I'm a veteran calcium oxalate stone former; I've ended up in hospital three times because of them, and my last scan showed I currently am carrying 16 of them, (plus 3 bonus bladder stones). I'd thought I'd pass on what I've learned in the last 30 years; if helps one person, then I've been useful.
1. Drink lots of water (actually a very dilute lime juice/cranberry juice mix). I aim for 4 litres/1 gallon a day, more in hot weather.
2. Don't drink spirits (specifically - note to self - half a bottle of bourbon, no matter how delicious). They cause some weird kind of dehydration, which makes the stones painful.
3. If you start getting discomfort from a stone, drink more water. It seems to 'float' them somehow, and can usually make the discomfort go away.
4. The stones act like little breeding grounds for bacteria. So, if you have stones you will be prone to chronic infections. If you are a chap, then this can lead to chronic bacterial prostatitus, which can cause all manner of problems, leading to a having a catheter fitted. But, if you have bladder stones, the stones will break the little plastic widget that stops the catheter from falling out, which means it has to be refitted. So, you may need to take a low-level antibiotic like nitrofuratoin (there is some evidence that cranberry juice can also help, because it reduces the stickiness of bacteria).
5. If you are passing a stone, and they offer you morphine, decline it and hold out for something more powerful. Morphine seems to contract the tubes, only offers partial relief, and makes the problem worse in my experience. I once had an IM injection of (something beginning with pent~ - I wasn't in the mood to take notes at the time) which worked very well.
6. Avoid foods containing high oxalate levels, like spinach.
7. Don't take medical advice from strangers on the internet (like me).
Calcium stones run all along the male side of my family too.. and I've had a few. The notion to me that lemonade would be helpful is counterintuitive. Generally we've come to understand that high doses of Vitamin C are part of the problem, because that's been something the men in my family do to ward off sickness - but my father, who took 5000 milligrams of C a day for years, always got the worst stones of all.
>> 2. Don't drink spirits.
This is probably true, but it contravenes the one piece of hard-won family folk wisdom that has helped me. Our method of removing kidney stones is as follows:
1. Go to a bar, take a piss if you can, then sit and order a Guinness.
2. Order 5 more Guinnesses and make a concerted effort to drink them all without taking a piss. Wait until you're absolutely desperate.
3. Go to the men's room and eject the stone. [the intoxication helps numb it, too].
I've watched my father pass them in the hospital; I remember remarkably twiddling one of his kidney stones in my hand as we drove him home, it was iridescent white and about the size of a shriveled pea. So far, though, this method hasn't failed me and I've yet to be hospitalized.
Vitamin C supplements are synthesized from fermentation products of corn and wheat. [0]
A single lemon contains about 32 milligrams of Vitamin C, along with many other things. This study showed that it's lemon extract, not vitamin C alone, that improves kidney stones.
I have a 15+ mm one. It's not going to pass and urologists already tried ESWL. They're waiting until it becomes a problem to remove it surgically because it will likely return.
Cola, excess vitamin C, and anything high in oxalate equal stone growth.
There are several stone types with different pathologies.
High citrate intake is generally good to counteract growth but there is no shrinking existing stones through diet. Anyone claiming this is a liar.
ESWL or surgery for anything larger than a few mm because passing would be brutal.
I got my first and so far only (fingers crossed!) kidney stone five years ago. At that time I started drinking lemon juice with hot water to start each day before consuming anything else, and it has so far kept any recurrence of kidney stones away. I really do believe the lemon juice has been key for me in this regard, and it is in any case a very healthy thing to do daily anyways (known and practiced by other cultures around the world).
Most folks who have kidney stones get them again and again, and anything that can help prevent this very painful event is critical. For anyone who does unfortunately experience kidney stones I highly recommend you try this option.
You're going to erode your teeth enamel like that. Hot water has nothing to do with it. Timing has nothing to do with it. Citrate and water increase; oxalate, protein, and cola decrease are generally important. Also, being endocrinologically stable is important.
See a urologist because they form silently again and again. Unless you have x-ray vision, it's impossible to know their status.
>You're going to erode your teeth enamel like that.
