Sudden, Sharp Pain in Your Back or Lower Abdomen?

Kid­ney and ureter­al stones are com­mon, in fact, 1 in every 10 peo­ple will devel­op a stone at some point in their life­time. These stones form when urine becomes too con­cen­trat­ed, caus­ing salts and min­er­als to build up in your kid­neys and form hard deposits.

You may be at a high­er risk of devel­op­ing a stone if:

• You aren’t drink­ing enough water or tak­ing enough bath­room breaks through­out the day
• You are inac­tive or overweight
• You fre­quent­ly drink alcohol
• You have a chron­ic health con­di­tion like dia­betes or hypertension

Com­mon stone symp­toms include:

• Sharp, cramp­ing pain in the back, side, or low­er abdomen
• Blood in your urine
• Painful uri­na­tion
• Increased urgency to urinate
• Nau­sea and/​or vomiting

If you sus­pect you have devel­oped a stone, our Imme­di­ate Care Cen­ters, led by board-cer­ti­fied Emer­gency Med­i­cine physi­cians, are avail­able to pro­vide care for you today.

If you are diag­nosed with a stone, our Imme­di­ate Care Cen­ter team will deter­mine how to man­age your symp­toms, and what treat­ment option is most appro­pri­ate for you. In some cas­es a stone can be passed sim­ply by increas­ing your water intake and tak­ing pain med­ica­tions, as pre­scribed, if need­ed. When the stone is larg­er, it may become lodged in the uri­nary tract, or if an infec­tion is present, surgery may be nec­es­sary to remove the stone.

Pass­ing a kid­ney stone can be painful, but typ­i­cal­ly does­n’t cause any long-term dam­age if they are diag­nosed and treat­ed quick­ly. Should surgery be rec­om­mend­ed for you, our high­ly-skilled urol­o­gists are able to per­form surgery on an out­pa­tient basis, at our Sur­gi­cal Cen­ter in Lom­bard, often in as lit­tle as 48 – 72 hours from the time of your diagnosis.

Learn more about the con­di­tions treat­ed, hours and loca­tions for our Imme­di­ate Care Centers.