The crippling, nauseating pain of kidney stones may be in your past.
“We can’t do much to stop you from having your first kidney stone but once you’ve had one, we have a 90% success in preventing the second one,” said urologist Dr. Stephen Brewer of St. Elizabeth Physicians.
The sophisticated investigation and battery of tests particularly benefits young people who needed surgery to remove a kidney stone or anyone who has had repeated kidney stones. “If you make frequent kidney stones, we can help you,” said Brewer.
The advice goes well beyond drink more water and stop soft drinks.
“We can come up with a very clear explanation about what is wrong with your system that you are making the stones,” said Brewer.
It’s the old tale of the blind man describing the elephant and limited to just what he can feel, he said. To get a complete picture, Brewer is working with kidney specialist Dr. Muhammad Rafi and dietitians to create a Kidney Stone Prevention Center through St. Elizabeth. It’s the first of its kind in the region.
It involves elaborate testing to evaluate the patient’s system and identify multiple risk factors. If they can get most of the risk factors under control, the patient has a 90% chance of not making another stone.
The patient will see both specialists and the dietician at the same time.
“We do 24-hour urine testing, blood tests and perhaps imaging to see if there are active stones,” said Brewer. With those results, they put together a package for the patient. “Here are your risk factors, here are the things that happen with you that cause you to make a stone,” he said. “If we are correct, you simply won’t make another stone.”
It could be medication, it could be diet.
“Gone is the shotgun approach. It’s fine-tuned and it’s individual,” said Brewer. For example, with certain stones it may not be too much calcium, but insufficient calcium. The doctors may recommend added calcium. “It seems really counterintuitive, but with a subset of patients, that’s exactly the right thing to do.”
Soft drinks, once prohibited for kidney stone sufferers, may be suggested. “We might have them drink clear soft drinks to correct something, not colas,” he said.
“Turns out the information we’ve been giving patients in the past has been wrong.”
