When should I go to the ER for kidney pain?

By | February 19, 2020

Seek emergency care if you develop sudden, severe kidney pain, with or without blood in your urine.
Call your doctor for a same-day appointment if:

  1. You have constant, dull, one-sided pain in your back or side.
  2. You have fever, body aches and fatigue.
  3. You’ve had a recent urinary tract infection.

Causes

Possible causes of kidney pain include:

  1. Bleeding in the kidney (hemorrhage)
  2. Blood clots in kidney veins (renal vein thrombosis)
  3. Hydronephrosis (kidney swelling due to a backup of urine)
  4. Kidney cancer or a kidney tumor
  5. Kidney cysts (enlargement or rupture)
  6. Kidney infection (pyelonephritis)
  7. Kidney stones
  8. Polycystic kidney disease

Kidney stones are likely to cause pain only when they start to move out of the kidney. Also, it’s possible to have one of these conditions, particularly most kidney cancers, and not have kidney pain.