Understanding your medical, family and dietary history helps your health care provider find out how likely you are to form more stones. After taking a complete history and doing a physical exam, your health care provider may take blood and urine samples for testing. Blood tests can help find if a medical problem is causing your stones. Your urine can be tested to see if you have a urinary tract infection or crystals that are typical of different stone types.
If you are at high risk for getting stones in the future, a hour urine collection can be done. This test will reveal the levels of different stone-forming substances in your urine. The results of this test can help your health care provider recommend make specific diet and medications to prevent future stones.
When a health care provider sees you for the first time and you have had stones before, he or she may want to see recent X-rays or order a new X-ray. They will do this to see if there are any stones in your urinary tract. Imaging tests may be repeated over time to check for stone growth. You may also need this test if you are having pain, hematuria blood in your urine or recurrent infections. If you pass a stone or a stone is removed by surgery, your health care provider will want to test it.
Testing the stone will determine what type of stone it is. This information helps your health care provider decide the best way to prevent future stones. Once your health care provider finds out why you are forming stones, he or she will give you tips on how to prevent them. This may include changing your diet and taking certain medications. There is no "one-size-fits-all" diet for preventing kidney stones. Everyone is different. Your diet may not be causing your stones to form.
But there are dietary changes that you can make to stop stones from continuing to form. If you are not producing enough urine, your health care provider will recommend you drink at least 3 liters of liquid each day. This equals about 3 quarts about ten ounce glasses. This is a great way to lower your risk of forming new stones. Remember to drink more to replace fluids lost when you sweat from exercise or in hot weather. All fluids count toward your fluid intake. But it's best to drink mostly no-calorie or low-calorie drinks.
This may mean limiting sugar-sweetened or alcoholic drinks. Knowing how much you drink during the day can help you understand how much you need to drink to produce 2.
Use a household measuring cup to measure how much liquid you drink for a day or two. Drink from bottles or cans with the fluid ounces listed on the label. Keep a log, and add up the ounces at the end of the day or hour period. Use this total to be sure you are reaching your daily target urine amount of at least 85 ounces 2.
Health care providers recommend people who form cystine stones drink more liquid than other stone formers. Usually 4 liters of liquid is advised to reduce cystine levels in your urine. This tip is for people with high sodium intake and high urine calcium or cystine. Sodium can cause both urine calcium and cystine to be too high. Your health care provider may advise you to avoid foods that have a lot of salt. The following foods are high in salt and should be eaten in moderation:. If you take calcium supplements, make sure you aren't getting too much calcium.
On the other hand make sure you aren't getting too little calcium either. Talk with your health care provider or dietitian about whether you need supplements. Good sources of calcium to choose from often are those low in salt. Eating calcium-rich foods or beverages with meals every day is a good habit. There are many non-dairy sources of calcium, such as calcium-fortified non-dairy milks.
There are good choices, especially if you avoid dairy. You can usually get enough calcium from your diet without supplements if you eat three-to-four servings of calcium-rich food. Many foods and beverages have calcium in them. Some foods and beverages that might be easy to include on a daily basis with meals are:. Eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily is recommended for all people who form kidney stones. Eating fruits and vegetables give you potassium, fiber, magnesium, antioxidants, phytate and citrate, all of which may help keep stones from forming.
A serving means one piece of fruit or one potato or one cup of raw vegetables. If you are worried you may not be eating the right amount of fruits and vegetables, talk to your health care provider about what will be best for you. This recommendation is for patients with high urine oxalate. Eating calcium-rich foods see table above with meals can often control the oxalate level in your urine. Urinary oxalate is controlled because eating calcium lowers the oxalate level in your body.
But if doing that does not control your urine oxalate, you may be asked to eat less of certain high-oxalate foods. Nearly all plant foods have oxalate, but a few foods contain a lot of it. These include spinach, rhubarb and almonds.
It is usually not necessary to completely stop eating foods that contain oxalate. This needs to be determined individually and depends on why your oxalate levels are high in the first place. If you make cystine or calcium oxalate stones and your urine uric acid is high, your health care provider may tell you to eat less animal protein. If your health care provider thinks your diet is increasing your risk for stones, he or she will tell you to eat less meat, fish, seafood, poultry, pork, lamb, mutton and game meat than you eat now.
This might mean eating these foods once or twice rather than two or three times a day, fewer times during the week, or eating smaller portions when you do eat them. The amount to limit depends on how much you eat now and how much your diet is affecting your uric acid levels. Changing your diet and increasing fluids may not be enough to prevent stones from forming.
