They say it's the worst pain you can experience unless you're a woman going through childbirth. I'll take their word for it about giving birth, but I can personally vouch for the extreme pain experienced with kidney stones. When the pain suddenly hit me after 8:00 Sunday night and I drove to the Marlborough Clinic through driving rain, I figured it out. That was due to the fact that I had an earlier episode of kidney stones in 1998 when I was finishing up at work. That time, I thought it was appendicitis and barely managed to drive myself through rush hour traffic to Hartford Hospital. I could barely stay conscious, doubled over in agony when I got there. They diagnosed the stones, heavily medicated me and eventually sent me out into the late night only to have to call 9-1-1 from where I'd been housesitting. Hours and much morphine later from Bay State Medical in Springfield, I got a cab back to the house along with a pain prescription. While the worst pain was behind me, the discomfort lasted days until I passed the stone. That part was easy. A kidney stone is most excruciating when it is stuck in the ureter tude between the kidney and bladder. I can say this week's episode was somewhat less intense than 14 years ago, but on a pain scale of one to ten it's easily an eight. The new stone has already moved south, so that in itself is a welcome relief!
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