An Overview on Kidney Stones
Initially, a person who suffers from kidney stones will not experience any severe symptoms of the ailment. Kidney stone symptoms become more severe as time passes and can turn fatal if neglected for a longer duration. These stones are hard concretions which may include foreign substances, as well as dead tissues produced from the body itself.
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.
Patients who suffered this ailment have reported small aches in and around the stomach areas. Then, after the stones start gaining in size, urinating became painful and stressful. Female patients also describe difficulties during menstrual elimination. As the kidney stones block more and more of the urinary tract, the pain intensifies up to a critical level.
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.
When, all of a sudden, you start to experience an increase in urinary infections, your body temperature rising and falling more often, this may indicate a common indicator that you are suffering from kidney stones. When kidney stones are as small as a grain of sand, they usually get eliminated within two days. But the large ones can remain in the kidneys and create assaults to your body for over a month.
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.
Many individuals take supplements on an empty stomach, before having breakfast. If these contain calcium and oxalates, experts suggest that they be ingested after a meal rather than on an empty stomach to reduce the direct intake into kidney. The quantity of these supplements is also of prime importance. When dosages reach 2 grams a day and more per day, research has proven a direct relation between this intake and the increase in sizes of kidney stones. One study has even indicated some women may be at risk when they ingest more than 1.2 grams a day.
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.