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.
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.