Honestly, this gets repeated a lot, but I've yet to see literature that shows this is true. It is true that you can show erosion under ridiculous conditions that don't mirror the real world like immersing loose teeth in acidic beverages for days. But I've yet to find evidence that drinking unsweetened acidic beverages like carbonated water or water with a little lemon juice has any meaningful impact on tooth decay. Over and over again the actual epidemiology shows an association between sugar / processed carbohydrates and tooth decay.
I've had a couple over the last few years. I've also started throwing lemon juice in my water bottle whenever I refill it. My urologist also suggested apple cider vinegar, I try to take a bit of that every day too (usually hot). It can help dissolve stones.
I personally don't find them particularly 'painful' more like profoundly uncomfortable. I find that I constantly am in a cycle of sitting for a few minutes then pacing around then maybe try and lay down, rinse repeat. A little heating pad time on my kidneys seems to make it less of a problem.
I’d say in your case your stones probably haven’t been that big. My stones were the worst experience of my life - only IV morphine helped. And even that made the pain just tolerable. Horrible!
I do identify with the constant uncomfortableness though.
Increasing citric acid intake does seem to be helpful, at least for calcium oxalate stones (one of the more command kinds).
I've had more than a few stones over the past couple decades, and when I finally got myself in to see a urologist, that was one of her primary recommendations.
That, along with some other treatment, seems to have helped considerably (only one non-trivial stone in the last ~12mo & the few others were barely noticeable).
In fairness, I keep the stuff around mainly for cocktails, but if Kingsley Amis is any example, having one of those every morning will certainly cause me many more problems than it's at all likely to solve.
I opted for surgery on my 2nd stone and it was a terrible mistake IMHO I should have tried to let it pass. The first was painful but not THAT bad. Worst experience I've ever had.
Now when I get a tinge of pain I immediately take Chanca Piedra and it seems to have helped for past few years, no reoccurrence, but could just be anecdotal & conicendental.
Fortunately I passed the stone in about 5 days. That's the best possible outcome as painful as that can be. I started the lemon juice about 3 days into the event and I do think it helped already in making the stone a bit smaller and getting it out of my body.
Oh wow actually reasonable use of “lemon derived” - I expected the usual “heavily processed with innumerable chemical reactions we converted oil from lemons into a new structure that in practice/volume would require starting with petroleum byproducts”.
This seems to be “we filtered these particles from lemonade and compressed them into pills to give to rats”
That said there’s also the required “in rats” missing from the headline, and I’m guessing the rats used are intentionally bred to get kidney stones, and fed a diet that encourages kidney stones, so the applicability to humans in normal cases isn’t a give . (Recalling the cranberry vs UTIs bs of a few years back)
I’ve known two people who have had kidney stones and I don’t think either of them would have been able to withstand the pain from the stone enough to go on a rollercoaster. Then again, maybe the promise of ending the pain will give enough motivation to grit it out.
I had one that took a year to pass (and it was a big one). Only knocked me out for a couple hours every 2 to 3 months. Finally scheduled a procedure and I passed it one week before on Thanksgiving morning while cooking our dinner.
Had another smaller one that had me on hardcore painkillers for two straight weeks. It was so bad I wasn't eating or taking care of myself. I just popped pills and slept. Thankfully I was able to pull myself together and go back to the doctor to get on a different medication that at least allowed me to function minimally until I could pass it.
Point is you never really know what's going on in there and I certainly did go on some rides during the year of the larger yet somehow less bothersome stone.
I don't find they, at least the three I've passed, as particularly painful. It's more like an intense discomfort. I find myself in a cycle of pacing, laying down and sitting (mostly on the toilet, you feel like you have to pee constantly). It's like discomfort limbo.
One of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced. I let myself get way too dehydrated while exercising on a very hot summer day, which brought it about (though I was obviously susceptible to them). I started hydrating a lot more and taking
potassium supplements and luckily haven’t had them since. Thankfully I went to a great hospital, and the staff there knew how painful the condition is, so there was only around 15 minutes between when I arrived at the ER and when I had an IV of morphine in my arm.
Do you to think crystals can form that quickly to have been caused by a single day of dehydration?
I had one a couple years ago. My theory is that I had accumulated crystalization the year prior. I had a heart nerve issue and my heart rate was significantly reduced for several months, getting as bad as 30 bpm for a couple weeks. Normally it's about 80 bpm. My kidneys were definitely underperforming as indicated by blood labs performed when I ended up in the ED/ICU with "total heart block". With that problem resolved, my kidneys were happy again and the crystals presumably started to gradually dissolve.
