How Long Does a Stent Stay In for Kidney Stones?

Most kidney stone stents stay in for one to two weeks, with a median of about 14 days after ureteroscopy. The actual range is wide, though, stretching from as few as three days to several weeks depending on the procedure, the complexity of the stone, and whether complications arise. That variability matters because stents are famously uncomfortable, and knowing what determines your timeline can help you plan your recovery and advocate for earlier removal when it is safe.

Why a Stent Gets Placed After a Kidney Stone Procedure

A ureteral stent is a thin, flexible tube that sits inside the ureter, the narrow tube connecting your kidney to your bladder. It holds the ureter open so urine can drain freely. Ureteroscopy, the most common procedure for removing kidney and ureteral stones, involves passing instruments up through the ureter to break apart or extract the stone. That causes some degree of tissue trauma and swelling. If the ureter swells shut after surgery, urine backs up into the kidney, causing severe flank pain and potentially requiring an emergency procedure to relieve the blockage.¹

Stents are placed prophylactically in many cases, meaning the surgeon puts one in as a precaution even when no obvious problem occurred during the procedure. Whether this is always necessary is a separate question, and the evidence increasingly suggests it is not for straightforward cases. But when the stone was large, when the ureter was tight or injured during the procedure, or when stone fragments remain that still need to pass, a stent earns its place.

The Typical Timeline

In a study examining stent duration after ureteroscopic lithotripsy, the median indwelling time was 14 days, with individual cases ranging from 3 to 61 days.² That two-week mark is a reasonable expectation for most people, but stents placed with an extraction string attached tend to come out sooner. In a large study examining emergency department visits after stenting, patients whose stents had a string had a median dwell time of 5 days compared to 9 days for those without a string.³ The string gives you (or your doctor) the ability to pull the stent without another procedure, which means it can come out as soon as it has served its purpose rather than waiting for an office visit.

Several factors push the timeline in one direction or the other:

• Procedure complexity: A simple stone extraction from the lower ureter heals fast, often allowing stent removal within a week. Larger stones, stones higher in the kidney, or cases involving ureteral injury during surgery typically require longer stenting.
• Residual fragments: If pieces of stone remain that the surgeon expects to pass naturally, the stent keeps the ureter open so those fragments can travel without getting stuck.
• Infection or inflammation: Active infection at the time of the procedure or significant tissue swelling may warrant leaving the stent in longer to ensure safe drainage.
• Surgeon preference: Practice patterns vary considerably. Some urologists routinely leave stents for a week; others default to two weeks or more. If your surgeon does not give you a clear removal date, ask for one.

Why Stents Are So Uncomfortable

If you have ever talked to someone who had a ureteral stent, you probably heard about how miserable it was. The discomfort is real and well documented. In one study, about 78% of patients reported bothersome urinary symptoms including urgency, frequency, and incontinence. More than 80% experienced pain that affected their daily activities, roughly a third reported sexual problems, and over half said the stent reduced their ability to work.⁴ Those numbers are striking. This is not a minor inconvenience for most people.

The exact mechanism behind stent discomfort is not fully pinned down, but it likely involves two main factors. The lower coil of the stent curls inside the bladder, where it rubs against the bladder wall and triggers irritation that feels like a constant, urgent need to urinate. The stent also creates a channel that allows urine to reflux backward from the bladder up to the kidney, transmitting pressure changes and causing flank pain, especially during urination or physical activity.⁵⁶ That combination of bladder irritation and kidney-level pressure explains why stent symptoms feel different from normal post-surgical soreness and why standard painkillers only partially help.

Managing the Discomfort While You Wait

The single most effective medication class for stent-related symptoms is alpha-blockers, drugs originally developed for enlarged prostate but repurposed here. Randomized trials have consistently shown that alpha-blockers reduce urinary symptoms and kidney pain in stented patients.⁷ Alfuzosin, one of the more commonly studied options, improves discomfort and urinary symptoms, though it does not significantly reduce the amount of narcotic pain medication people use.⁸ If your urologist does not mention alpha-blockers, it is worth asking. They are inexpensive, well-tolerated, and one of the few interventions with good trial evidence for this specific problem.

