Most people will never form a kidney stone.
Men are four times more likely to have the disorder than women.
Stones may form and go unnoticed until they leave the kidney and pass through the ureter toward the bladder and urethra. This process, which causes an intense pain known as renal colic, is usually accompanied by nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and possibly infection. The pain sends most people to the nearest emergency room, and they may indeed end up needing hospitalization, although stones are not generally life-threatening and may not require any kind of surgery. Half of all first-time stone formers will have a recurrence. All kinds of waste products are filtered out of blood by the kidneys and excreted in urine.