My urologist dismissed my theory completely, but I've been generally disappointed by my experience working with them and I am on the verge of finding a new provider. My most recent ultrasound shows that the kidney that had the stone pass is totally clear, while the other kidney still has some crystalization.
I actually don’t know much about it from a medical standpoint. But just from a pure Bayesian reasoning it seems overwhelmingly likely to me that it was the precipitating cause, since I never had it before that. I do think most doctors are very weak at identifying or even understanding patterns that are very unusual and which they haven’t seen before or read about. They generally don’t rely on first principles thinking but reason through pattern matching and referencing their training and experience.
Time I made a habit of drinking lemonade - a suggestion I'd have expected from my urologist, but not one I'm sorry to have run across whatever the source.
Yes, it's strange that my urologist has never mentioned it either. I wonder if this result applies to all types of kidney stones or just calcium oxalate.
A preventative like this is good to know, but, really, all you need to do is drink a lot of water through the day. That is the number one way to avoid a kidney stone. I have had a urologist say, "Hell, you can drink enough beer, and you should be good." - Though, if you are prone to gout (your body generally likes to make crystals), beer ain't a great choice.
I drink lemonade regularly (I make my own), but to prevent heartburn, as lemon turns into a base in your stomach and is very helpful with heartburn. Now knowing that it is also good for kidney stone prevention just puts the cherry on top!
...he said, in direct response to a comment which includes the phrase "my urologist."
I can see that you know how to produce language, albeit by all appearances rarely at best to worthwhile effect. Do you know at all how to consume it? Or is jumping to wrong conclusions and then being snide about them the only trick you have?
I just passed 6mm kidney stone - the stone itself travelled its way out for 2 months. It’s calcium oxidate based, so no chance of easy dissolving.. if it’s possible at all.
I’ve had maybe about 4-5 days of strong, sometimes unbearable pain that I was taking painkillers for (without that much an effect..). Then few weeks of pain low down there.. Doctor wanted to give it a try for a “Via naturalis” passing, to which I agreed (no regrets).
I have few more stones, with smaller sizes now... My doctors always recommended me beer with some lemon in it. Once in the past, I passed a kidney stone for less than 24h of the first pain (about 4mm) right after drinking 3 liters of beer.
This whole thing sucks.
Readit News
1. Drink lots of water (actually a very dilute lime juice/cranberry juice mix). I aim for 4 litres/1 gallon a day, more in hot weather.
2. Don't drink spirits (specifically - note to self - half a bottle of bourbon, no matter how delicious). They cause some weird kind of dehydration, which makes the stones painful.
3. If you start getting discomfort from a stone, drink more water. It seems to 'float' them somehow, and can usually make the discomfort go away.
4. The stones act like little breeding grounds for bacteria. So, if you have stones you will be prone to chronic infections. If you are a chap, then this can lead to chronic bacterial prostatitus, which can cause all manner of problems, leading to a having a catheter fitted. But, if you have bladder stones, the stones will break the little plastic widget that stops the catheter from falling out, which means it has to be refitted. So, you may need to take a low-level antibiotic like nitrofuratoin (there is some evidence that cranberry juice can also help, because it reduces the stickiness of bacteria).
5. If you are passing a stone, and they offer you morphine, decline it and hold out for something more powerful. Morphine seems to contract the tubes, only offers partial relief, and makes the problem worse in my experience. I once had an IM injection of (something beginning with pent~ - I wasn't in the mood to take notes at the time) which worked very well.
6. Avoid foods containing high oxalate levels, like spinach.
7. Don't take medical advice from strangers on the internet (like me).
>> 2. Don't drink spirits.
This is probably true, but it contravenes the one piece of hard-won family folk wisdom that has helped me. Our method of removing kidney stones is as follows:
1. Go to a bar, take a piss if you can, then sit and order a Guinness.
2. Order 5 more Guinnesses and make a concerted effort to drink them all without taking a piss. Wait until you're absolutely desperate.
