Kidney stones lithotripsy

Actually, now that they do it with laser, it really is a very simple prosedure. Your mending time should be next to nothing. But, I am pretty sure that you willl at least have an overnight stay at the hospital hooked up to a urinary catheter to make sure there is no blood and the uring is running clear. As long is it is still a cranberry color, you chances of staying is good till its runs clear for a day. As far as the surgery goes "Thank goodness for laser" I am really not sure if they suction the pieces out or if you have to pass them yourself. In that case they will give you a little strainer to bring home with you to keep your eye on it if you do start to pass them. If you do go on vacation and doc allows it, you discomfort should be minimal.

Welcome to e-health
It depends on how high up in the kidney it is or if it is in your urinary tract already. I am not a Dr. but if it is still in the kidney it may take a while to work its way through. Good luck.

After having litho your doctor will (at least most doctors do) put a stent in to make the ease of passing the fragments of the stones a little easier, in either case drink plenty of fluids to pass the pieces of the stone.

Hope all goes well for your vacation.

Actually, the stone is still in my kidney. The doctor said to play the odds and wait to have lithotripsy after the vacation since the stone will most likely stay in the kidney and do nothing for the next month. It just makes me nervous and I was having trouble finding out any information regarding how likely it is that the stoen will just hang in there for a month and cause no issues.

The stone can move at anytime...I'm not trying to scare you but this can happen.

Best wishes...I wish you a healthy vacation.

After passing over 30 stones (beginning when I was 19) and undergoing both ureteroscopies and one lithotripsy I am not happy about EITHER option. I am, however, increasingly convinced my hypertension was the direct result of the lithotripsy I received (the hypertension was deemed ideopathic). After the litho I had a bruise on my back the size of a soccer ball. Even though I had been overweight for years my blood pressure had ALWAYS been 120/80 or better. A few months after the lithotripsy my BP started to rise and stayed at about 140/90 for several months before I started taking BP meds. Now, thanks in part to the BP meds (which include a diuretic), my stones seem to be much larger than when I first started passing them 30+ years ago. In the past couple of months my current set of stones, which I've had for over a year (5mm in the right kidney and 7mm in the left), have been REALLY acting up and a couple of weeks ago I had to switch to a triplicate dosage of Norco to cope with the pain. I have to schedule an ultrasound to determine where and how large these things are now and will then have to decide on a procedure. Given my concerns about lithotripsy I will most likely opt to go with a ureteroscopy (which I dislike because, at least the last time I had one about 4 years ago, they have to put you on a ventilator during the procedure). Once they have the scope in they can use a number of devices to remove or break up the stones. The worst part of waking up after the ureteroscopy is urinating which is an indescribably nasty experience however, given the mounting evidence of the link between lithos and hypertension, is looking like the wiser, even if more painful, option.

WH