Preventing and dealing with painiful kidney stones

YOUR KIDNEYS are bean-shaped organs, each about the size of your fist. They are located near the middle of your back, just below the rib cage, one on each side of the spine. The kidneys are major organs of detoxification in the body.

Every day, your kidneys filter about 200 quarts of blood to produce about two quarts of waste products and water. This becomes your urine, which flows from the kidneys to your bladder through tubes called ureters. Your bladder stores the urine until it is convenient for you to void it.

Kidney stones

A kidney stone is a solid mass made up of tiny crystals that forms in a kidney from substances in the urine. A stone may stay in the kidney or travel down the urinary tract. A small stone may pass all the way out of the body without causing too much pain. A larger stone may get stuck in the passage, block the flow of urine and cause great pain.

Most kidney stones are made from calcium oxalate - calcium combined with oxalic acid. Several other types of stones occur but they are more rare. About 80 per cent of those with kidney stones are men.

Kidney stones may lie dormant in your kidneys for a long time and are only discovered when they show up on an X-ray. They can however cause problems like backache, urinary tract infections, blood in the urine, kidney damage and the dreaded renal colic.

Renal colic is the excruciating pain experienced when a kidney stone is being passed along the ureter. Sufferers claim that this is the most severe pain possible. It usually originates in the loin area, but may radiate down into the genitals. What can be done to prevent such suffering?

Preventing kidney stones

Drink more: There is ample evidence that suggests that a major cause of kidney stones is dehydration. The more concentrated your urine, the greater the risk of stone formation. Drinking more water creates larger quantities of more dilute urine and discourages stone formation.

Try to drink half an ounce of water for each pound of your body weight. Drinking lots of water helps to flush away the substances that form stones in the kidneys. Distilled water with lime or lemon juice, coconut water, cranberry juice, watermelon juice and dandelion tea are particularly helpful. Orange, grape and carrot juices are high in citrates, substances that inhibit the formation of both uric acid and calcium salts.

Eat right

Consume less meat: Professor W.G. Robertson from the Medical Research Council in Leeds, England is one of the foremost experts in diet and kidney stones. His research shows that consuming animal protein will greatly increase your risk of forming kidney stones.

When a lot of animal protein foods are consumed, the concentration of calcium and oxalate in the urine increases sharply within a few hours. When the kidneys are under a persistent long-term assault from increased calcium and oxalate, kidney stones are more likely to result. Meats are the major dietary source of purines, substances that the body uses to create uric acid. In excess, uric acid causes gout as well as kidney stones.

Take supplements

Vitamin C: Despite widely publicised claims that vitamin C supplements increased the risk of developing kidney stones, in reality the opposite is true. Kidney stones containing calcium and phosphate can only exist in a urinary tract that is not acidic. Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) acidifies the urine, thereby dissolving phosphate stones and preventing their formation. Both urinary infections and stones are avoided with vitamin C in large multi-gram doses - much greater than the recommended daily allowance amounts for ascorbic acid.

Magnesium: Take a well-absorbed magnesium supplement of at least 500 mg/day. More may be necessary in order to create an ideal 1:1 balance of magnesium to calcium. One of magnesium's many jobs is to keep calcium in solution and prevent it from solidifying into crystals and stones. Most people who eat the modern western diet do not consume optimal daily amounts of magnesium.

B vitamins: Take a high potency B-complex vitamin supplement twice or three times daily, which contains vitamin B6 (pyridoxine). A deficiency of vitamin B6 is very common in humans and produces kidney stones in laboratory animals. A vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency is also associated with stones.

Flushing out kidney stones

Conventional treatments for kidney stones involve expensive invasive surgical interventions or high-tech procedures to shatter large stones with sound waves.

Some inexpensive, low-tech, non-invasive approaches are worth considering. They seek to assist the body to flush out smaller stones in a non-toxic way.

Kidney flush 1

Required ingredients:

A six-pack (cans) or a two-litre bottle of Coca-Cola. The high phosphoric acid content of this beverage is a powerful catalyst for dissolving your kidney stones. (It will dissolve corrosion on your battery terminals too), I do not recommend this drink for general use.

Six to eight ounces of fresh, canned or frozen asparagus, a high-speed blender and distilled water.

Procedure:

Over the course of two hours, drink the 72 ounces of Coke. Previously steam or quickly boil the asparagus and process in the blender until well puréed. Within five minutes from drinking the last 12 ounces, eat the asparagus purée. Instead of just gulping it down, try to mix the purée well with your saliva.

Try to postpone urinating for as long as possible. The remedy often begins working immediately and within a few hours you should begin to pass the stones in your urine as sand-like particles.

Kidney flush 2 - Celery seed tea remedy (not to be used by pregnant women.)

Required ingredients:

Two tablespoons celery seed and two cups water.

Procedure:

Bring water to boil and add celery seeds and cook until soft Remove mixture from heat and strain off seeds from the water. Drink the tea - one to two cups every hour over the course of two hours. As with the original remedy, try to avoid urinating for as long as possible.

So, again I suggest: An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of painful and expensive cures.

You may email Dr Tony Vendryes at tonyvendryes@gmail.com or listen to 'An Ounce of Prevention' on POWER 106FM on Fridays at 8 p.m. His new book 'An Ounce of Prevention, Especially for Women' is available locally and on the Internet.