After a computed tomography (CT) scan, ultrasound, intravenous pyelography (IVP), or X-ray reveals the presence of a kidney stone, the doctor must decide how to treat the patient according to the size, shape, location, formation, and medical risk of the stone.
Most Simple Kidney Stones Pass By Urination In 2-3 Days
About 85% of kidney stones — five millimeters or less in size — pass naturally through the urinary tract in two to three days. Although, some stone can take weeks, months, and even a year or more to pass from the body.
Kidney stones that remain in the kidneys, grow only to four millimeters or less in size, and are not irregularly shaped, typically produce no symptoms. In fact, a person with “silent” stones can live asymptomatic for years. However, when a stone gets lodged inside of the kidney, the ureter (the tube that connects the kidneys to the bladder), or the urethra (the tube that connects the bladder to outside of the body), it can cause irritation, urinary blockage, and infection.
By far, the best place on the Internet to find pictures of kidney stones is at the Louis C. Herring & Company Laboratory website. On their site, you can view over one-hundred photos of various formations of kidney stones like calcium oxalate, calcium carbonate, calcium citrate, uric acid, struvite, cystine, ammonium acid urate, and tricalcium phosphate (just to name a few). Also, you can find images of kidney stone formations caused by drugs, metabolites, and even scanning electron micrographs. So, if you are searching for kidney stone pictures, then you need to immediately visit the following site:
http://www.herringlab.com/photos/
Cystine kidney stones, one of the hardest formations of kidney stones, occur most often in children and young adults with a rare, hereditary disorder known as cystinuria. While no cure exists, people with cystinuria usually develop cystine stones throughout their lifetimes unless they take preventative medications or receive kidney transplants. Less than 1% of kidney stones in adults and 6% to 8% in children are made of cystine (a crystalline, sulfur-containing amino acid).
Struvite kidney stones, also called “infection stones,” are almost always caused by bacteria from chronic kidney or urinary tract infections (UTI’s). These bacteria (i.e., Proteus, Pseudomonas, Klebsiella, Serratia, Providencia, and staphylococci) secrete enzymes (urease) that increase ammonia levels in the urine and produce crystals that combine to form struvite stones. About 10% to 15% of all kidney stones are made of struvite (magnesium ammonium phosphate), and women get struvite stones twice as often as men — probably because they have more urinary tract infections.
Sometimes less invasive kidney stone treatments like lithotripsy or percutaneous nephrolithotomy aren’t practical and open surgery (nephrolithotomy) is the only way to remove the stones. Usually, a urologist will only treat kidney stones with open surgery when the stones become too large, irregularly shaped, cause uncontrollable bleeding, or pose a dangerous risk to the kidneys. Also, open surgery is occassionaly used to treat severely obese patients.
People develop uric acid kidney stones when their bodies ingest a large amount of purines, usually from foods, which increase the levels of uric acid in the urine. These foods include alcoholic beverages, legumes (e.g., soybeans, peas, and dried beans), yeast, mushrooms, poultry, and spinach. While a diet free of foods that contain purines may help prevent the formation of uric acid stones, doctors sometimes use medications to reduce the amounts of uric acid in the urine or change the urine’s acidity or alkalinity if a person is at a high risk to develop uric stones.
So, what medications do doctors use to treat uric acid stones?
According to a 2006 study from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, one of the most common treatments for kidney stones may increase the risk for diabetes up to four times, along with the risk for hypertention (high blood pressure) by 1½ times.
Researchers suggest that lithotripsy — or shock wave treatment — may damage the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas (a gland through which the shock waves may pass). Out of the kidney stone sufferers who took part in the 2006 study published in the Journal of Urology, 17% developed diabetes after lithotripsy treatment. The risk seemed to correlate to the total number and intensity of the shock waves.
Not only do kidney stones cause some of the most excrutiating pain and agony a person will ever feel, but these hard masses can also cause more severe complications:
Family and Personal History
Scientific research suggests people are at a higher risk to develop kidney stones if they or someone in their immediate family has previously had a stone. In fact, one 1999 study on kidney stone patients in Italy showed that 22% of their parents and 14% of their siblings had at least one kidney stone in the past. If a person has gout in their family, they are more susceptible to stones. Some studies indicate that 45% of all incidences of kidney stones are due to genetic factors.