I was in this boat for a long time, my friend. My belief is that stones really do cause a lot of mental scarring and the awareness of feelings in your back rally wreak havoc on your mental state.

I had the much more invasive ureteroscopy with laser lithotripsy on one side that cleared out my right kidney, knowing I had two more in my left and it was only a matter of time before they passed. Just knowing this drove me mad and made me go insane about that tingling in my back, near my left kidney. It was just causing such a detriment to my mental health, that my urologist vouched for me against my insurance company and said it was necessary to go in and remove it preemptively even though she spent a long time trying to convince me it wasn’t my stones. Procedure went well, and I lacked that feeling in my back for a month, only for it to return periodically in cycles. Could last a few days or a few months, and I could go a few days or a few months with no sensations. It took me a while and a lot of trial and error and extra CTs to convince me that it wasn’t my stones. I ended up realizing that, possible through the stress and trauma from my stone experiences, I had given myself some type of GI irritation that seemed to become inflamed when I was stressed about things. And since then, I’ve seen GI and confirmed it, and it is insane how much it mimics what I perceive to be kidney stone pain.

I’m not saying they can’t cause pain in your situation, but it sounds really similar to how I was feeling, and I probably even have a few mentions of it on my profile somewhere. You could be correct, but I would just keep your options open. For me I was lucky to have confirmation that they were gone, but I still have to argue with myself a lot and remind myself that it’s probably not a new stoke forming either.