UAMS helps Arkansans to deal with kidney stones

Little Rock, Arkansas – Anyone who has experienced kidney stones knows how painful they can be.

Jeff Hankins, the president of Strategic Communications at Arkansas State University, found relief at a time he needed it most.

“I had a couple of kidney stone episodes that were very severe – we are talking 9- and 10-mm kidney stones,” Hankins said. “It’s a painful experience.”

At UAMS Medical Center, they are able to offer a procedure without incision. For Hankins, it was life-changing. “I met with Dr. Riley. She outlined a procedure that was different than anything I had heard before,” Hankins explained. “I went from having 14-15 kidney stones to none overnight – and I can’t tell you what a relief that has been.”

It’s also a game-changer for patients at UAMS. “Once the patient is asleep, we will go in with small telescopes and go into the bladder and access the kidney,” Dr. Julie Riley at UAMS explained. “We use lasers to break up any of the stones.”

“We almost always leave a stent in which is a plastic tube that goes from kidney to bladder,” Dr. Riley said.

Hankins urges anyone who is dealing with multiple kidney stones to consider this procedure. “The recovery from the procedure was far milder than experiencing kidney stones themselves”.