What are kidney stones?
Kidney stones are accumulations of mineral salts that can lodge anywhere along the course of the urinary tract. Normally, these salts would stay in a solution. If the system that keeps it a solution is overwhelmed or a person’s immunity becomes depressed these substances can crystallize and begin to clump together. Then they stick together, they form small “pebbles”. They can be as small as grains of sand or as large as golf balls. They may stay in your kidneys or travel out of your body through the urinary tract. The urinary tract is the system that makes urine and carries it out of your body. It is made up of the kidneys, the tubes that can connect the kidneys to the bladder, and the tube that leads from the bladder out of the body. When a stone travels through the system, it may cause no pain or it may cause great pain and various other symptoms.
What cause kidney stones?
Kidney stones form when a change occurs in the normal balance of water, salts, mineral, and other things found in urine. The most common cause of kidney stones is not drinking enough water. About 80% of all kidney stones are calcium stones. When calcium is increased in the urine, they eventually cause a stone. High calcium levels can come from excessive absorption of calcium from the intestines, a malfunctioning parathyroid gland (tiny glands in the neck that regulate calcium levels), as well as the consumption of refined carbohydrates, especially sugar. Stones can also come from urinary infections. There is also a rare genetic defect.
People with Chrohn’ Disease, or Irritable Bowel Syndrome or someone who digests as large as amount of oxalic acid will have an increased risk of kidney stones. Other risk factors are low urine volume, low bodily pH and reduced production of natural urinary inhibitors of crystalline formation. Kidney stones are 10 times as common now as they were in the early 1900s, while the consumption of foods high in oxalic acid (mostly eggs, fish and certain vegetables) has declined the amount of animal fats and protein the average American diet has increased.
What are the symptoms?
Kidney stones often cause no pain while they are in the kidneys, but they can cause sudden, severe pain as they travel from the kidneys to the bladder. Symptoms may be severe pain in your side, belly, or groin or the urine may look pink or red. It can also make a person feel sick to their stomach (nausea) and they may vomit. Kidney stones may not cause any pain. If this is the case, you may learn you have them when your doctor finds them during a test, or when you pass a stone.
How are they treated?
For most stones, drinking enough water to keep your urine clear, or about 8 to 10 glasses of water a day will help flush the stones out. There are also various other natural methods to get the stones to pass (see below).
If this is pain, drink the juice of half a fresh lemon in 8 ounces of water every hour until the pain subsides. You can also alternate between lemon juice and fresh apple juice.
If a stone is too large to pass on its own, or if it gets stuck in the urinary tract, you may need more treatment. About 1 or 2 out of every 10 kidneys stones needs more than home treatment.
The most common medical treatment is shock waves to break a kidney stone into small pieces. The bits can pass out of the body in your urine.
Prevention of further stones and goods kidney function
Drink plenty of water – at least 3 quarts a day. The first most important measure to prevent stones from forming is to increase water consumption. Water dilutes urine and helps prevent concentrations of the minerals and salts that can from stones.
Drink unsweetened cranberry juice to help acidify the urine (unless you are prone to uric acid stones).
Drinking the juice of a fresh lemon in a glass of warm water every morning can prevent stones from forming.
Increase the consumption of fresh foods rich in Vitamin A. It is beneficial to the urinary tract and helps to discourage the formation of stones. Great sources of Vitamins A include alfalfa, apricots, cantaloupes, carrots, pumpkins, sweet potatoes and squash.
Minimizing consumption of animal fats is another method. A high-animal protein diet causes the body to excrete calcium, phosphorus, and uric acid in the kidneys and often resulting in painful kidney stones.
Avoid carbonated drinks.
Avoid refined sugar. Sugar stimulates the pancreas to release insulin, which in turn causes extra calcium to be excreted in the urine.
Stay active. People who are sedentary tend to accumulate high levels of calcium in the blood stream. Exercise helps pull calcium from the blood into the bones, where it belongs.
Recommended:
A safe and natural home remedy that has helped thousands of other kidney stone sufferers dissolve their kidney stones into small, sand-like particles, and then pass them without pain.
(Source: Healthy Kidney 2006)
Prepared and Researched by Mr. Tia Vannareth.
