STones
Actually I just passed my third stone last week. It was a 5.7mm stone that resembled a Rolley Polley covered in sand. My pain began with symptoms matching that of Gall Stones (upper front/right abdomen); however, the pain soon migrated to lower/right back. This is called collateral pains. It is hereditary for me from my Dad's side of the family.
Best way I describe it is, once the stone is actually out of the kidney and on its way to the bladder - it feels as if someone is twisting a knife in your back on which ever side is experiencing the blockage. There is NO position that will alleviate the pain and it is constant and could cause nausea and/or vomiting. Essentially, your kidney is poisoning itself by attempting to cleanse your urine; however, it is only getting backed up because it is unable to pass the excess onto your bladder. At this time you will experience a bit of blood exiting the body periodically. If the stone is too large to make the exit from the kidney, it can block passage and cause extreme infection which could cause you to go "septic" which is when the infection is passed into the bloodstream and then that can cause for your system to form a strain of blood disease which could cause death if not treated heavily with anti-biotics.
Additionally, the majority of your pain you are experiencing is NOT from the stone itself. Actually, it is you testicles that are causing you a great deal of pain. As your body experiences more pain your blood pressure lowers and your body temperature drops. This causes for your testicles to rise close to the body in order to maintain a temperature in order to incubate the sperm contained. In order to relieve the majority of your pain - draw a HOT bath (as hot as you can possibly stand) and sit in it. You will be quite amazed just how fast your lower abdomen pain will be almost instantly relieved.
At this time, you need to be taking in an abnormal amount of water. This will assist in not only providing for the back pressure to push the stone through but to also provide for increased fluids in order to lower the toxins your kidneys are attempting to filter and pass along.
once the stone has pushed its way to your bladder and fallen in - you will be temporarily relived of phase 1 of the process. Soon the stone will enter the urethra in order to exit the body through the ***** - throughout this time, you should be ingesting an abnormal amount of water (i was drinking about 8-24oz bottles daily) in preparation for when the stone decides to finally make an exit which will begin phase 2. Phase 2 passes fairly quickly once the stone has entered far enough not to back out. You will experience a bit of pain and discomfort but mainly you will have the urge to urinate almost constantly.
In worse case scenarios, i trip to the urologist may be required to either be sunk in a tub, surrounded by a water bladder for a light treatment of sound waves in order to cause stone that is too large for your body to pass naturally to fracture into smaller pieces. If this fails, a procedure called lithotrypsy may be attempted wherein you will be relaxed and/or possibly given an epidural and heavier sound waves hit to your kidneys using a bean bag of sorts. Additionally, a stint may be put in place in order to provide for less painful passage of the stone particles - usually, this is left in place for a week and sometime the urologist will leave the string hanging from the end of the ***** for you to remove yourself. In worser yet cases, a laser can be used to "blast" the stones into smaller pieces and then a basket is used to retrieve them - all taking place while you are put under and through the end of the *****. As a last resort, once all lesser evasive procedures have failed - surgery may be performed to go through the back and remove the stone(s) from your kidney however there is a great possibility of near future kidney failure - which is why this is held off as a last resort.
As said before - kidney stones should not be wished upon a worst enemy.