Now even though it is hardly that serious, everyone knows that kidney stones can be incredibly painful. Even the famous people on this list with kidney stones can attest to that.
Kidney stones are hard deposits of various materials, such as minerals and salts, that form in the kidneys and are usually passed without any permanent damage. Most of the celebs listed passed their kidney stones without much trouble but endured excruciating experiences nonetheless. Those on the list opened up about their medical issue in honest interviews where they made it very clear just how uncomfortable a kidney stone can be.
While many people can successfully pass kidney stones with some medication and plenty of water, hospitalization or even surgery is sometimes required. Complications like this can be inconvenient, as stars often have lots of obligations and busy schedules, but there are plenty of treatments for kidney stones that can minimize pain. Here is a list of celebs who have told that they kidney stones.
1 – Caitlyn Jenner
Caitlyn Jenner discovered she had kidney stones during a full-body scan at HealthView Center for Preventive Medicine in 2000.
2 – Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock reportedly developed kidney stones following a pacemaker procedure in 1974. He also suffered from colitis at that time.
3 – William Shatner
In 2005, William Shatner was rushed to the hospital due to a backache that turned out to be caused by kidney stones. The following year, he sold his kidney stone to an online casino to raise money for Habitat for Humanity.
Speaking of his decision, the actor said, “This takes organ donors to a new height, to a new low, maybe. How much is a piece of me worth?”
4 – Billy Joel (Pictured)
Billy Joel discussed a recent bout with kidney stones in a 1990 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, noting how the event was somewhat exaggerated by the press.
“And of course the papers had me collapsing at JFK Airport,” he said, “I didn’t collapse at JFK. I’ve had kidney stones before this. I just called the doctor, and I said, ‘Should I go to Europe?’ He said, ‘No, come in. Let’s take care of it.’ So I went into the hospital.”
5 – Kiefer Sutherland
Kiefer Sutherland suffered a kidney stone in 2003 and claimed it was an incredibly painful experience. He stated, in an interview, “I’ve broken every bone in my body, but I’ve never experienced pain like this.”
6 – Gene Simmons
In 2009, Gene Simmons raised $15,000 for charity by selling his kidney stone on eBay.
7 – Tim Burton
In 2011, Tim Burton missed the British Independent Film Awards because he was suffering from kidney stones. His then partner Helena Bonham Carter let the crowd at the event know why Burton was absent.
8 – Burt Reynolds
In 1984, Burt Reynolds reportedly missed the opening of his Florida restaurant Burt and Jack’s because kidney stone pain caused him to pass out. He reportedly had a high fever at the time as well.
9 – Lyndon B. Johnson
In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson showed members of the press an incision that he received during a recent gall bladder surgery and kidney stone removal procedure.
10 – Rob Schneider
In a 2003 interview, Rob Schneider explained that heavy drinking and long hours on Saturday Night Live caused him to have a variety of health problems, including kidney stones.
“I became a very heavy drinker,” he said, “After four years on the show, I was a wreck. I was sitting in a hospital after throat surgery. I’d had a kidney stone removed, and I got a broken ankle from running to work in the snow.”
If you think you might be suffering from kidney stones, then you probably need a quality urologist. Pick up the phone and call Z Urology, with offices in South Florida. Call today!
We provide state-of-the-art urologic care in the South Florida area with a focus on both male and female urology. Our practice specializes in all urologic procedures, specifically, minimally invasive methods. Our three locations to choose from are located in Fort Lauderdale, Coral Springs and Pompano Beach.
We at “Z” specialize in bladder issues, erectile dysfunction (ED), prostate issues, urinary incontinence, sexual dysfunction, stone disease, BPH, male infertility, pyeloplasty, Peyronie’s disease, and ureteral reimplantation.
More than half a million Americans every year visit the emergency room for problems related to kidney stones. In most cases, the stones eventually pass out of the body on their own, but the process can be excruciatingly painful.
Researchers at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have devised a potential treatment that could make passing kidney stones faster and less painful. They have identified a combination of two drugs that relax the walls of the ureter (the tube that connects the kidneys to the bladder) and can be delivered directly to the ureter with a catheter-like instrument.
Relaxing the ureter could help stones move through the tube more easily, the researchers say.
This kind of treatment could also make it easier and less painful to insert stents into the ureter, which is sometimes done after a kidney stone is passed, to prevent the tube from becoming blocked or collapsing.
How Does One Get Kidney Stones
Kidney stones are made from hard crystals that accumulate in the kidneys when there is too much solid waste in the urine and not enough liquid to wash it out. It is estimated that about one in 10 people will have a kidney stone at some point in their lives.
While some larger stones require surgery, the usual treatment plan is simply to wait for the stones to pass, which takes an average of 10 days. Patients are given painkillers as well as an oral medication that is meant to help relax the ureter, but studies have offered conflicting evidence on whether this drug actually helps.
“If you look at how kidney stones are treated today, it hasn’t really changed since about 1980, and there’s a pretty substantial amount of evidence that the drugs given don’t work very well,” Lee says. “The volume of how many people this could potentially help is really exciting.”
The researchers first set out to identify drugs that might work well when delivered directly to the ureter. They selected 18 drugs used to treat conditions such as high blood pressure or glaucoma and exposed them to human ureteral cells grown in a lab dish, where they could measure how much the drugs relaxed the smooth muscle cells. They hypothesized that if they delivered such drugs directly to the ureter, they could get a much bigger relaxation effect than by delivering such drugs orally, while minimizing possible harm to the rest of the body.
“We found several drugs that had the effect that we expected, and in every case we found that the concentrations required to be effective were more than would be safe if given systemically,” Cima says.
Next, the researchers used intensive computational processing to individually analyze the relaxation responses of nearly 1 billion cells after drug exposure. They identified two drugs that worked especially well, and found that they worked even better when given together. One of these is nifedipine, a calcium channel blocker used to treat high blood pressure, and the other is a type of drug known as a ROCK (rho kinase) inhibitor, which is used to treat glaucoma.
The researchers tested various doses of this combination of drugs in ureters removed from pigs, and showed that they could dramatically reduce the frequency and length of contractions of the ureter. Tests in live pigs also showed that the treatment nearly eliminated ureteral contractions.
For these experiments, the researchers delivered the drugs using a cystoscope, which is very similar to a catheter but has a small fiber optic channel that can connect to a camera or lens. They found that with this type of delivery, the drugs were not detectable in the animals’ bloodstream, suggesting that the drugs remained in the lining of the ureter and did not go elsewhere in the body, which would lessen the risk of potential side effects.
If you think you might be suffering from kidney stones, then you probably need a quality urologist. Pick up the phone and call Z Urology, with offices in South Florida. Call today!
We provide state-of-the-art urologic care in the South Florida area with a focus on both male and female urology. Our practice specializes in all urologic procedures, specifically, minimally invasive methods. Our three locations to choose from are located in Fort Lauderdale, Coral Springs and Pompano Beach.
We at “Z” specialize in bladder issues, erectile dysfunction (ED), prostate issues, urinary incontinence, sexual dysfunction, stone disease, BPH, male infertility, pyeloplasty, Peyronie’s disease, and ureteral reimplantation.
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