Beyond medication, practical self-care helps. Staying well hydrated tends to reduce blood in the urine and may dilute irritating substances that worsen symptoms. Limiting strenuous activity cuts down on both pain flares and visible blood in the urine.⁹ Many patients find that the worst symptoms come during physical exertion, sudden position changes, or a full bladder, so staying ahead of those triggers can make the days more tolerable. Anti-inflammatory medications and bladder antispasmodics are other options your doctor may offer, though the evidence for those is less robust than for alpha-blockers.

How Stents Are Removed

Stent removal is generally quick, though the method depends on whether your stent has a string. In a survey of patient experiences, about 44% of stents were removed by office cystoscopy, where a small scope is passed through the urethra to grab the stent, while 39% were removed by the patient or physician pulling an attached extraction string.¹⁰ Cystoscopic removal takes just a few minutes and is typically done without general anesthesia, though the experience is uncomfortable. String removal can be done at home, which many patients prefer for the convenience.

One concern people have about extraction strings is whether the dangling string causes more discomfort or complications while the stent is in place. A randomized trial comparing stents with and without strings found no difference in quality of life, pain at removal, urinary tract infections, emergency room visits, or phone calls to the doctor’s office between the two groups.¹¹ So a string does not make the stent experience worse, and it does allow earlier, easier removal. If you are given the choice, the string is generally the better option for short-term stents.

What Happens When a Stent Stays In Too Long

This is where the stakes climb. A stent left in beyond its intended duration starts to accumulate mineral deposits on its surface, a process called encrustation. The mechanism involves a combination of how long the stent has been in, the patient’s individual urine chemistry, bacterial biofilm formation on the stent surface, and mineral deposition.¹² Several conditions accelerate the problem, including urinary tract infections, a history of stone disease, chronic kidney issues, and metabolic abnormalities.¹³ Urease-producing bacteria are particularly troublesome because they raise urine pH, which promotes crystal formation on the stent.

Infections also become more likely the longer a stent remains. Biofilms, thin layers of bacteria that adhere to the stent’s surface, form within days and become increasingly resistant to antibiotics over time. For patients who require long-term stenting for reasons beyond kidney stones, such as ureteral strictures or tumors, this means the stent needs to be exchanged every few months to prevent serious biofilm-related infections and heavy encrustation.¹⁴ Urinary tract infections are also more likely with longer stent duration in stone-forming patients specifically.¹⁵

A severely encrusted stent cannot simply be pulled out. When stents have been forgotten for months or years, removal often requires a combination of procedures: shock wave lithotripsy to break up the mineral crust, followed by endoscopic extraction of the fragments and the stent itself, sometimes staged over multiple sessions.¹⁶ These are the nightmare scenarios urologists warn about, and they are entirely preventable with timely removal.

The Forgotten Stent Problem

Forgotten ureteral stents are a recognized patient-safety issue worldwide. In a systematic review of the literature, the most common reason for stent placement that led to a “forgotten” stent was kidney stone treatment, accounting for about 79% of cases. The overwhelmingly dominant reason stents got forgotten was patient-related factors, at nearly 84%, including poor follow-up compliance, simple forgetfulness, and misconceptions about whether the stent needed to come out at all.¹⁷ Some patients assume the stent will dissolve or pass on its own. Standard polyurethane and silicone stents do not dissolve. They must be actively removed.

To combat this, hospitals have begun using digital tracking systems. A smartphone-based stent registry with automatic text message reminders eliminated forgotten stents entirely in one multi-center study: 13% of patients tracked with the older manual system had forgotten stents, while none of the patients in the smartphone reminder group did.¹⁸ A separate pilot study of a “Stent Tracker” app similarly showed it could significantly reduce the rate of retained stents.¹⁹ If your hospital does not use an automated tracking system, put the removal date in your phone calendar yourself and set multiple reminders. This is not the kind of appointment you want to miss.

