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Prevention
By Mayo Clinic staffIn many cases, you can prevent kidney stones by making a few lifestyle changes. If these measures aren't effective and blood and urine tests reveal a correctable chemical imbalance or that the stones you have are getting bigger, your doctor may prescribe certain medications.
Lifestyle changes
For people with a history of kidney stones, doctors usually recommend passing at least 2.5 quarts (2.3 liters) of urine a day. To do this, you'll need to drink about 14 cups (3.3 liters) of fluids every day — and even more if you live in a hot, dry climate.
What should you drink? Water is best. Include a glass of lemonade every day, too. Make your own with real lemons, or use a liquid or frozen concentrate, but avoid powdered lemonade mixes. Lemonade increases the levels of citrate in your urine, and citrate helps prevent stone formation.
In addition, if you tend to form calcium oxalate stones, your doctor may recommend restricting foods rich in oxalates. These include rhubarb, star fruit, beets, beet greens, collards, okra, refried beans, spinach, Swiss chard, sweet potatoes, sesame seeds, almonds and soy products. What's more, studies show that an overall diet low in salt and very low in animal protein can greatly reduce your chance of developing kidney stones.
As a general rule, restricting your intake of calcium doesn't seem to lower your risk. In fact, researchers have found that women with a high calcium intake are less likely to develop kidney stones than are women who consume less calcium. Why? Dietary calcium binds with oxalates in the gastrointestinal tract so that oxalates can't be absorbed from the intestine and excreted by the kidney to form stones.
An exception to this rule occurs when an individual absorbs too much dietary calcium from the intestine. In such a circumstance, restricting calcium intake is useful.
Calcium supplements seem to have the same protective effect as dietary calcium, but only if they're taken with meals.
Medications
Medications can control the level of acidity or alkalinity in your urine and may be helpful in people who form certain kinds of stones. The type of medication your doctor prescribes will depend on the kind of kidney stones you have:
- Calcium stones. To help prevent calcium stones from forming, your doctor may prescribe a thiazide diuretic or a phosphate-containing preparation. If you have calcium stones because of a condition known as renal tubular acidosis, your doctor may suggest taking sodium bicarbonate or potassium bicarbonate.
- Uric acid stones. Your doctor may prescribe allopurinol (Zyloprim, Aloprim) to reduce uric acid levels in your blood and urine and a medicine to keep your urine alkaline. In some cases, allopurinol and an alkalinizing agent may dissolve the uric acid stones.
- Struvite stones. To prevent struvite stones, the first goal is to keep urine free of bacteria that cause infection. Long-term use of antibiotics in small doses may be useful to achieve this goal.
- Cystine stones. Cystine stones are the hardest stones and the most difficult to treat. Your doctor may prescribe certain medications to alkalinize the urine or to bind the cystine in the urine in addition to recommending an extremely high urine output.
