Watched a relative "go down" curled up in a ball on the floor, unable to move due to a kidney stone that started moving. He had never had one. My question is this for us 40 to 60 something year old bunch of old fart pilots: Has anybody ever experienced this while flying (only pilot on board)? Could it lead to an inability to land? I know the FAA will take your medical, while you are dealing with the stones... so they take it seriously. Also wondering if any oral pain killers that would be legal, could be carried in the glove box.... just to get you through a landing at the neareast airport. Any thoughts out there?

The worst pain I have ever had in my life wouldn't keep me from landing if the alternative was death. Nothing legal I know would work.

Good day

My brother had a kidnet stone a few years ago, the first symptom was pain so bad he thought he had been shot, but couldn't find any bleeding. When he got to the ER they had to give him 3 injections of morphine to stop the pain. I don't thing any legal over-the-counter painkillers will do much good in that situation.

Though it won't help if you're in the air, here's my homopathic, all natural fix for kidney stones:

Construct a large bungee slingshot, big enough to launch the patient. The patient should be further restrained using a climbing harness and 1/4" steel cable, the length of which should be about equal to the draw length of the slingshot, while the cable anchor point should be co-located with the slingshot "arms" (two sturdy trees work well for this). Launch the patient. As the steel cable comes up tight, the patient will abrupty de-accelerate. However, the kidney stones, being fairly dense, will continue on exiting the patient in a somewhat non-orderly, but expeditious fashion. The patient can be expected to experience a brief period of acute pain, this may be mitigated by having him or her take a couple of aspirin prior to the proceedure.

No need to thank me . . . you're welcome.

bumper

If one had a few prescription valium for remote travel
I wonder how many guys would say,aw no thanks,
I'll just suffer for the beercrat rules.
I guess you have to be there to make that call.
Even if it allowed you to stay upright to look out the front
It might be all you need to stay alive.

Thank God I've never had the experience, but my wife and fellow workers have. I know what it does to my wife. Takes some pretty strong medicine to knock the pain. If it happened to me while I was flying I think I could get the plane on the ground if I had to.

I had one pass 6-7 years ago hurt like hell. After it passed (lot less pain) I pee'd brown for a couple days, after I'd pee it still felt like I had to pee. I for the life of me don't know why anyone would fly feeling like that.

While a pill for pain is nice to have when necessary, prevention is often the best medicine. Drink lots of water regularly. There will always be the rare exception to this rule, but it is generally good advice.

CW

I've never had a kidney stone, and I don't worry about getting one, but I do travel deep into the boonies (sometimes in the plane, sometimes on foot) for up to several days of solitude. I've often thought that I should bring along certain medications as part of a proper first aid kit.

For years, I was quite accident prone. For example, one time I fell and a sharp broken end of a stick went through my palm and out the back of my hand, wedging firmly between the carpal bones. The ragged edges of the broken stick acted like the barb on a fish hook, and it was impossible to remove without tearing out chunks of flesh. It's the sort of accident where one might want to take some pain killers before whittling it out, and then take something to prevent infection.

Right now I only carry Tylenol and ibuprofen for pain, and neosporin for a topical antibiotic. I've thought about getting some vicodin, percoset, or oxycontin for pain killers, and tetracycline or penicillin for infections. It seems to be achievable - a friend of mine was going fishing up in Alaska, and his doctor prescribed him some various painkillers and antibiotics, to be taken in the event of emergency. What other medications might belong in a first aid kit for those who leave civilization for days or weeks at a time?

There is a narcotic called Ultram that is on the FAA's ok list, as long as one waits 48 hours after the last dose to go flying. I'm told it's actually fairly effective though not quite as strong as Vicodin.

I have had kidney stones. Actually had to stop my float rating until I was cleared by the FAA. I will tell you this from my experience.....vicodin, oxycodone, oxycontin, nor ms contin will alleviate the pain much. Short of getting an injection of morphine there isn't much that can be done. Maybe for some people it will work but they don't for me.

