Shove a watermelon up your nose/How does that feel. Review on Dealing with Kidney Stones

Here's a little continuation of My Weekend From Hell article.

We left off with me having diverticulitis and a'side order of Kidney Stones'.  Well, here's a little story about the Kidney Stones..

Kidney Stones, also called* Renal Lithiasis* effects over 1 million people each year.  Can you imagine, 1 million people in pain that can only be described as.Trying to push a watermelon up your nose!

Kidney Stones are caused by a concentration of urine, causing minerals and other substances to crystalize and form hard'stonelike' masses that break apart and try to pass through your ureter.(The tube that goes from the Kidney to the Bladder.)

80% of stones are comprised of calcium and oxalate and 20% are caused by uric acid.

Not all stones cause symptoms.  Scientists have found Kidney Stones inside of 7000 year old mummies!

The problems start when the stone decides to move from the ureter to the bladder and become broken and shattered.  The pieces with the jagged edges become lodged and cause the excruciating pain.  As they start to disolve in the body and break apart into smaller pieces, sometimes known as'gravel' these pieces begin to move and if you're lucky they are small enough to pass through and come out in your urine stream.  If not.here comes the pain again while these smaller pieces try to leave the body.

After the episode with your'gravel', next comes the'pepper' stage.  This is when the pieces are so tiny they resemble ground pepper, and luckily do not hurt.

My Doctor recommended that I strain my urine, by placing a kitchen type strainer under the urine flow to capture the'stones, gravel or pepper'

I've been doing that since I left the hospital.  No stones have yet passed(and yes, I am still in pain), but I did pass some' gravel and pepper'

I am on antibiotics, in case of infection and the Doctor has given me some pain pills to ease the horrible pain in my lower back and stomach.  If I do become infected, surgery may be required to remove the stones.  Sometimes lasers are also used to break up the stones into all pepperlike pieces for easier passing too.

There are even some cases, which left untreated have become the size of golf balls!

Signs of a Kidney Stones are(but not limited to) bleeding, pain, pressure, frequent urination and a feeling of constant bloat.  Or as I also said.no signs at all.

There is a new medicine out called'Uricept' which is supposed to lessen the chance of Kidney Stones recurring.  But what you can do for yourself is, up your intake of water from about 8 glasses a day, to 12 glasses a day  and keep active!

So if you don't want the feeling of a watermelon shoved up your nose, pray you never get Kidney Stones.