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Practical articles for understanding and caring for your urinary health.
You've probably received a lot of advice about calcium intake from family and friends since you developed kidney stones. In this article, we will inform you about the role of calcium in stone formation and how you should really manage its intake.
Sometimes, due to one or more kidney stones blocking the urinary tract and urine flow, a ureteral catheter, double J catheter, or pigtail catheter is placed in the urinary tract. This is a flexible tube inserted into the ureter so that urine can pass from the kidney to the bladder, thus preventing ureteral obstruction until the kidney stone is treated.
Since you have or have had kidney stones, you have surely received advice from family members or co-workers based on home remedies to get rid of them or prevent them from recurring. In this article, we will inform you about what can actually help you and what cannot.
The recurrence rate between two consecutive stones varies among individuals and stone types. A patient's risk of recurrence is determined by identifying the stone type and the causes of its formation. The average recurrence rate is 50% within the first 5 years after the first episode and up to 80% within 10 years following the first stone.
The size of a kidney stone ranges from a few millimeters to several centimeters. When it is very small, less than 5 mm, it resembles grit and can usually exit the body on its own through the urinary tract without causing any pain or little discomfort at the time of expulsion.
Most kidney stones are asymptomatic, meaning you don't even realize you have them because they are so small that they pass on their own with the flow of urine. In certain cases, there are very recognizable symptoms that will let you know that you probably have a stone, and in this case, the first thing to do, especially if the pain is very intense, is to go to the emergency room and consult a urologist.
In general, there is no single cause for the appearance of kidney stones, but many factors can influence the probability of suffering from one or several. In any case, a stone forms when the components that make up the crystals are too concentrated in the urine, there is an imbalance in the urinary pH, and/or there is a lack of naturally present substances in the urine that can inhibit the binding of the mineral salts that form the crystals.
To naturally remove a kidney stone, one must first identify its size and position in the urinary system. Stones larger than 10 mm are generally difficult to pass spontaneously and require surgery.
