Glossary of Health Terms

If you’ve ever experienced kidney stones, or you are experiencing them for the first time, you know how excruciating they can be. Perhaps you’re not sure if you’ve had them before but recall experiencing some mild or even serious discomfort during urination, a dull ache or sharp pain in your lower back, side or groin area. Maybe you’ve gone to the bathroom and were shocked, even scared to see blood in your urine, especially when you’re in so much pain. What’s wrong? These are all common symptoms and signs of kidney stones, also known as renal stone disease.

The US National Institute of Health estimates that 1 in 10 people develop kidney stones at some point in their life. Researchers at the USNIH have found that those who live near large bodies of water (the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, etc.) are more likely to develop kidney stones, as well as those who live in “soft” water areas (where water contains low levels of calcium, magnesium and other minerals). Also, people who come from a family with a history of renal stone disease are more likely to develop stones because certain genetic conditions that promote stone development can be inherited from parents.

Kidney stones occur most often in people aged 30-45, though they can occur in men and women of all ages, and their frequency and possibility for occurrence decreases after 50. Certain types of stones are more common in men and other types of stones are more common in women. The agonizing pain of passing a kidney stone for a man has often been compared to the pain of childbirth—ouch!

Kidney stones develop for several reasons and it is usually a combination of these that make them most likely to occur. Your kidneys play a key role in keeping you healthy. They filter your blood, taking out the waste and adding it to your urine to be expelled from your body. They regulate electrolyte and pH balance in your body, as well as blood pressure by expelling fluid from your body. Stones can form due to a chemical imbalance (too much or too few of certain minerals), a pH imbalance (to much acidity or too alkaline), and dehydration, Several other medical conditions sometime lead to stones such as a congenital kidney defect, chronic diarrhea, arthritis and urinary tract infection.

Another very important factor is diet. According to the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, “animal protein, popular in low carbohydrate, high protein (LCHP) diets, has been shown to boost urinary excretion of oxalate, a compound that combines with calcium and other compounds to form kidney stones.” People who consume large amounts of protein and fat, like the hundreds of thousands of people on the Atkins diet, are quite susceptible to kidney stones. The American Academy of Family Physicians claims that high protein intake is largely responsible for the high prevalence of kidney stones in the United States, and research shows that a diet rich in animal proteins and calcium oxalate contributes to the rise in cases of kidney stones. “The absence of fruit and other vegetables means the body is deprived of a means of counteracting the negative effect,” says Dr. Bill Robertson, a clinical biochemist at the University College Medical School of London.

Maybe you’ve missed work or had to cancel dinner plans or other social activities because the constant irritation and stinging pain makes you restless, agitated, and even unable to sit down for any length of time. Maybe the frequent and urgent sensation to urinate is driving you crazy, especially when it is painful and may not produce more than a few drops each time. Or you’re stressed out, frustrated and anxious because you are experiencing a tremendous amount of pain, there’s blood in your urine and your doctor has told you to wait it out and see if the stones pass on their own. Maybe the pain is just driving you crazy—pain medication has little effect and you just can’t do anything to get comfortable.

Kidney stones can cause you incredible pain. They form in your kidneys sometimes causing uncomfortable swelling. Regardless of the size of kidney stones, which can range from the size of a grain of sand to a tennis ball, they can pass out of your kidney and lodge in the ureter, the long narrow tube connecting your kidneys to your bladder. This can cause swelling, muscle spasms and agonizing pain. It can even block the flow of urine and other waste filtered from your body by your kidneys from traveling to your bladder and being expelled from your body. Once in the bladder the stones will be slowly and painfully passed out through the urethra. This is usually much more painful for men, being compared to the pain of childbirth. Kidney stones can be common in women who experience frequent urinary tract infections. Most women will have a urinary tract infection at some time in their life.

A woman’s urethra is short and straight and a man’s urethra is long and S-curved; for both, passing a kidney stone out of the bladder can be tremendously painful as the stones scratch along the urethra, the narrow tube through which urine flows out of the body.

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