Good question. You can feel your kidney in different areas. If it’s inflamed or infected you typically feel it in you mid back and that area can be tender to bumping it. When the kidney swells a person can feel abdominal pain and have nausea. Typically it’s not your shoulder (the question you asked). When a person passes a kidney stone the pain can start in the back and move down into the lower abdomen or groin. When a stone is about to go into the bladder patients feel and urge to urinate more often and male patients can have pain referred to their testicle and penis.
Urology
Patient Question: Where is kidney pain referred to?
Kidney stones are an active part of my practice
I treat kidney stones, and I put particular focus on stone prevention, which is where most of the value is and where most stone formers never get a real workup. A 24-hour urine collection tells us which specific abnormality is driving your stones.
Talk to me about stonesA note on this article. This is general education, not medical advice. It cannot account for your individual history, and reading it does not create a doctor-patient relationship. If something here raises a question about your health, bring it to a clinician who can actually examine you.