Staind frontman Aaron Lewis isn’t having a good few weeks when it comes to his health.
Just four days ago, the rocker was forced to pull out of a slew of shows after revealing he would be undergoing surgery to have his appendix removed after being diagnosed with appendicitis.
Posting to Instagram less than a week ago, Lewis wrote, “No more appendix, and no shows this weekend but AFL is out of surgery, and doing just fine.”
As if that wasn’t bad enough as it were, Lewis has today taken to the platform yet again to share that he’s now also passed a kidney stone – a pain some have compared to that of childbirth.
Lewis shared the news of his kidney stone in an Instagram post, writing: “Laying here recovering from having my appendix out. On top of that, I’ve had a kidney stone SLOWLY snaking it’s way through me for the last 4 days. After intense like-I’ve-never-experienced-pain, I successfully passed this kidney stone today.”
Kidney stones are hardened or calcified deposits of minerals, salts, and other materials that develop in the kidneys before moving through the ureter and into the bladder, where they are ultimately passed from the body in the urine – and it’s apparently painful.
Just in case you feel like developing an intense phobia of getting a kidney stone, in a Reddit thread asking how painful kidney stones are, one user gave a delightful description of the whole process.
Love Metal?
Get the latest Metal news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more
“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever felt, ever. And experiencing it once doesn’t make the second or third times you do any easier,” they began.
“Imagine someone used a piece of jagged quartz to block the tube going from your kidneys to your bladder. Slowly the kidney fills up more and more and you can feel the pressure building up behind the quartz. Soon your kidney feels like it’s going to explode, and your testicles feel like someone has them firmly squeezed between their thighs.
“You fold and writhe in every position possible but nothing you do takes the pain away. It’s blinding. That’s when your body decides to pull a hail Mary by ejecting the contents of your stomach and repeatedly dry heaving in a futile attempt to get rid of whatever the hell is inside of you over the course of hours.
As if that wasn’t terrifying enough, they continue, “Eventually you can feel the quartz being pushed by the pressure down your ureter to your bladder, tearing the flesh of the fragile tube with every movement. Finally, it reaches your bladder and the pain begins to let off.
They added a hopeful final nugget of info “Sometimes if you’re super unlucky you get to experience that for several days to a week straight before it passes and you honestly start to consider doing heavy drugs or jumping in front of traffic.”
Well then.
Lewis’s new solo album, Frayed At Both Ends, is due on January 28.
You can read more about this topic on the Metal Observer.
