Right Side Stomach Pain: Could It Be Kidney Stones?

Working as an emergency room RN, Jane has seen many people suffering from kidney stones. About 80 percent of the people she encounters with this condition are men. We don’t know why the numbers are so much higher for men.

Jane says the patients often have lower abdominal symptoms that may presents as right side stomach or flank pain on one side. She says that the soreness these individuals feel is intense.

“We first ask them for a urine sample,” she explains. “Using a dip stick the nurse typically finds blood in the urine, often with hardly any infection (though there may well be infection, and often the presence of ketones, a sign of dehydration). The patient is then given intravenous fluids (salt water) to help flush the kidneys, and after the doctor’s formal diagnosis, pain medication also. The aim of the pain medication is to give the patient a rest as the fluids help the stones pass through less painfully.”

While the right side stomach ache is a good indicator, a blood test and cat scan is often ordered for further confirmation. The scan can show both the size and location of the stone. If there is no sign of infection, the patients go home with medication and instructions to increase their water intake. They are also advised to use a strainer to catch and save the kidney stone, which can then be sent for analysis. Certain foods may then be proscribed to diminish the likelihood that more kidney stones are produced.

Aldous Huxley was so taken with the capabilities of the human kidneys that he felt compelled to utter the following words:

The kidneys are so beautifully organized; they do their work of regulation with such a miraculous–it’s hard to find another word–such a positively divine precision, such knowledge and wisdom, that there is no reason why our archetypal man, whoever he is, or anyone else, for that matter, should be ashamed to own a pair.