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Berkeley Wellness Alerts
August 24, 2010 | Comments: 2
Pass the Kidney Stone Advice
Passing a kidney stone is a memorable experience that most sufferers would prefer to forget. Men are about three times more likely to be stone-formers than women.
Kidney stones can cause severe pain as they pass out of the body, as well as nausea, vomiting, and fever. If a kidney stone blocks the urinary tract, that’s an urgent medical problem. One stone often means another is forming—and that other stones will eventually occur.
Genes play a role in kidney stone formation. Other factors include hot climates, being dehydrated, and certain disorders such as gout. Obesity and diabetes also increase the risk. The role of diet is poorly understood—and advice that once was standard (such as “cut back on calcium”) is now known to be incorrect.
What’s in a stone
Kidney stones are mixtures of minerals. The most common are made of calcium and oxalates (found in plant foods but also made in the body) or calcium and phosphorus compounds. Phytates, which are phosphorus compounds, and oxalates are apt to combine with or bind minerals like calcium. Less commonly, stones are made primarily of uric acid. A struvite stone is predominantly magnesium. If you pass a kidney stone, it’s important to have it chemically analyzed, since different kinds of stones require different treatments and preventive measures.
Some sound advice
• Drink plenty of fluids.
• Limit sodium. There’s some controversy whether this helps prevent kidney stones, but it can’t hurt and many experts think it helps.
• Calcium from dairy products seems to be protective (aim for at least 800 milligrams of calcium a day from dairy). Some research suggests that calcium supplements may slightly increase the risk of kidney stones, however.
• Lemon and orange juice may increase levels of citric acid in urine and thus help prevent calcium kidney stones. But follow your doctor’s advice. Grapefruit juice, in preliminary studies, appears to increase the risk.
Old advice, now questionable
• Coffee, tea, and alcohol used to be on the forbidden list if you have kidney stones, but newer opinion is that they are not a problem in amounts commonly consumed.
• Eating less animal protein was once commonly recommended, but now that’s not so certain. If you are forming uric acid stones (or have gout), you may need to reduce protein intake.
• Cutting out foods high in oxalate (such as spinach, peanuts, beets, scallops, mussels, asparagus, chocolate, black tea, and soy) used to be standard advice, though there’s no good evidence to support this. Still, if you form calcium oxalate stones, your doctor may recommend cutting out spinach and peanuts, which are very high in oxalates.
• Preliminary evidence suggests that large amounts of fructose may increase risk. Soft drinks and many foods are heavily sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup; regular sugar (sucrose) is actually half fructose.
Medical treatments
If a stone doesn’t pass, shock wave therapy (lithotripsy) may be used to break it up into small pieces; this is usually done on an outpatient basis. There are also surgical procedures. Certain drugs may help prevent recurrence of kidney stones.
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My son is prone to kidney stones. He has had 5-6 stones in the last 10 years. Each one has sent him to the ER, because of the pain and nausea and the blood in his urine. The last time was this past Saturday(Aug 28,'10) He was stabilized at one hospital and sent to another for more extensive treatment. He has 2 stones, one is small and he could pass it with minimal amount of trouble except for the fact that it is trapped behind a 9mm stone that is stuck in the ureter and has everything backed up. They have had to put a shunt in place so the kidney can drain and the ureter can heal and stop bleeding. (At one point his urine was almost black because of the blood.) He has to go back to the urologist in a couple of weeks to see if the inflammation is gone down and to schedule the removal of the 2 stones. I asked why they didn't just remove the stones when they put the shunt in place, but they said they wanted the inflammation to go down first. They haven't made up their minds if they are going to shatter the stones or do surgery. I'm just afraid that since the stones have been getting larger each time that his kidney is going to be damaged beyond repair. How many times can they shatter stones without hurting the kidney?
Posted by: redwine | August 28, 2010 2:54 PM
This may sound strange and way too simple, but years ago I had read that cherry juice helped dissolve kidney stones. I remembered that when my grandson had an incredibly painful bout with a stone which wasn't passing. The doctors were dithering around about how to handle it and the pain was driving him crazy. I told him about the cherry juice and bought him 6 cans of cherry juicy juice which has real cherry juice in it. He drank them all over a period of a week and the stone must have dissolved because that was the end of the problem. The doctors were puzzled. My grandson had developed kidney stones at least once a year since he was a teenager, this was almost 7 years ago and he hasn't had one since. He drinks cherry juice at least once a month and says he will do this for life. It's worth a try!
Posted by: Victoria M | September 4, 2010 6:45 PM