Kidney stones: 6 things you should know

Hollywood leans toward gunshots, heart attacks and childbirth when depicting people in pain. Movies and TV shows mostly avoid showing people with kidney stones. Ian McShane’s performance as Al Swearengen in Deadwood, though, made it excruciatingly clear how painful it can be to pass one of these stones. 
That portrayal may be accurate — a US News & World Report list puts kidney stones at the top of a list of the most painful conditions, ahead of childbirth and shingles.
Luckily, we know more about how to prevent and treat kidney stones today than we did in Deadwood, South Dakota, in the 1870s. Mike Spigler, the American Kidney Fund’s vice president of patient services and kidney disease education, shares some key facts about the condition. --> READ MORE