I go in for my 5th lithotrypsy Tuesday. In all previous ones I have had a stint. While VERY painful during urinating, it has been survivable. With last one, however, I got a urinary tract infection that sent me to the emergency room on Christmas Eve.

I would like as many replies as possible for a survey on whether or not to allow the stint this time. Especially I would like to hear from those who have NOT allowed the stint. Also any problems from NOT allowing the stint (blockage, etc). Of course the doctors paint the worse case for you because its safer in their minds to go ahead and put it in, but they don't have to stand the pain. I am leaning towards 'no', but don't have a good idea of the pros and cons.

I have 2 stents right now. They are hell. I went through labor and delivery with no medication, I have passed dozens of stones, one 9mm, on 3 and 1/2 percosets and one shot of morphine at the hospital the one time I wound up in the emergency room. With the stents, I have downed 34 pain pills, Vicodin, Percoset and Oxybutinin, countless Advil and Morphine after the surgery, all in 4 days. The stents are the worst thing I could ever imagine. I would be afraid of kidney damage without them, but tomorrow I am going to do my best to get them removed.

Well next month{some time}I'm having a stent put in but I was asked for which type of anastetic I would prefer.I said to put me out completly while doing it.Anyways the stent will be in for 1 week,and then I have the lithotripsy 1 week later and I'll be up but feeling good.Then I'm to still have the stent in after that.All I know is I have an uncommon stone and it measures 1.3cm.Been going through this now for 11 months with no drugs.

I had my third lithotripsy on Jan. 17th 2003. My stone was just over 1 cm, so my urological surgeon insisted I have a stent put in right before the operation. In addition to a searing pain in my left kidney every time I urinated, most of the gravel post-op hadn't exited with the stent in place. After a week and a half, the stent was removed. I passed more than half of my stone fragments in four urinations. The stent was supposed to hold the kidney/ureter junction open to aid passing the larger pieces, but it had actually blocked them from passing out, causing a great deal of additional pain. For my two previous lithos, I didn't use a stent and never had any problems passing the gravel. Just be aware that stents(although highly in favor with your urologist) can cause blockage post-litho, and be incredibly painful in place.

My son had a stent with his first stone as it was 2cm and they felt lithotropsy couldn't break up stone well enough, so did open pyloplasty and he had stent w/it. His second stone we caught much earlier and was able to do litho w/no stent he passed fragments very well. He now has another stone so looks like litho again. His pediactric urologist may avoid putting in stent as he is fairly young and doesn't want to add anymore trauma. So I assume you could not use stent if no other situation would warrant using one.