Count yourself lucky if you can say no.  I am not one of those people!  I have had 4 lithotripsies, (a surgery where they bust them up via shock waves, it’s non invasive and not particularly terrible unless they don’t break up well and you have to pass large fragments) a cystoscopy under general anesthesia to remove one that was caught in my ureter, a cystoscopy to place a stent, (right before the c-section birth of my last child, so luckily I’d had a spinal!) and one cystoscopy to remove that stent where I had no anesthesia.  And if you don’t know what a cystoscopy is, you can get more info here.  I won’t go into details for the squeamish who may read my blog.  Let’s just say it’s unpleasant and leave it at that.  Not to mention I’ve passed quite a few stones with no intervention whatsoever!

Last night, I started experiencing that unmistakable telltale pain that tells me I have yet another one.  I started guzzling water and then ate some tomatoes and cucumbers in vinegar, then drank the vinegar left in the bowl.  This may sound slightly crazy, but there is some evidence that vinegar may help to dissolve kidney stones that are calcium based, like mine.  If you’ve ever had calcium deposits on a shower head or faucet, you’ve probably used vinegar to remove them, right?  It’s the same concept, and it does seem to work.  A couple of months ago I was experiencing some twinges that made me think I had a stone and immediately started drinking a few tablespoons of vinegar and water every few hours and a day or 2 later passed something that vaguely resembled a stone, but it was very crumbly, for lack of a better word.  Typically kidney stones are like a small piece of gravel you’d find on the ground outside…literally, like a rock!  This was very different.  And it was pain free!

So last night after I took something for the pain and had a warm bath to soothe me as well, I went to bed, expecting a middle of the night awakening in pain, or a bad morning.  Nope…I am pain free and so thankful for that!  I definitely haven’t passed anything yet, so it’s still there somewhere, but at least I’m not hurting anymore.  I’ll report back on whether this natural remedy worked.  One time may be a fluke, but if it happens twice, I’m prepared to call it a success.

And if you come to this later by googling “natural remedy for kidney stones” or something similar, DO NOT do the coke and asparagus thing.  It does not work.  (If you haven’t heard of this one, you drink a six pack of coke in something like an hour, then follow it by eating several ounces of pureed asparagus.  Not only does it not work, but it made me violently ill!)