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Catch the stone and have it analysed — only the type says which prevention works. And it is not the calcium in food that belongs cut, but the salt.
Also known as: kidney stones · nephrolithiasis · urinary stones
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
A kidney stone forms when the urine holds too little water and too much stone-forming material over a long time. About four in five stones are calcium oxalate, the rest mostly uric acid, infection stones or rarer forms. As long as the stone lies in the kidney it usually does nothing; if it moves into the ureter the colic begins — a wave-like pain in the flank pulling into groin or testicle, with nausea, restlessness and often a little blood in the urine. Characteristic is that no position brings relief. Most small stones pass by themselves. What decides everything that follows is one simple act that is almost always forgotten: catch the stone and have it analysed. Only the type of stone says which prevention actually works — otherwise one advises blindly. And that prevention is more effective than many think, because without it about half come back within ten years. Two things are regularly got wrong: salt is underestimated, because it drives calcium into the urine — and calcium in food is cut out, although that is exactly what encourages stones.
If a stone sits in the way and urine backs up, an infection behind it cannot drain. Fever together with flank pain in someone with a known stone is therefore not treated at home but assessed at once — the drainage has to be freed.
Pass urine through a sieve or a coffee filter until the stone appears. The analysis costs little and decides the whole prevention — without it every piece of advice stays general.
It is not the amount drunk that counts but the amount passed — depending on sweating, two and a half to three litres a day, spread out and expressly in the evening too. Pale urine is the simplest check.
Salt drives calcium into the urine and is thus the strongest lever in food. Calcium by contrast belongs on the plate as usual: it binds oxalate already in the gut. Cutting calcium lets more oxalate reach the urine and makes new stones more likely.
Spinach, rhubarb, beetroot, nuts, chocolate and black tea bring a lot of oxalate. They do not have to go — taken with a milk or cheese component in the same meal, most of the oxalate ends up in the stool rather than the urine.
Citrate holds back crystal formation and is, for calcium stones, one of the few simple levers. Freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice in the drinking water across the day is enough.
An overactive parathyroid gland is a rare but correctable cause. It is only found if someone thinks of it — two blood values are enough.
About five to ten in a hundred people get a kidney stone in their life, men more often. Stones under five millimetres pass by themselves in most cases, on average within one to three weeks. After the first stone, about half have a second within ten years.
Alpha blockers widen the ureter and help mainly with stones between five and ten millimetres that can pass by themselves — smaller ones pass anyway, larger ones usually do not. Painkillers work here through the prostaglandins, which is why anti-inflammatories are often stronger than opioids. No drug dissolves the stone, except with uric acid stones: those really can be dissolved over weeks by alkalising the urine. Two to three litres a day is the one measure that applies to every kind of stone.
Drink enough to make at least two to two and a half litres of urine a day — usually a good two and a half to three litres of fluid, spread over the day and into the evening.
That sets the colic apart from almost everything else. Someone who curls up and lies still more likely has something else; someone who paces and finds no rest more likely has a stone.
It starts in the flank and travels with the stone towards groin, testicle or labium. Where the pain sits tells how far the stone has come.
Very common and usually visible only on the dipstick. Visible blood without pain is a different matter and belongs clarified in its own right.
This is the one combination that is not waited out. A ureter that is both blocked and infected is a urological emergency, because the outflow has to be relieved quickly.
From the second stone onward a closer workup with blood and urine tests is worthwhile. Without prevention about half come back within ten years.
The pain of a moving stone travels down from the flank and can arrive in the testicle or labium — it does not sit there, it radiates there.
A repeatedly raised calcium points to an overactive parathyroid gland — a cause that can be put right and that otherwise keeps making new stones.
Belongs with the calcium. The two together answer whether a hormonal disorder lies behind recurring stones.
Uric acid stones form above all in acidic urine. They are the one kind that can be dissolved with medication — but for that they have to be known.
Stones that block the outflow again and again cost kidney function. With frequent stones this value belongs carried along regularly.
Two to three litres a day is the only measure that prevents all stone types at once.
Horsetail is the best-known flushing herb; not suitable with heart or kidney weakness.
In TCM the same functional circle as bladder and reserve. What counts in both systems is how much is drunk — 2 to 2.5 litres a day, until the urine is pale.