How is a kidney stone diagnosed
Kidney Stones: Symptoms, Causes and Treatment
The biggest problem we have in our population is not drinking enough water. You know, patients
who are kidney stone formers tend to be a bit dehydrated. There are many, many factors.
There are dietary factors, again not drinking enough water. Sometimes patients can have
metabolic abnormalities where they put out too much substances in their urine, such as
calcium. That's part of the the beauty of kidney stone diseases. Not only do you treat
patients surgically, but then you can evaluate them medically to try and figure out why they
form stones. There are some patients who, you know, drink gallons of milk a day and
they put out a large amount of calcium just because of the amount that they consume. But
most people who put out too much calcium do it because of a leak from their kidneys where
the calcium the body's ability to retain or to hold onto calcium is compromised and they
they leak calcium into their urine and can be stone formers. The main symptom of a kidney
stone is pain and that's what usually brings patients to us, and to me, is pain and and
blockage when kidney stones block the urinary tract, it hurts. And that's one of the the
challenges of dealing with patients with kidney stones is the fact that a lot of what you
do is sort of urgent or emergent care because someone who's passing a stone doesn't want
to wait two months to come in to see you. There's no real emergency other than the fact
that that it hurts and people are are sick, they're in pain, they're vomiting, they can't
keep liquids down. And a there are other patients that kidney stones really run a wide spectrum
of presentations. There's some people who have huge stones and don't even know that
they have stones. So it it really varies, but the most common presentation probably
is someone who's been seen in the emergency room for an acute episode who then gets sent
to see me for further treatment and and management.
