Kidney Stones

Kidney stones are a relatively common, and potentially quite painful problem.

They occur through the formation of crystals from dissolved chemicals in the urine. These form in the kidneys, and can be passed down through the ureters to the bladder. If they are small enough to get out of the bladder, but big enough to get stuck partway down (4-6 mm across) that's when the problem gets very painful. Painful as in more painful than childbirth (so says every female patient I have ever had who has a basis for comparison).

Kidney stones have a 10-15% chance of occurring in any given person's lifetime, though this varies with a number of factors:

• Stones are 2-3 times more likely to occur in men than in women.
• Whites have more stones than Hispanics, Blacks and Asians.
• Stones are uncommon in people under 20 years old, and the occurrence peaks between 50-70.
• Stones are more common in hot, dry climates. Also, heat exposure and dehydration are risks.

80% of stones are made of calcium (which happily means that they show up on plain old X-Rays), and 80% of these calcium stones are made up of a chemical called calcium oxalate.

So, for the good news- there are things you can do in order to prevent these stones. (h/t to my urology colleague Dr. Kash Desai for many of these):

• Hydration: drink 6-8 glasses of water a day, avoid sodas, salt and caffeine from your diet.
• Avoid high-protein and high-salt diets.
• Avoid excessive cheese and dairy intake.
• Lemonade is good: 8-10 ounces of lemon juice in 64 ounces of "reverse osmosis" water such as Aquafina, Dasani or Alhambra.
• Orange juice, or any other citrus juice is good. (Remember, you should not drink grapefruit juice at all if you take a statin cholesterol medication.)
• Vitamin B-6, 50 mg a day.
• Calcium supplements are OK, but should be calcium citrate with Vitamin D and magnesium (and not calcium carbonate such as Tums, Rolaids or "natural" calcium).