I think I lamented about them here years ago. I've been very lucky since 2007. Stones are different in size and makeup. Basically you have a crystal growing science experiment going on in there. Somehow you have to knock this perfect storm for growing crystals in your system out of balance. If I think I'm getting one, I go on a massive water drinking mission. Unless you have a boulder and in a bad spot, this should do it. The first one I had, that urologist told me to drink beer. I am not a drinker, but I did have 2 per night, and supposedly this dilates your ureter and final exit, and promotes the volume to flush.
The second one wasn't so easy. It started as a back pain, and I was doing yard work, so it made sense. But what was really happening was I was dehydrated before, and in a while, I lost the back pain (because it left the kidney) and managed to get stuck in the left ureter (the tube that connects your kidney to the bladder, you have 2 if you have 2 kidneys) On the morning of the Mopar Atlantic Nats, 2006, I was actually going to go, but NOOO! I woke up crying like a baby with that pain we all know. I wound up in the ER, and I had a massive urinary tract infection. The scan showed it. The stone got stuck midway down in my ureter, causing a backup into the kidney. Next I knew, I was wheeling into the OR where they installed a stent. Yes it showed on the Xray like a piece of wire with a pigtail in my bladder, and a pigtail in the kidney. This allowed a path for the kidney to drain. and I peed rust for a week. What happened next was this-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_shock_wave_lithotripsy
Then I peed glass for a week. Then the worst- that stent had to come out- in the office. This taught me not to eat too much fruit (oxalates) and to keep the water intake up. While this was going on, I was told that I had a huge stone imbedded in the kidney, so big, it wont move, and it didn't hurt. I told myself I was going to try and dissolve it, and I did. The nephrologist was impressed. It took a year. Good luck Justin. You can't go wrong with water.