Your health care provider may give you medications to take to help with this. The type of stone and the urine abnormalities you have will help your health care provider decide if you need medicine and which medicine is best. Common medications include:. Thiazides lower urine calcium by helping the kidney take calcium out of the urine and put it back in the blood stream. When taking thiazides, you need to limit how much salt you take in, as these medications work best when urine sodium is low.
Potassium citrate makes the urine less acidic or more alkaline basic. This helps prevent cystine and uric acid stones. It also raises the citrate level in the urine, helping to prevent calcium stones. Allopurinol not only lowers the level of uric acid in the blood but also in the urine, so it may also be prescribed to help prevent calcium and uric acid stones.
These stones form because of repeated urinary tract infections UTI. AHA makes the urine unfavorable for struvite stones to form. The best way to prevent stuvite stones is to prevent repeated UTIs caused by specific types of bacteria and to completely remove the stones with surgery. These medications d-penicillamine or tiopronin bind to cystine in the urine and form a compound that is less likely than cystine to crystallize in the urine. This drug is used when other measures fail, such as raising fluid intake, reducing salt intake or using potassium citrate.
Your health care provider and a dietitian may be good sources of information about over-the-counter nutritional supplements.
Like the horns of a stag deer , these stones get their name from the shape they take as they grow to fill the inside of the kidney. Staghorn stones often form because of repeated urinary tract infections UTIs with certain kinds of bacteria. Even though they can grow to a large size, you may have no idea you have them because they cause little or no pain.
A staghorn stone can lead to poor kidney function, even without blocking the passage of urine. Kidney stones are more common in people who have a family member with kidney stones. Some conditions that cause stones may be inherited. But sometimes kidney stones form in relatives because of similar diet and lifestyle. Yes, but rarely. Kidney stones can cause damage if they cause repeated or serious infection or cause kidney blockage for a long time.
Some stones, if left untreated, can cause the kidney to stop working. During treatment, your health care provider may ask you to do another hour urine collection and have your blood work checked to see if your urine test results have improved. Your health care provider will also check to see if you are having any side effects from your medications.
If you form stones often, you will need monitoring with X-rays and urine studies to be sure no new stones are forming. Your health care provider will monitor you to make sure your medications and diet changes are working. Diet changes recommended for heart conditions also often help prevent stones. A healthy diet with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and less animal protein and salt can help avoid stones and other conditions.
You can learn more from your health care provider or dietician. Keeping a normal weight can also help avoid diabetes and stones. If a stone in the ureter does not pass in a reasonable time or is causing pain or infection, you will need surgery to remove it. You may get another stone even if you've had surgery, changed your diet or are taking medications. However, with the right dietary and medical treatment, you can be less likely to get stones over and over again.
Kidney stones are on the rise. Listen to this minute podcast featuring Dr. Calcium can combine with other substances found in your food, like oxalate, phosphate, or carbonate, to form stones.
Cystine stones can form in people who have cystinuria, a condition passed down through families in which stones are made from an amino acid called cystine. Struvite stones are found mostly in women who have urinary tract infections. These stones can grow very large and can block the kidney, ureter, or bladder. Uric acid stones are more common in men than in women.
They can occur in people who have a history of gout or are going through chemotherapy. So, how do you know if you have kidney stones? Well, you may not have symptoms until the stone move down the ureter tubes through which urine empties into your bladder. When this happens, the stones can block the flow of urine out of your kidneys.
The main symptom is severe sharp pain that starts suddenly, usually in your belly or one side of your back, and it may go away just as quickly. Other symptoms can include abnormal urine color, blood in your urine, fever, chills, nausea, and vomiting.
So, what do you do about kidney stones? Well, your health care provider will perform a physical exam. You may need blood tests, kidney function tests, and tests that look for crystals in your urine. Several imaging tests, like a CT scan, can see stones or a blockage in your urinary tract. Treatment will depend on the type of stone you have, and how bad your symptoms are. Small kidney stones that are less than 5 mm in diameter will usually pass on their own.
You should drink at least 6 to 8 glasses of water per day to produce a large enough amount of urine to help bring the stone out. Pain can be pretty bad when you pass a kidney stone, so your doctor may prescribe pain medicines to help as well as medications that will help the stone pass. Other medicines can decrease stone formation or help break down and remove the material that is causing you to make stones. You may need surgery if the stone is too large to pass, the stone is growing, or the stone is blocking your urine flow.
Kidney stones are painful, but you can usually pass them without causing permanent harm. However, kidney stones often come back, so you and your doctor will need to work on finding the cause of your stone.
