Ureteral stents cause noticeable discomfort for most people. Up to 80% of patients experience symptoms like frequent urination, burning during urination, or flank pain while the stent is in place. These side effects are expected, not a sign that something has gone wrong. Knowing what’s normal and what isn’t can make the days or weeks with a stent much less stressful.
Why Stents Cause So Much Discomfort
A ureteral stent is a thin, flexible tube placed inside the ureter, the narrow tube connecting your kidney to your bladder. It has a small coil on each end: one sits in the kidney and the other curls inside the bladder. That bladder coil is responsible for most of the discomfort you’ll feel. It physically touches the trigone, a sensitive area at the base of your bladder, and this constant mechanical irritation triggers many of the symptoms people report.
The bladder coil can also stimulate your bladder muscle to contract when it shouldn’t, which is why you may feel sudden, intense urges to urinate even when your bladder isn’t full. If you already had a mild overactive bladder that never caused noticeable symptoms, the stent can amplify it. The burning sensation most people notice tends to hit hardest at the end of urination, when the bladder contracts down around the coil. If the coil crosses the midline of the bladder or doesn’t form a complete loop, this irritation can be worse.
Common Symptoms in the First Few Days
The most frequently reported symptoms after stent placement are:
- Frequent urination. You may feel the need to go far more often than usual, sometimes every 30 to 60 minutes. This is driven by the bladder coil creating a constant low-level signal that your bladder is full.
- Urgency. The urge to urinate can come on suddenly and feel difficult to control. Some people describe it as a spasm-like sensation.
- Burning or pain during urination. This is typically worst at the very end of the stream and may radiate into the tip of the urethra.
- Flank or kidney pain. You may feel a dull ache on the side where the stent was placed, especially during or right after urination. This happens because urine can briefly reflux back up the stent toward the kidney when your bladder contracts.
- Blood in your urine. Pink or light red urine is common, particularly in the first few days. Physical activity, prolonged walking, or straining can make it temporarily worse.
These symptoms are at their most intense in the first two to three days and gradually settle, though they rarely disappear completely while the stent remains in place. Some people tolerate a stent with only mild annoyance, while others find it genuinely disruptive to sleep, work, and daily life. Both responses are normal.
Blood in Your Urine
Seeing blood in the toilet after stent placement is one of the most alarming symptoms, but it’s also one of the most common. Pink-tinged urine is typical for several days after the procedure and can reappear on and off for the entire time the stent is in place. It often shows up after physical activity or at the end of a long day on your feet.
Drinking plenty of water helps dilute the urine and flush small clots through before they get large enough to cause problems. If your urine turns dark red, you’re passing multiple clots, or the bleeding doesn’t lighten up with rest and fluids, contact your doctor’s office.
How Long the Stent Stays In
There’s no single standard duration. Practice patterns vary widely, from as few as three days to several weeks, depending on the reason the stent was placed and your surgeon’s preference. After routine ureteroscopy for kidney stones, most stents stay in for about five to seven days. Stents placed after more complex procedures or for ongoing obstruction may remain for several weeks or even months, with periodic replacement.
A pilot study comparing three-day and seven-day stent durations found that removing the stent too early (at three days) led to more problems, and the researchers ultimately recommended keeping the stent in for at least five to seven days after ureteroscopy. Your surgeon will give you a specific timeline based on your situation.
Medications That Help With Symptoms
Your doctor may prescribe one or more medications to take the edge off stent-related symptoms. The two main drug classes that have shown benefit are alpha blockers and bladder relaxants.
Alpha blockers like tamsulosin work by relaxing the smooth muscle around the lower ureter and bladder neck. Multiple studies have found that tamsulosin reduces urinary symptoms, flank pain, and the burning sensation during urination. A related medication, alfuzosin, has shown similar improvements and may also help with sleep disruption caused by nighttime urgency.
Bladder relaxants (anticholinergic medications like oxybutynin or tolterodine) target the involuntary bladder contractions that cause urgency and spasms. Research suggests they provide greater relief from bladder discomfort compared to placebo. Some urologists prescribe both an alpha blocker and a bladder relaxant together for people with more severe symptoms, though the combination doesn’t always outperform either drug alone.
For pain, over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medications like ibuprofen are a reasonable first option for many people. Your surgeon may also prescribe a stronger anti-inflammatory. Staying well hydrated and avoiding caffeine and alcohol, both of which irritate the bladder, can reduce the frequency and intensity of spasms.
Activity and Daily Life
Most people can return to desk work and light daily activities within a day or two of the procedure. That said, the stent itself can make physical activity uncomfortable. Bending, lifting heavy objects, or vigorous exercise often increases flank pain and can trigger visible blood in the urine. Many surgeons recommend avoiding heavy lifting and intense workouts while the stent is in place, not because these activities are dangerous, but because they tend to make symptoms worse.
Walking is generally well tolerated and encouraged. You may notice that symptoms fluctuate throughout the day, often feeling worse when you’re active and better when you’re resting. Planning your most demanding tasks for when your medications are at peak effect can help. Some people find that certain positions, like lying on the opposite side from the stent, provide temporary relief from flank discomfort.
What Stent Removal Feels Like
If your stent has a string attached (a thin thread that hangs outside the body through the urethra), removal is straightforward. You or your doctor simply pulls the string to slide the stent out. This takes only a few seconds and causes a brief, intense pulling sensation followed by a strong urge to urinate. It’s uncomfortable but over quickly.
If there’s no external string, the stent is removed in the office using a cystoscope, a small flexible camera inserted through the urethra. The doctor locates the bladder coil, grasps it with a tiny instrument, and withdraws both the scope and the stent together. This typically takes under a minute. Most people describe it as an uncomfortable pressure rather than sharp pain, and a topical numbing gel applied beforehand helps considerably.
After removal, expect pink-tinged urine for a few days. Burning during urination and increased frequency are common for 24 to 48 hours but tend to resolve much faster than you might expect after weeks of stent-related symptoms. Most people feel noticeably better within a day or two of removal.
Signs That Need Prompt Attention
While stent symptoms are uncomfortable, a few warning signs suggest a complication that needs medical evaluation. A fever above 38°C (100.4°F) is the most important one to watch for. Fever after stent placement can indicate a urinary tract infection that, if left untreated, can progress to a systemic infection. Infectious complications occur most often within the first 30 days.
Other reasons to contact your doctor promptly include urine that turns consistently dark red or contains large clots, pain that escalates sharply rather than staying at a steady baseline, complete inability to urinate, or chills and shaking. These don’t necessarily mean something serious has gone wrong, but they warrant a call to your surgeon’s office rather than a wait-and-see approach.