Kidney Stones and Pregnancy
Let me put the main points first, so you know what you are going to read about. Kidney stone formers have increased pregnancy risks for prematurity, need for C-section, low birth weight newborns, gestational diabetes, and preeclampsia. To write about all this I did a...
How to Lower Blood Pressure in Kidney Stone Patients
Unfortunately producing stones means higher risk of hypertension and kidney disease. But most of the diet changes and even first line medications for stone prevention also lower blood pressure. Here is how that works. The featured painting, Vincent Van Gogh, The...
TREAT THE PATIENT NOT JUST THE STONES
This may be the most important article – to me – I have written thus far. It is a plea and argument that stone patients need more from us than prevention of stones, because often enough they harbor significant diseases that associate with stone forming and...
SALT
Get ready. We have covered stones, supersaturation, stone risk, potassium citrate, and more, but now we are coming to a central mystery – a pivotal issue in whether or not treatment will work or not. Calcium is the first name of most kidney stones, and the calcium in stones comes mainly from the urine. So the urine calcium is a big deal. Yet it is sodium chloride, humble table salt, that strongly controls how much calcium is in the urine. Genes play a role, protein, too, lots of factors. But salt intake is so modifiable, so amenable to change it has a massive role in treatment. Here is my best on the subject. I hope you like it.