Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Definition
By Mayo Clinic staffKidney pain is caused by infection of or injury to the kidneys themselves. If your back or flank hurts, you might understandably think you have kidney pain, but your kidneys are probably just fine. In fact, many people are surprised to learn that kidneys are located relatively high on the back, just under the lower ribs.
How do you know if what you're calling kidney pain actually is kidney pain? There's no sure way, but the likelihood that it is increases with the presence of other signs and symptoms.
Pain in the upper back that is a dull, one-sided ache, particularly if it is accompanied by fever and urinary symptoms, may be real kidney pain, due to a kidney infection (pyelonephritis).
- Grantham J. Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. New England Journal of Medicine. 2008;359:1477.
- Bushinski DA, et al. Nephrolithiasis. In: Brenner BM. Brenner and Rector's The Kidney. 8th ed. Philadelphia:Saunders; 2007.
- Schaeffer AJ, et al. Infections of the urinary tract. In: Wein AJ, et al. Campbell-Walsh Urology. 9th ed. Philadelphia:Saunders; 2007.
- Torres VE, et al. Cystic diseases of the kidney. In: Brenner BM. Brenner and Rector's The Kidney. 8th ed. Philadelphia:Saunders; 2007.
- Hazanov N, et al. Acute renal embolism. Medicine. 2004;83:292.
- Hudson M, et al. Prognostication in patients receiving dialysis #191. Journal of Palliative Medicine. 2007;10:1402.
- Dooley JA, et al. Acute renal colic. In: Piccini, et al. The Osler Medical Handbook. 2nd ed. Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press; 2006.
- Kanso AA, et al. Microvascular and macrovascular diseases of the kidney. In: Brenner BM. Brenner and Rector's The Kidney. 8th ed. Philadelphia:Saunders; 2007.
- Meyrier A. Diagnosis and management of renal infections. Current Opinion in Nephrology and Hypertension. 1996;5:151.
- Wilkinson JM (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Jan. 21, 2009.