I am no stranger to pain having been in a severe accident many years ago. I went under a semi trailer (dumb-ass truck driver decided to make a U-turn just over the crest of a hill at 5 a.m. on the interstate, then left the scene. I was busted up pretty bad, laid up for nearly 2 years, and now have most of my back fused along with metal rods down each side of my spine. I am saying this to give an idea that I deal with pain nearly every day. I have back pain issues that leave me immobile at times due to the pain. Anyways......the times I have had kidney stones were as severe as the back pain gets. I have gone to the ER thinking it was my back and they find out it was kidney stones. They are very painful, can cause vomiting from the pain, and I highly doubt someone could land a plane if they had one unless they felt the symptoms and acting VERY quickly. They can come on extremely fast or creep up on you. I have had them happen both ways with it feeling like lower back pain for days/weeks before the stone finally dislodges and gets into the area where the pain will 'knock your d!ck in the dirt' making you think you are pissing out razor blades.

There is not a lot they can do for them. From what I remember there are several types of stones. The chances of having more then one are great after having the first one. Boy, isn't that great to hear!!! The Dr.s will tell you to drink lots of fluids and give you a screen to piss through in hopes of catching it. If you don't pass it they can remove it.
They do this by calling the nearest road construction contractor and having him bring over the largest dozer and track hoe he has. Then they proceed to push a culvert, made out of the roughest concrete they can find, up your tally-wacker. Once they have this culvert installed into your privates, they then drive the track hoe up through this culvert on an exploritory mission looking for the stone. If you are lucky the track hoe driver (the Doc) finds it quickly. The driver then reaches out with the boom and crabs the stone (boulder). Since the stone is too big to put into the bucket he decides, what the hell, I can just drag this thing out. He then pulls, tugs, and yanks the jagged boulder all the way out. Once out it is loaded into a huge truck where they bring it to a rock crusher that breaks it into little tiny pieces. This is done so the Doc can give you a tiny sample of it to try and make you feel better by saying, "see, it wasn't very big." JK....But that's How I remember it.

I believe a history of stone can also put a big damper in your medical issuance.

I had a guy that worked for me once that said you can get rid of kidney stones by drinking a bottle of "realemon". The lemon juice. He was kind of different so take that with a grain of salt but he swore it works and he did it??????

I have kidney stones from time to time. The first time the pain was pretty intense but fortunately the latter ones were not so bad. I can usually tell when a bout is coming on - I'll get a dull ache in my lower back. I've found a home remedy that usually flushes them out painlessly and I suspect a lot of folks here will want to try it (even if you don't have kidney stones....). Beer. That's right, beer. Lots of it. Nothing makes me pee like beer so, after once having a kidney stone surgically removed (that cure was much worse than the original ailment) I decided to try something else. Next time it happened I drank beer and I mean a lot of it. The next day, I had an awful hangover but no kidney stone pain. That was 30 years ago and so far, it's worked every time. I suspect all kidney stones are not created equal so it may not help if yours are excessively large but heck, it's probably worth a try (not while flying though).

On a side note, when I was single, I had a roommate who was a captain for a major airline. He had an attack in flight. Not a real emergency since he had a crew, but his passengers made it to their destination in record time that day! The company got on him about excessive fuel burn.

Best,
O-2

Jaerl wrote:I had a guy that worked for me once that said you can get rid of kidney stones by drinking a bottle of "realemon". The lemon juice. He was kind of different so take that with a grain of salt but he swore it works and he did it??????

Oh yeah.....well....I can swear to just the opposite Jerry. I have never once drank a bottle of reallemon juice and yet I've NEVER had a kidney stone. So you know, evidence is evidence. On the other hand I do listen to a lot of Pink Floyd. So my recommendation for kidney stones is to listen to Pink Floyd a lot and never ever drink straight Realemon. There you go.

I wonder how having sex with blonds fits in to all this?

Been there, done that--kidney stone pain and sex with blonde. Much better to be with the blonde. Kidney stone pain is indescribable and totally debilitating. If it started in flight, I'd want to get on the ground absolutely as quickly as possible. Mine took about 20 minutes to get to its worst after starting, but I don't know if that's typical. By the time I got to the hospital, I could barely walk.