When a Stent Can Be Skipped Entirely

Not everyone needs a stent after ureteroscopy. A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials found that skipping the stent after uncomplicated ureteroscopy significantly reduced pain in the first two weeks, cut analgesic requirements by more than half, and dramatically lowered rates of urinary urgency, painful urination, and blood in the urine. Stone-free rates were equivalent whether a stent was placed or not, and there were no significant differences in fever, infection, urinary retention, or hospital readmission.²⁰ The conclusion was blunt: routine stenting after uncomplicated ureteroscopy increases morbidity without improving results.

An earlier multi-institutional randomized trial reached a similar finding. Among patients who had uncomplicated distal ureteral stone removal, those without stents did just as well as those with stents, achieving a stone-free rate over 99%. About 7% of unstented patients did need readmission for flank pain, but none had obstruction or stricture formation on follow-up imaging.²¹ That small readmission risk is the trade-off for avoiding stent symptoms altogether.

The key word in all of this is “uncomplicated.” If the procedure involved significant ureteral injury, a perforation, a tight ureter that required dilation, a large stone burden, or residual fragments, a stent is still clearly indicated. The decision is surgical and depends on what the urologist encounters during the procedure. But if your surgery went smoothly and you are told a stent is being placed “just in case,” it is reasonable to ask whether omitting it is an option.

Stenting in Children

Pediatric kidney stones are becoming more common, and the stenting question arises for children too. A systematic review of stent use in pediatric urolithiasis found that for uncomplicated cases, routine stent placement before or after stone surgery did not provide significant clinical benefits regardless of the type of procedure used. The recommendation was selective stenting, reserved for situations involving intraoperative ureteral injury, ureteral stricture, a solitary kidney, or impaired kidney function.²² Children tolerate stents poorly, just as adults do, and avoiding unnecessary placement spares them significant discomfort during recovery.

Biodegradable Stents and What Is Coming

The ultimate fix for stent-related misery, forgotten stents, and encrustation complications would be a stent that dissolves on its own after doing its job. That idea is not new, but developing a material that degrades at a predictable rate, maintains structural integrity long enough to be useful, and does not release irritating byproducts has proven difficult. Research into biodegradable ureteral stents is active and growing, driven by both physicians and patients who recognize how many problems stem from the current need for a second procedure to remove a permanent device.²³

Several materials are under investigation, including polylactic acid and various copolymer blends. Some early prototypes have shown promise in animal models, but the challenge remains getting the degradation timeline right. Too fast, and the stent falls apart before healing is complete. Too slow, and you have the same problems as a conventional stent without the option of straightforward removal. Magnetic stents represent another innovation: in a small series involving kidney transplant recipients, magnetic stents were removed 10 to 12 days after transplantation using a magnetic retrieval catheter, avoiding cystoscopy entirely.²⁴ Neither biodegradable nor magnetic stents are widely available yet, but they signal where the field is heading: toward devices that cause less suffering and require less follow-up.

Stents During Pregnancy

Pregnant women who develop obstructing kidney stones present a unique challenge because many standard treatments, including certain types of imaging and shock wave lithotripsy, are off-limits during pregnancy. Historically, the go-to approach has been to place a ureteral stent or a nephrostomy tube as a temporizing measure to relieve obstruction until the pregnancy is completed. More recently, ureteroscopy during pregnancy has emerged as a safe alternative in experienced hands.²⁵ When stents are placed during pregnancy, they often need to be exchanged every four to six weeks because the physiological changes of pregnancy, including increased urine calcium excretion and urinary stasis, accelerate encrustation and make infection more likely. It is one of the few situations where a stent might remain in place for months, deliberately, under close surveillance.