We got the Urology follow-up

 

“To reduce the incidence of kidney stones, drink plenty of water and pay attention to salt intake.”  After study and evaluation, that’s what the specialists advise.  In other words, continue what I’m doing.  That by itself doesn’t suggest any change in my incidence of kidney stones.

 

Of course, I have more information than the specialists do; I have more than just a couple studies at a particular point in time.  I’ve been paying attention to this issue for years.  I got my first (identified) kidney stone when I was in my mid-twenties.  (In retrospect, I think I had one once in my teens and once in the army, both undiagnosed, now that I know for sure what they feel like.)  For the identified stone in my twenties, the doctor asked me how much milk I drank.  I told him a quart a day.  Kidney stones tend to be calcium compounds, mine are calcium oxalate, and milk has a lot of calcium.  He suggested I stop drinking milk.

 

When I had my second kidney stone a year later, I decided maybe I should listen to the doctor’s advice and I quit drinking milk.  I didn’t have another stone for years.  Ever since then, every time I have a recurrence of kidney stones, I can trace them back to an unintentional intake of excessive calcium.  In my forties I got on a dietary supplement regimen.  A year later, when I had a kidney stone, I read the supplement ingredients carefully and found every one of them had calcium in it.  I quit taking those supplements and the kidney stones quit.

 

More recently when I started having kidney stones again, I searched for a calcium source and realized that my daily dose of Pepcid to combat indigestion at night was loaded with calcium and I had been overdosing myself for a year.  I changed when and how I ate so I wouldn’t have heartburn at night and never took another Pepcid.  Following that realization, last year, we were stopped in Glenwood Springs, Colorado for some emergency room attention and drugs for a kidney stone I was having.  The urologist there told us I was doing fine with the one I was working on and it should finish passing in another couple months.  She also alerted us that there were still half a dozen small ones that we would end up dealing with later when they got bigger.  I think the five kidney stones we just went through were the last of the Pepcid generation of stones.  My kidneys now look clear; no stones of any size.  I’ll go back to my operating theory that as long as I avoid any new massive calcium intake, I should remain, mostly, kidney stone free.  (I’ll also check back with the Colorado urologist annually as an early warning device)

 

I’ll report back on how that works out…