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Causes
By Mayo Clinic staff
Your kidneys filter your blood, absorbing substances your body needs and removing excess liquid and waste, which is excreted as urine. The urine leaves your kidneys through two slender tubes (ureters) and enters your bladder, where it's stored until it passes out of your body.
If your bladder doesn't empty completely, the retained urine can begin to form crystals that eventually become bladder stones. In most cases, an underlying condition affects your bladder's ability to empty completely. The most common of these conditions include:
- Prostate gland enlargement. An enlarged prostate, or benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), is one of the most common causes of bladder stones in men. As the prostate enlarges, it can compress the urethra and interrupt urine flow, causing urine to remain in your bladder.
- Neurogenic bladder. Normally, nerves carry messages from your brain to your bladder muscles, directing your bladder muscles to tighten or release. If these nerves are damaged — from a stroke, spinal cord injury or other health problem — your bladder may not empty completely.
- Bladder diverticula. These are weakened areas in the bladder wall that bulge outward in pouches. Bladder diverticula may be present at birth or develop later as a result of benign prostatic hyperplasia or other conditions that cause poor bladder drainage.
Other conditions that can cause bladder stones include:
- Inflammation. Bladder stones can develop if your bladder becomes inflamed. Urinary tract infections and radiation therapy to your pelvic area can both cause bladder inflammation.
- Medical devices. Occasionally, catheters — slender tubes inserted through the urethra to help urine drain from your bladder — can cause bladder stones. So can objects that accidentally migrate to your bladder, such as a contraceptive device or stent. Mineral crystals, which later become stones, tend to form on the surface of these devices.
- Kidney stones. Stones that form in your kidneys are not the same as bladder stones — they develop in different ways and often for different reasons. But small kidney stones occasionally travel down the ureters into your bladder and if not expelled, can grow into bladder stones.
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- Hydrangea arborescens. Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database. http://www.naturaldatabase.com. Accessed Oct. 5, 2008.
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