
Kidney Stones Are More Beautiful Than You Might Think - sohkamyung
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/health/kidney-stones-geology.html
======
kashyapc
They may be "beautiful" to look at through a microscope, but _goodness_ forbid
you _don 't_ want to "experience" one! (My experience was only a tiny stone 8
years ago, that was "resolved" by drinking litres of water. Still a goddamned
hell that was.)

~~~
gnulinux
I had 3 stones in my right salivary gland which I dropped when I was 12 or
something like that. My experience was: (1) since it was insanely painful and
I could feel it with my hand (just above my neck) I kept pushing it forward
and forward which made channels inside my right salivary gland to get larger
and it's still (after ~10 years) larger than my left gland. (2) My mom never
believed me that there is something there, he thought I'm just sick and that's
the lymph node. When I finally took the stone out of there with my own effort,
she was like "haha there is no way that came out of your mouth, that's
probably just leftover food in your mouth". Thankfully my doctor knew better.
(3) Every time the stone kept getting smaller (the first one was like
ginormous, the third one was barely visible) but I think the smaller the
stone, the sharper it gets and god that third one was so fucking painful.

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jmchu
If anyone today is struggling with kidney stones, I suggest trying a roller
coaster: [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/science/roller-coaster-
ki...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/science/roller-coaster-kidney-
stones.html)

~~~
gchokov
I really did get one out. Like 4-5mm big, after a roller-coaster. Sudden
movements tend to "unblock" stuck stones in the kidney.

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djaychela
Seeing plenty of comments on here about not wanting to experience a kidney
stone, and while I've not had one, I knew someone who did. He was pretty much
the 'hardest' guy I know - very manly, did lots of stuff like rally driving,
etc. He used to do motorbike racing, and in once race he fell off and his
fingers got caught between the chain and rear sprocket - leading to damage
which meant surgery and a permanently disfigured hand - but he still managed
to get back on the bike and finish the race. That's the kind of guy he was.

This man described passing a kidney stone as the 'worst pain imaginable', so I
can only imagine what I would think it was like... Since that day I've made
sure I drink plenty of water.

~~~
amelius
There's a home remedy (not sure if it works): add some baking soda to the
water; this will help dissolve the stones or prevent them from forming in the
first place. Of course, adding too much can cause other issues such as low
stomach acid (digestive) problems.

~~~
jbb67
While there are a few things that _might_ slow the formation a bit, there
isn't anything that will dissolve already formed stones of the most common
type (calcium oxolate). Some of the less common stone types like uric acid
stones do have possible treatments in some cases.

Just drinking a lot more water is the only treatment that really does help
slow or stop the formation for many people.

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narrator
Having had a kidney stone and having captured it for diagnosis in a piss
filter I can guarantee that they really aren't that interesting. Just looks
like a tiny little pebble you might find in your shoe. They also hurt. A LOT.
As in the kind of pain that made me think, "I am going to just keep yelling
until somebody does something to stop this pain."

Seriously, what is the point of this Times article anyway? It's like let's
write a big long article about something that means absolutely nothing to
anyone and is of zero practical importance except trying to reenforce the
dubious idea that good things come out of human suffering.

~~~
sohkamyung
The practical applications of it are explained in the article:

 _Doctors often base patient care plans upon the chemistry and molecular
components of a patient’s urine. But further research could allow doctors to
take advantage of the changing composition of kidney stones themselves,
boosting specific ingredients to dissolve the stones completely, without
excruciating passage or invasive procedures._

 _“Now that we know a process by which they’re growing, the question is, how
can we flip the switch the other way, and break the stones down?” said Dr.
Matlaga, the surgeon. “If you can intervene at a certain time during these
events, you might be able to manipulate the process by which the stones are
growing.”_

~~~
narrator
I'm not saying we shouldn't study why kidney stones occur and how to treat
them, but saying they are "beautiful" does not contribute to our scientific
understanding of them.

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dirtbox
I get one to two stones per year because my kidneys are over efficient. I'm
fairly used to it now and can usually pass one with minimal discomfort, but
every now and then it destroys me. The only beautiful thing about them is when
they exit.

~~~
gchokov
Can you please elaborate? I am 33, still getting those, precisely 12-18 months
apart. Left and right kidneys. My father has them too. I changed my lifestyle
a bit - gettnig mode vitamin d3 + vitamin k2 - supposedly that way you get the
calcium where it is supposed to be - in the bones and not in the kidneys. I am
pretty clean now, maybe for the first time in my life - regular check did not
show any stones. But interested in finding what exactly do you mean by over-
efficient. edits: Changed my age. Can't believe I was thinking 32, when I am
33 in fact. Duh.

~~~
nazri1
Someone I know swears by rowatinex
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/1431192](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/1431192)

I pray that I won’t ever need to consider taking it though (passed one stone
last year)

~~~
gchokov
I take this one as well. Makes you pee more often and has a good effect on me
in general! Thanks for sharing.

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thejacenxpress
Beautiful images. They use "A high-resolution method, called Airyscan super-
resolution microscopy"

I'm guessing this type of microscope:
[https://www.zeiss.com/microscopy/us/products/confocal-
micros...](https://www.zeiss.com/microscopy/us/products/confocal-
microscopes/lsm-880-with-airyscan-.html)

And I had never heard of the "Basic Principle of Airyscanning" which is pretty
neat: [https://www.zeiss.com/microscopy/us/products/confocal-
micros...](https://www.zeiss.com/microscopy/us/products/confocal-
microscopes/lsm-880-with-airyscan-/technology-lsm-880-with-
airyscan.html#principle)

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nocoder
They are beautiful outside me. When they were inside me they were very
painful. The feeling of passing them via urine is crazy pain worse then
getting kicked in the nuts.

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rubyfan
As a recent kidney stone sufferer I find it tremendously hard to agree with
this headline.

