My mother has medullary sponge kidneys and an incomplete double ureter on her left side. She passes anywhere from 10-30 stones a year, and never has less than a dozen stones floating around in each kidney at any given time.

Before she was diagnosed and refered to a nephrologist there was a period of time that she was in the hospital nearly every other week because she was vomitting from pain. This went on for a few years before somebody thought to investigate the problem further.

They always treated her like crap, like she was a drug seeker, every single time, despite having a CT scan every time she was in that showed multiple stones in her kidneys. (She was once yelled at by a doctor because of the amount of radiation she had recieved. They were always ordered by a doctor, and were the only way that she would receive treatment)

Since being referred, there have been a few instances where she has still needed to go in and just the mention of her nephrologist now gets her proper care.