One of the most painful experiences a person can have, is having a kidney stone attack. most of the time, you don’t have any pain, until the stone moves anywhere, between the kidneys and the bladder.

Normally, the stones develop inside the kidney gradually over the years, from accumulating different crystals in the urine. It might stay silent for a long time, until you get the attack. Usually, the pain starts in one side of the back, under the ribs, then moves down to the groin.

Sometimes, you get the urge to urinate, and may see some blood in the urine. In severe attacks there might be nausea and vomiting. One patient described the pain as colicky, having severe cramps that comes and goes every 20 to 60 minutes. The pain was so bad, he had to go to the ER for a pain killer injection.
The doctor advised him to drink a lot of water and continue to take the pain meds. Few days later, he felt severe pain while urinating and passed the stone. Of course, any stone around
5 mm (0.2 inches) or less, can pass in the urine easily. In general, if a stone is not causing any pain or blockage, then we leave it alone, but under ultrasound observation.

I had another patient, who had a severe kidney stone attack. The ultrasound showed, that he had a big stone, over 1 cm in size. this stone blocked the urine flow, from his right ureter.
This was a very dangerous complication. It caused a severe pain and swelling in the kidney because of the blockage, which required urgent surgery to remove the stone, and relief the blockage.

A recent patient of mine had a recurrent kidney stones, for a longtime. He was advised to save one of the stones after passing it, for analysis. It was found to be a combination of calcium and oxalate crystals together. This is the most common type of kidney stones.
This patient was eating a lot of foods that contained oxalate like beans, spinach, berries and chocolates. Also, he was drinking lots of sodas,
tea and coffee. He was advised to reduce these
types of foods to avoid further stones formation.

Because the stone had also Calcium in it, he thought that he had to reduce the food with high Calcium like dairy products. This was wrong, on the contrary, he has to eat more dairies, because the Calcium will bind to the Oxalate crystals and prevent its absorption, which will reduce the stone formation.

Another type of kidney stone is from uric acid especially in patients with gout. which can be triggered by eating a lot of red meat.
In general, to diagnose the presence of a kidney stone, we normally do either Ultrasound or CT scan of the abdomen.

My final note: Unfortunately, kidney stone is not always a 1-time attack. Most of the time, they are recurrent attacks. So, in order to prevent them, it is always recommended to drink plenty of fluids, especially water and to avoid the foods or drinks which can increase them.

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Video shot by Galia Helbaoui and edited by Fadi Helbaoui