~~~
ggm
As a 15+ years since my last, I too struggle. I mean sure, calcifications are
cute. So is stone picked up on a beach. I'll take the beach stone please.

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southerndrift
If you are starting to get obsessed with those stones, you may want to watch
"The Wisdom of Crocodiles" [1]

[1]
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120894/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120894/)

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bencollier49
I guessing that these images are artificially coloured, given "nanometer-scale
auto fluorescence microscopy" as _one_ of the methods. Quite amazing none the
less.

~~~
saagarjha
Yup, the original paper
([https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-31890-9.pdf](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-31890-9.pdf))
seems to suggest this: “SRAF image composed of merged three pseudo-colored
red, green and blue (RGB) channels. Brightness and contrast of the RGB channel
intensities are adjusted to highlight the dark crystalline fabrics.“

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chrisbennet
I had kidney stones a couple of times and I was (unpleasantly) surprised to
find that you don’t pass out from the pain. I had always assumed that, given
enough pain I would just pass out.

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caffed
I’m waiting for the first hipster hand made kidney stone jewelry.

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saagarjha
Well, kidney stones are essentially mineral deposits, so I’m not surprised
they look so similar to crystalline deposits occurring in nature.

~~~
catacombs
Don't worry. The Times is ON IT.

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ergothus
I've had kidney stones a few times and found into online to be inadequate, so
here's my anecdotal summary:

There are 3 kinds of pain you can experience. From talking and reading,
everyone can have different experiences.

The first is when the stone is trying to exit your kidney. I've never been
stabbed, but "being stabbed in the kidney" is how I describe this. It is pain
you can't escape, but hydration helps. I didn't know you could vomit from
pain, but you can. At lower pain levels it is more of a painful twinge. This
pain can be constant or "wavy" \- I could be crippled for hours or perfectly
fine and then switch.

The second is while the stone works its way into the ureathra (I'm probably
getting all the locations wrong, but the symptoms are the point). This feels
like a UTI - a burning itch and the constant feeling (but not reality) of
having to urinate. Despite the low pain levels, I hated this phase the most.

The third is actually passing the stone. This can be a quick sharp pain, no
pain at all, or an agonizing drawn out experience. The stones vary in
sharpness (stones can have different textures, mine that look managed to catch
were clumps of crystal grains and some grit-like mortar, so degrees of
effective sharpness also vary. ) "coral" is not a bad description of the
material.

Size matters a lot - apparently stones are very normal and people pass tiny
ones all the time without knowing. Unfortunately, if one stuck around in the
kidneys to get larger and got loose (I have no real idea of what that means in
terms of tissues) it can hurt. More unfortunately, the resulting inflamation
can trigger more, so it not uncommon to get waves of stones. With a few days
or a couple of weeks in between.

Time to pass, indeed, time in each of the three stages can vary. I've been
fortunate that most of mine pass in a few days, with the worst taking 3 weeks
with an ultrasound attempt to break it up after the first 2 weeks.

I feel fortunate that, despite the intense kidney pain that not everyone gets,
I've had only minimal discomfort in actually passing the stones.

One important note: hydration is key to pain reduction. Chug water constantly.
My biggest issues were always 2-4 am, when I'd been asleep and not drinking
for a few hours - by the time the pain woke me up, I had a few bad hours ahead
of me.

There is a lot of folk medicine out there, as well as random advice about
diet, including from doctors, but I've not found any convincing nor consistent
recommendations beyond water hydration.

Medical treatment is normally to just hydrate and wait it out. Some docs will
want an xray to see if they can see if they can see it, but the resolution
isn't usually good enough for that to mean anything. A GOOD ct scan can see
it, but if are in the US don't bother until a specialist requests it or the
specialist will just want it done by them. If the stone is too large to pass
on it's own, or taking too long (your call, but probably at 2 weeks) they can
hit it with ultrasound to try and break it up into smaller pieces. They may
not get it though, so this can take more than one visit.

Lastly, I want to say that debates about pregnancy be kidney pain are stupid.
Every experience and every person is different, so let's just agree on "this
is big pain" and "big pain is bad" and leave it there. So much of what I found
online was just this debate over and over again.

~~~
stoneman24
My experience was as if I had a very heavy dense ball inside my lower back.
This caused waves of severe pain and the desire to go to the toilet (which did
not help the symptoms). The pain waves lasted a couple mins each but felt a
lot longer. The ambulance arrived and during the trip to the local hospital
(<10 mins), I emptied the entinox gas cylinder with only minor relief gained.
The A&E (ER) unit sorted it out with some heavy duty iv painkillers.

The ultrasonics can break the larger stones but this effects a certain volume.
So if you miss or the stone is smaller, then the ultrasonics can damage the
surrounding kidney tissue. I had other stones which were confirmed by X-ray
but too small to target effectively.

The advice I got from a number of medics, drink > 2 litres of liquid per day
(Any liquid). If the urine is still coloured after the first piss of the day,
then drink some more. Other than that, there was no confirmed list of things
to avoid.

The first time was the worse as you don’t know WTF is going on. After that, I
keep my hydration up, carry good painkillers and know when to get to hospital
if required.

I agree that the pain debate is pointless, we’re all different.

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muzani
They should be renamed to kidney pearls.

