What Causes Kidney Stones?
A kidney stone can be as tiny as a grain of sand, and you can pass it in your pee without ever knowing. But a bigger one can block your urineflow and hurt a lot. Some people say the pain can be worse than childbirth.
These hard nuggets form when minerals in your pee clump together. That can happen from many things, like what you eat and certain medications. If you or someone in your family has had a kidney stone, you’re more likely to have one in the future.
Lack of Water
You need to make enough urine to dilute the things that can turn into stones. If you don’t drink enough or sweat too much, your pee may look dark. It should be pale yellow or clear.
If you’ve had a stone before, you should make about 8 cups of urine a day. So aim to down about 10 cups daily, since you lose some fluids through sweat and breathing. Swap a glass of water for a citrus drink. The citrate in lemonade or orange juice can block stones from forming.
Diet
What you eat can play a big role in whether you get one of these stones.
The most common type of kidney stone happens when calcium and oxalate stick together when your kidneys make urine. Oxalate is a chemical that’s in many healthy foods and vegetables. Your doctor may tell you to limit high-oxalate foods if you’ve had this type of stone before. Examples include:
- Spinach
- Rhubarb
- Grits
- Bran cereal
You may have heard that drinking milk can bring on kidney stones. That’s not true. If you eat or drink calcium-rich foods (like milk and cheese) and foods with oxalate at the same time, it helps your body better handle the oxalate. That’s because the two tend to bind in the gut instead of in the kidneys, where a stone can form.
Sodium. You mainly get this through table salt. It can raise your chances of getting several types of kidney stones. So watch out for salty snacks, canned foods, packaged meats, and other processed foods.
Animal protein. Another kind of kidney stone forms when your pee is too acidic. Red meat and shellfish can make uric acid in your body rise. This can collect in the joints and cause gout or go to your kidneys and make a stone. More importantly, animal protein raises your urine’s calcium level and lowers the amount of citrate, both of which encourage stones.
Gut Problems
Stones are the most common kidney problem in people with inflammatory bowel disease like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Bowel problems can give you diarrhea, so you make less pee. Your body may absorb extra oxalate from the intestine, so more gets in your urine.
Obesity
You’re almost twice as likely to get a kidney stone if you’re obese. That’s when your body mass index is 30 or above. If you’re 5 feet 10 inches tall, obesity starts at 210 pounds.
Weight loss surgery can help you shed pounds and improve your health. But the surgery itself can cause stones. Studies suggest that people who have the most common weight loss operation, the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, are much more likely to get stones.
Other Medical Conditions
Many diseases can encourage one or more types of kidney stones to form.
Certain genetic diseases. One example is medullary sponge kidney, a birth defect that causes cysts to form in the kidneys.
Type 2 diabetes . It can make your urine more acidic, which encourages stones.
Gout . This condition makes uric acid build up in the blood and form crystals in the joints and the kidneys. The kidney stones can become large and very painful.
Parathyroidism. Your parathyroid glands can pump out too much hormones, which raises calcium levels in your blood.
Renal tubular acidosis. This kidney problem causes too much acid to build up in the body.
Medications
Some that can cause stones include:
- Certain antibiotics, including ciprofloxacin and sulfa antibiotics
- Some drugs to treat HIV and AIDS
- Certain diuretics used to treat high blood pressure. But some thiazide-type diuretics actually help prevent stones.