An Overview on Kidney Stones

By Frederic Baker

People may suffer from kidney stones without even knowing about it. Kidney stones form in the bladder and they are essentially crystallized articles of minerals that occur in your urine. Ignoring the early warning signs may result in serious negative health repercussions in the future, up to and including hospitalization and death.

As kidney stones grow in size and the urinary tract remains the same, you can well imagine that the larger stones start blocking the passage of urine. Depending on the volume of the stones, they also affect the operation of the kidneys by stopping them from performing their primary function.

The first symptom is usually pain in the abdominal region varying from mild to severe. The second symptom that the owner of kidney stone faces is pain during urination or menstruation when the stone or a group of them block the flow of urine form the kidney to the urinary tract. This pain also varies in degree depending on the size of the blockage.

People will feel severe pain or aching in the back on one or both sides, bloody, cloudy or smelly urine or suffer an abnormal increase in the frequency to urinate. Sometimes, the only symptom manifested is a sudden extreme pain in the stomach area which may be mistaken for food poisoning.

Some other common symptoms of the presence of kidney stones include feeling chills or fever or an increase in infections which were absent when the stones were the size of a grain of sand and could easily pass through the urinary tract. A minuscule kidney stone will usually be eliminated from the body within 48 hours, but attacks have been known to last for over 30 days.

As any sufferer of kidney stones will tell you, drinking water in large quantities will help preventing dehydration of your kidney and help the kidney stones to dissolve or pass through the urinary tract. Ask your doctor about the effects of changing your meals to exclude any food or drink containing oxalate. Here are a few to avoid: rhubarb, spinach, beets, peanuts, okra, chocolate, black Indian tea, sweet potatoes.

Medical experts normally have the same opinion that the recommended calcium supplements dosages should be nearly 1,200 mg per day. Yet, one study does indicate that women who took calcium supplements had a 20% higher risk of contracting kidney stones. Research indicates that dosages of calcium above 2,000 mg per day are directly related to the formation of kidney stones. Few experts argue that this higher risk occurs due to supplements that are often taken in the morning, either without food or with breakfast, which is typically low in oxalates. Risk of formation of such kidney stones is reduced if these supplements are taken after meals.

The larger the stone, the more an intervention will be required. Surgical removal during an operation is the last step in an upgrading line of medical technology that fights kidney stones by turning them into residue, removing by the use of straw-like devices and scopes. For the lucky ones, stones will go through the urinary tract naturally by having the body having ingested water and fruit juices in large quantities.