Anybody else ever had a ureteral stent?

[Lyric]

I had an 11 mm stone lasered out last Friday and I have a stent in. It's rather miserable--commiseration would be appreciated. *sigh*

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Ah, Lyric, my husband had one of those.

And he too was miserable. The damn thing made him feel like he had to pee all the time.

I don't remember now if the discomfort went away while it was still in, but it definitely went away when the stent came out.

I hope you feel much better soon!

[Lyric]

2. Well I definitely have that symptom, among numerous others.

This thing is supposed to come out tomorrow and apparently I will be removing it myself. Joy. lol

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. You've got to be kidding! Remove it yourself???

Somehow I don't see that........ lol

Anyhow, however it comes out, be sure you will feel much better!

[Lyric]

7. Nope, not kidding.

It has a string that I'm supposed to use to pull it out. I'm tempted to go camp in the Urgent Care restroom and do it there, so if anything goes wrong, I can beg for help, lol.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. OK, I believe you!

The stent in my husband came out when the doc took it out. No strings that time.

I had never heard of removing it this way.

And good luck!

Your Urgent Care restroom idea has merit!

[RILib]

15. Urgent care restroom sounds like a good plan.

[kentauros]

5. I just now saw your post about "removing it yourself."

I was supposed to do that, too, but I couldn't. Kept clenching up, so I had the doctor do it. It was out when I wasn't thinking about it, so my muscles couldn't clamp down. I think that works better than doing it yourself.

Good luck however it works out for you

[Lyric]

6. I can handle the string part, but the pain part sucks.

I am one of those unlucky souls who has had continual kidney pain with it. Probably because there's still a 3 mm stone in there that hasn't passed yet. It does feel a bit better today, thankfully, but man...I am looking forward to actually getting a whole night's sleep! I haven't slept more than 3 hours at a time since last Thursday night.

I'm hopeful that the self-extraction process won't be too awful. My doc says it should be easy. I guess I'm just nervous about it.

[kentauros]

3. It's been over fifteen years now,

but it wasn't that bad. I don't recall it being uncomfortable, just weird, with that string hanging out

[EdwardSmith74]

9. Frankly that's something I've never considered. Catheters are bad enough.

[KamaAina]

10. Congratulations. You made Phrase of the Day!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018425241

[Lyric]

12. I'm all aflutter.

I'd like to thank the little people. And my urologist, of course, without whom this phrase would never have entered my vocabulary.

[MicaelS]

11. I had a Foley Catheter for 2 days after ..

Prostate surgery. The nurse showed me how to take it out. I thought it would hurt, but it came right out. Interesting not to have to run to the bathroom except to empty the urine bag. Was fascinating to see how much urine the human body actually makes.

Of course I stayed home the whole time.

[mockmonkey]

13. I had a different type for my stones

My stent had to be removed a different way as there was no string hanging out.

To retrieve the stent they had to go in with a contraption that I think is called a Claw Machine, one that you find in a grocery store except this one had a camera on the end. They tell me they put some numbing jell on the end of my penis, that's what they tell me.

It was training day so they had someone new learning the procedure. I think her previous experience was snaking out a drain. It was uncomfortable until they hit my sphincter, then it was the worst pain I had ever felt ever. The nurse there had the procedure done to himself once and had told me what was going to happen except for... the sphincter part. When I had yelled in agony he was like, "Oops, I forgot to mention that part."

I could have watched on the monitor what was going on but I was content to sit back with my eyes closed and white knuckle the armrests of the chair.

Pulling it out wasn't an issue at all.

They used a lot of saline during the procedure. Afterwords, I did nothing but pee and pee and pee it was ridiculous. I think I stopped at every restroom on each floor of the hospital and then had to run back in to go again when I reached the parking lot. I had a short 3 mile drive back to my home and I didn't think I was going to make that, but I did.



This website has some interesting comments, especially from a guy named Robert and his suggestions about removal.

http://www.kidneystoners.org/information/how-is-a-ureteral-stent-removed/

[Lyric]

14. Update: it just came out.

A bit early...hopefully that won't be a big deal. I accidentally yanked it this morning, and then I took a nap, and when I woke up and went to the bathroom, I could feel it starting to come out. So I just went ahead and pulled it the rest of the way out.

I'm hurting pretty substantially in my right kidney now, but I have Percocet. Hopefully I won't need to visit the ER over it. I've read that it can hurt pretty bad in the few hours afterward, so I'm prepared for that part.

Oh well. At least it wasn't hard to remove it!