Lastly, delaying treatment can lead to serious complications, so if you think that you have kidney stones see your doctor right away. Kidney stones are common.
Some types run in families. They often occur in premature infants. There are different types of kidney stones. The cause of the problem depends on the type of stone. Stones can form when urine contains too much of certain substances that form crystals.
These crystals can develop into stones over weeks or months. The biggest risk factor for kidney stones is not drinking enough fluids. Kidney stones are more likely to occur if you make less than 1 liter 32 ounces of urine a day. You may not have symptoms until the stones move down the tubes ureters through which urine empties into your bladder. When this happens, the stones can block the flow of urine out of the kidneys.
The health care provider will perform a physical exam. The belly area abdomen or back might feel sore. Some people with severe pain from kidney stones need to stay in the hospital. You may need to get fluids through an IV into your vein. For some types of stones, your provider may prescribe medicine to prevent stones from forming or help break down and remove the material that is causing the stone.
These medicines can include:. Talk to your provider about what treatment options may work for you. You will need to take self-care steps. Which steps you take depend on the type of stone you have, but they may include:. Kidney stones are painful, but most of the time can be removed from the body without causing lasting damage. Complication of kidney stones may include the obstruction of the ureter acute unilateral obstructive uropathy.
If you have been diagnosed with blockage from a stone, passage must be confirmed either by capture in a strainer during urination or by follow-up x-ray. Being pain free does not confirm that the stone has passed.
Doctors try to let the stone pass without surgery. You may also get medication to help make your urine less acid. But if it is too large, or if it blocks the flow of urine, or if there is a sign of infection, it is removed with surgery. Shock-wave lithotripsy is a noninvasive procedure that uses high-energy sound waves to blast the stones into fragments that are then more easily passed out in the urine. In ureteroscopy , an endoscope is inserted through the ureter to retrieve or obliterate the stone.
See a doctor as soon as possible. You may be asked to drink extra fluid in an attempt to flush out the stone out in the urine. If you strain your urine and can save a piece of the stone that has passed, bring it to your doctor. Or, the stone may need to be removed with surgery. Diagnosis of a kidney stone starts with a medical history, physical examination, and imaging tests. Your doctors will want to know the exact size and shape of the kidney stones.
This can be done with a high resolution CT scan from the kidneys down to the bladder or an x-ray called a "KUB x-ray'' kidney-ureter-bladder x-ray which will show the size of the stone and its position. The KUB x-ray is often obtained by the surgeons to determine if the stone is suitable for shock wave treatment. The KUB test may be used to monitor your stone before and after treatment, but the CT scan is usually preferred for diagnosis.
In some people, doctors will also order an intravenous pyelogram or lVP, a special type of X- ray of the urinary system that is taken after injecting a dye. Second, your doctors will decide how to treat your stone. The health of your kidneys will be evaluated by blood tests and urine tests.
Your overall health, and the size and location of your stone will be considered. Later, your doctor will want to find the cause of the stone. The stone will be analyzed after it comes out of your body, and your doctor will test your blood for calcium, phosphorus and uric acid. The doctor may also ask that you collect your urine for 24 hours to test for calcium and uric acid. There are four types of stones.
Studying the stone can help understand why you have it and how to reduce the risk of further stones. The most common type of stone contains calcium. Calcium is a normal part of a healthy diet. The kidney usually removes extra calcium that the body doesn't need. Often people with stones keep too much calcium. This calcium combines with waste products like oxalate to form a stone. The most common combination is called calcium oxalate.
Less common types of stones are: Infection-related stones, containing magnesium and ammonia called struvite stones and stones formed from monosodium urate crystals, called uric acid stones, which might be related to obesity and dietary factors.
The rarest type of stone is a cvstine stone that tends to run in families. Kidney stones increase the risk of developing chronic kidney disease. Drinking enough fluid will help keep your urine less concentrated with waste products.
Darker urine is more concentrated, so your urine should appear very light yellow to clear if you are well hydrated. Most of the fluid you drink should be water. Most people should drink more than 12 glasses of water a day.
Speak with a healthcare professional about the right amount of water that's best for you. Sugar and high-fructose corn syrup should be limited to small quantities. Eat more fruits and vegetables, which make the urine less acid. When the urine is less acid, then stones may be less able to form. Animal protein produces urine that has more acid, which can then increase your risk for kidney stones.
You can reduce excess salt in your diet. What foods are high in salt? Everyone thinks of salty potato chips and French fries. Those should be rarely eaten. There are other products that are salty: sandwich meats, canned soups, packaged meals, and even sports drinks.
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