After the subject of kidney stones came up in my thread in IMHO (“I’m jealous of women”), I arrived at the not-so-hard-to-arrive-at conclusion that I don’t want them. What are the measures I can take to reduce or eliminate my risk of developing kidney stones?
I had a kidney stone in June of 1995. It was horrible. The thing was 11mm (about the size of a .45 bullet) and it was stuck in my urethra. They had to shove a stent up me to hold in in place, then they used sound waves & laser through my back to bust it up. This made it come out in my urine in 1000 pieces (painful!) The whole ordeal lasted over a week. I’ve never been in so much pain.
What did my doctor say was the best prevention?
DRINK ALOT OF WATER!
That’s it? That’s all they have? Drink water?
Yup. That’s all they have. No drugs or special diet. Just drink alot of water.
Isn’t medical science grand?:rolleyes:
Damn right it is. Does it bother you that there is a simple nutritional protocol for the prevention of a painful condition?
Anyway, you doctor is correct. Drinking lots of water all throughout the day helps immensely. The more water you drink, the less likely your urine will have any number of chemical imbalances that could lead to kidney stones.
Lots of info can be found here.
I got the same advice.
It was also the only treatment I got for my kidney stones, spaced a year and a half apart.
For the first one, I had $5,000 in uninsured fluids and Demerol (yum!) IVed into me while my urologist waited for the little black gobstopper to appear in my pee strainer. For the second one, I called in sick, got a prescription for codeine, drank a ton of water, and peed a lot. I would have unbelievable spasms of pain every 6 or 8 hours as the little fucker shifted around my kidney, so I maintained a normal lifetime in between “contractions.” In fact, I went to a movie, and knew I was out of the woods when I heard a little “clink” in the public urinal.
I passed an ITTY BITTY one in '87…it was the size of a grain of sand and it still tore me up.Man did that hurt.My doctor recommended drinking alot of cranberry juice to dissolve the stones and help stop them forming.
I’m a kidney stone veteran, having passed a dozen since I was 14. This past February I had lithotripsy for the second time. Can’t stress the “drink lots of water” enough. Something else my current doctor said is to cut down on salt. None of my past doctors ever mentioned this, so I did some reading and am giving this a try. There’s lots to read if you just plug “kidney stone prevention” into a good search engine.
I already drank alot of wate (at least 4-5 glasses a day).
I would think that in this day of age they would have something else. Water didn’t work!
I’ve heard both good and bad things about cranberry juice. A coworker of mine once had what she thought were kidney stones, which we thought was curious since she drank plenty of cranberry juice (folk remedy). Turns out that she also took megadoses of Vitamin C, which would crystallize in her kidneys because of the cranberry juice. I’m not quite sure of the mechanism. They only figured this out after she passed her first few stones, because she still was having pains. As soon as she stopped the Cran-VitC combo, it stopped hurting.
Anyway, 4-5 glasses of water a day is not that much, especially if you have ice in your glass. The minimum recommendation is 64 ounces, a little less than 2 liters. And I’d tell you to drink more if you consume a lot of soft drinks, alcohol, tea or coffee, as they are diuretics. It’s almost impossible to drink too much.
Cranberry juice could be just a folk remedy,after all it was a Navy doctor that recommended it…and IMHO they sucked.
Isn’t ice water? Or do most folks actually throw out the used ice or something? I know that I usually either suck/chew on the ice cubes, or let them melt. Am I just more of a weirdo than I thought?
I’ve also heard that getting too much calcium can be a problem, but even if true, it’s not significant for very many people… Most folks don’t get enough.
a half a dozen times over the years. The main cause of course is not enought water. - Kidney stones are of varying composition so there is no one recommended way of reducing your risk of growing one. Having said this however, about 80% of them are of calcium-oxalate composition. It is recommended that you “save” your kidney stone for chemical analysis so you can be sure what type it is, but if you follow a low-oxalate diet, you are about 80% sure of reducing your risk of getting another stone.
Almost everyting I like is on the list of things to be avoided “bummer!” but I willingly follow the diet as I have no desire to roll on the floor in pain again. See the following website for a low-oxalate diet.
http://www.foodandlife.com/foodk.htm
I have another site with a more complete list, but I am unable to find it at this time. I will post it if/when I locate it again.
Our doctors here are prescribing a pill called “buscopan” to be taken at first symptoms of an attack. It causes the tubes of the kidneys and uretha to enlarge allowing easier passage of a small stone. If you have a large stone, it won’t help. As a “survivor” of many stones, I always carry a small bottle of them with me. They have saved me much discomfort. I do not know if they are available stateside.
My sympathies to anyone who shares this affliction with me, and the only comfort when in the throes of an attack is that you won’t die from it, you only wish you would.
