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Suggest Treatment For Kidney Stones
Question: I have a 5mm (mili-metre) stone in my left kidney. Apart from drinking lot of water what else can I do to make sure this stone goes away. Also what precautions should I take so that this doesn't happen in future.
This is the second time I'm facing this situation. I was diagnosed with a stone in one of my kidney's around 5 years before but it passed with urine.
This is the second time I'm facing this situation. I was diagnosed with a stone in one of my kidney's around 5 years before but it passed with urine.
Brief Answer:
Hydration is most important for passage of stone and prevention.
Detailed Answer:
Hello
Thanks for writing to us with your health concern.
A 5 mm stone would mostly pass along with urine, so do not worry.
Only rarely, if the stone gets impacted or infected, it requires intervention.
The only thing you can do is drink a lot of water and observe for passage of the stone.
Avoid dehydration at any costs.
Avoid hot weather / humidity.
If you observe inordinate amount of pain / blood in urine - then report immediately to your doctor.
FOr preventing stones, again hydration is important.
Almost 10 % of people experience kidney stones at some point in their life, and men are more prone to this than women.
Stone prevention is also mainly done by maintaining hydration.
So make it a point to drink 5 litres of water a day, to prevent them in future.
Get a complete urine analysis done to know why you are having recurrent stone formation.
You may ask your doctor if you should use a strainer while passing urine, so that the stone can be caught and analyzed to know stone type and reason for formation.
Decreasing dietary protein and salt intake in the diet also helps to reduce the likeliness of recurrent stones. Calcium is found in most stones (about 80%), but it is not necessary to restrict dietary calcium unless you ingest an unusually large amount.
Specific food types to avoid can be determined once the stone type is confirmed.
All the best.
Please feel free to discuss further.
Hydration is most important for passage of stone and prevention.
Detailed Answer:
Hello
Thanks for writing to us with your health concern.
A 5 mm stone would mostly pass along with urine, so do not worry.
Only rarely, if the stone gets impacted or infected, it requires intervention.
The only thing you can do is drink a lot of water and observe for passage of the stone.
Avoid dehydration at any costs.
Avoid hot weather / humidity.
If you observe inordinate amount of pain / blood in urine - then report immediately to your doctor.
FOr preventing stones, again hydration is important.
Almost 10 % of people experience kidney stones at some point in their life, and men are more prone to this than women.
Stone prevention is also mainly done by maintaining hydration.
So make it a point to drink 5 litres of water a day, to prevent them in future.
Get a complete urine analysis done to know why you are having recurrent stone formation.
You may ask your doctor if you should use a strainer while passing urine, so that the stone can be caught and analyzed to know stone type and reason for formation.
Decreasing dietary protein and salt intake in the diet also helps to reduce the likeliness of recurrent stones. Calcium is found in most stones (about 80%), but it is not necessary to restrict dietary calcium unless you ingest an unusually large amount.
Specific food types to avoid can be determined once the stone type is confirmed.
All the best.
Please feel free to discuss further.
Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
Answered by
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