Years ago I represented a pilot in a certificate action who had kidney stone pain in flight, and the nearest airport was on the other side of a hot restricted area. Without calling anyone, he bee-lined for that airport through the restricted area and successfully landed his staggerwing Beech. When we went for the meeting with the FAA Inspector and FAA attorney, the attorney was a young fellow who couldn't imagine the kind of pain that would make a pilot ignore so many rules--but fortunately the Inspector had had the experience. My client paid a $200 civil fine, about as low a penalty as can be obtained.

Cary

Kidney stone was the worst pain I've ever felt, however I've never been shot so I have nothing too awful to compare it to. I too had 20 minutes between the time I knew something was wrong and the time I would have been unable to land.

I went back to the Chief of the Urology Dep't. at the hospital where my wife took me to the ER, and asked the guy what the hell happened, and what could I do to NEVER go through that again. The doctor looked at me and said... "You've been drinking a lot of iced tea and caffeinated diet soda lately, haven't you? Iced tea is like liquid kidney stones. Stop the iced tea and drink diet soda with citric acid in it. The citric acid breaks up the stones while they're forming."

So I cut my iced tea intake by 99%, and started putting lemon juice in a lot of what I drink. So the Real Lemon story has some credibility in my head, but I don't think it would work after the stone is already causing pain.

No idea about "Ultram" or any other new-fangled pain meds, but if I ever have a Kidney Stone again I'm going on vacation with my two Irish friends, Perc O' Dan and Darv O' Cet, and their distinguished associate Professor I. V. Morphine.

As the Director of a busy surgery department I deal with kidney stones almost daily. I have had numerous women tell me that they hurt far more than giving birth. Recently we had a mountain biker come in with a shattered femur. When asked how his pain rated on a scale of 1 to 10, he said 8. He then said that his kidney stones were a 10. I fully agree, mine completely incapacitated me to the point that I could not walk. Flying would have been fatal.
Not all stone are created equal. If you get them you will be asked to strain your urine to catch some for analysis. Most, like Flaps, are calcium oscillate. As he said, iced ted is like liquid stones for many people.
Most oral pain meds will do little to help the pain of a completely blocked kidney. Fortunately most people only have a partial blockage as the stone travels down the ureter. Painful ,none the less, but not like a completely block kidney.
Drink lots of water, don't get dehydrated, and take frequent pee breaks. Like a lot of things in medicine, the solution for pollution is dilution.
Or you could just have sex with a blonde while drinking real lemon and listening to Pink Floyd.
That would be my choice.

If you are being worked up for a kidney stone, insist on a Pyelogram, which uses dye and X-ray, instead of a CT or MRI. The latter two are able to see very tiny grains and the FAA will not let you fly till they are clear. Pyelogram will not see the tiny ones that will pass with no effects on you. The only thing to look for with the Pyelogram is an allery to Iodine.
Mark

[quote="Jaerl"]I had a guy that worked for me once that said you can get rid of kidney stones by drinking a bottle of "realemon". The lemon juice. He was kind of different so take that with a grain of salt but he swore it works and he did it??????[/quote
To qualify my comments, I'm an advanced practice nurse and nursing professor. In some people, a lot of ascorbic acid, also known as vitamin C will cause calcium in your urine to form calcium based stones when you would never have had them otherwise. It's a good argument against mega dosing with vitamin C.


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Airshofoto wrote:

Jaerl wrote:I had a guy that worked for me once that said you can get rid of kidney stones by drinking a bottle of "realemon". The lemon juice. He was kind of different so take that with a grain of salt but he swore it works and he did it??????

To qualify my comments, I'm an advanced practice nurse and nursing professor. In some people, a lot of ascorbic acid, also known as vitamin C will cause calcium in your urine to form calcium based stones when you would never have had them otherwise. It's a good argument against mega dosing with vitamin C.


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So how about whiskey?