Only time I had a kidney stone it was too massive to even pass. Could feel the need to go, would only get tiny bits of drops. Wasn't too painful, just super annoying having to take like 10 minutes for something usually done in seconds.
And then the kidney failure started. Literally blinding levels of pain out of nowhere, went white as a ghost. Doctors knocked me out, stuffed a stent up in there to get more room, surgically removed the thing. Left the stent in for about a week for whatever reason, had me come back to remove it, just ripped the thing right out while I was still conscious. Felt like a papercut inside the entire length.
Fun thing is "just drink more water" isn't a perfect solution, given the sheer variety. In my case, adding in a daily glass of straight lemon juice is pretty much necessary to not go through that again.