3. Go to the men's room and eject the stone. [the intoxication helps numb it, too].
I've watched my father pass them in the hospital; I remember remarkably twiddling one of his kidney stones in my hand as we drove him home, it was iridescent white and about the size of a shriveled pea. So far, though, this method hasn't failed me and I've yet to be hospitalized.
Vitamin C supplements are synthesized from fermentation products of corn and wheat. [0]
A single lemon contains about 32 milligrams of Vitamin C, along with many other things. This study showed that it's lemon extract, not vitamin C alone, that improves kidney stones.
[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24258144/
Cola, excess vitamin C, and anything high in oxalate equal stone growth.
There are several stone types with different pathologies.
High citrate intake is generally good to counteract growth but there is no shrinking existing stones through diet. Anyone claiming this is a liar.
ESWL or surgery for anything larger than a few mm because passing would be brutal.
Most folks who have kidney stones get them again and again, and anything that can help prevent this very painful event is critical. For anyone who does unfortunately experience kidney stones I highly recommend you try this option.
See a urologist because they form silently again and again. Unless you have x-ray vision, it's impossible to know their status.
Honestly, this gets repeated a lot, but I've yet to see literature that shows this is true. It is true that you can show erosion under ridiculous conditions that don't mirror the real world like immersing loose teeth in acidic beverages for days. But I've yet to find evidence that drinking unsweetened acidic beverages like carbonated water or water with a little lemon juice has any meaningful impact on tooth decay. Over and over again the actual epidemiology shows an association between sugar / processed carbohydrates and tooth decay.
I personally don't find them particularly 'painful' more like profoundly uncomfortable. I find that I constantly am in a cycle of sitting for a few minutes then pacing around then maybe try and lay down, rinse repeat. A little heating pad time on my kidneys seems to make it less of a problem.
I do identify with the constant uncomfortableness though.
Some studies linked high consumption of apple vinegar with early osteoporosis.
I've had more than a few stones over the past couple decades, and when I finally got myself in to see a urologist, that was one of her primary recommendations.
That, along with some other treatment, seems to have helped considerably (only one non-trivial stone in the last ~12mo & the few others were barely noticeable).
In fairness, I keep the stuff around mainly for cocktails, but if Kingsley Amis is any example, having one of those every morning will certainly cause me many more problems than it's at all likely to solve.
Deleted Comment
Now when I get a tinge of pain I immediately take Chanca Piedra and it seems to have helped for past few years, no reoccurrence, but could just be anecdotal & conicendental.
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
This seems to be “we filtered these particles from lemonade and compressed them into pills to give to rats”
That said there’s also the required “in rats” missing from the headline, and I’m guessing the rats used are intentionally bred to get kidney stones, and fed a diet that encourages kidney stones, so the applicability to humans in normal cases isn’t a give . (Recalling the cranberry vs UTIs bs of a few years back)
1) Roller coasters help dislodge and pass kidney stones because of their high-intensity jerky motions.
2) Although calcium supplements increase the risk of kidney stones, dietary calcium seems to reduce it.
Had another smaller one that had me on hardcore painkillers for two straight weeks. It was so bad I wasn't eating or taking care of myself. I just popped pills and slept. Thankfully I was able to pull myself together and go back to the doctor to get on a different medication that at least allowed me to function minimally until I could pass it.
Point is you never really know what's going on in there and I certainly did go on some rides during the year of the larger yet somehow less bothersome stone.
I had one a couple years ago. My theory is that I had accumulated crystalization the year prior. I had a heart nerve issue and my heart rate was significantly reduced for several months, getting as bad as 30 bpm for a couple weeks. Normally it's about 80 bpm. My kidneys were definitely underperforming as indicated by blood labs performed when I ended up in the ED/ICU with "total heart block". With that problem resolved, my kidneys were happy again and the crystals presumably started to gradually dissolve.
My urologist dismissed my theory completely, but I've been generally disappointed by my experience working with them and I am on the verge of finding a new provider. My most recent ultrasound shows that the kidney that had the stone pass is totally clear, while the other kidney still has some crystalization.
This doesn't make any sense to me. How can two acids combine to create a base?
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2637791/
I can see that you know how to produce language, albeit by all appearances rarely at best to worthwhile effect. Do you know at all how to consume it? Or is jumping to wrong conclusions and then being snide about them the only trick you have?