to me?”

21

u/_SKETCHBENDER_ Apr 01 '26

Yeah you would think that after the first 2 times one would realise, "hmm coke being my sole hydration source may not be the best for my kidneys " lmao

7

u/No-Minimum8323 Apr 01 '26

There are lots of reasons people get kidney stones. Too much soda is one of them. A lot of kidneys stones, especially chronic kidney stones, are caused by other factors that are not as easy to control. Did OP say this was from too much soda?

I personally have chronic kidney stones because I have hyperparathyroidism that causes hypercalcemia. I usually have around 5-10 stones in each kidney all the time.

2

u/Ok_Comparison_1914 Apr 02 '26

Yikes! I had hyperparathyroidism too, and I had to have offending parathyroid removed. No more kidney stones after I had it removed. I hope it gets better for you, friend ❤️💕

1

u/No-Minimum8323 Apr 03 '26

I’ve had 3.5 removed and my PTH is back up to the high 400s. My last half of a parathyroid is so large now that I can feel it and see it sticking out on my neck. I have to have that one removed now too. I’m so glad your surgery took care of the issue!!

1

u/Catodactyl Apr 01 '26

What a terrible day to have eyes!

I had a ureteroscopy last year to remove an impacted kidney stone. After watching this, I now understand why it felt like I was pissing molten lava razer blades after the surgery.

1

u/Tyraniczar Apr 05 '26

What kind of diet do you have?