What is the reason for kidney calculi? Will it be hereditary? How to answer 7 common questions and 3 points to prevent stones?

Kidney calculi is a common disease in urology. Of course, if kidney calculi causes serious kidney injury, it needs to be diagnosed by nephrology. Therefore, in the urology clinic, patients can often be seen limping to see a doctor, or frightened young people find themselves hematuria. Many people will have a question, why did I get the kidney calculi? Drink too much? The water quality at home is not good? Before answering these questions, let's know, what is kidney calculi? How it was formed.

Kidney calculi is a kind of urinary calculi. As the name implies, some components in urine accumulate in the kidney, which is a common and frequently-occurring disease in the urinary system. It is found that kidney calculi is actually related to free radicals in the human body, because free radicals can damage the kidney, lead to inflammatory stimulation, accumulate calcium ions, and finally form a substance called Randall plaque, which stays in the renal pelvis. This plaque will attract some metabolic wastes in urine, such as uric acid, oxalic acid, and some protein, to form crystals around it and form kidney calculi for a long time.

According to statistics, in recent years, the incidence of kidney calculi in China has increased year by year, with more patients, mainly young adults. At present, medical research believes that the emergence of kidney calculi is related to the environment, climate and eating habits, which means that there are various reasons, but there are obvious regional characteristics. In earlier statistics, the incidence of urinary calculi in China was lower in the north of the Yellow River and higher in the south of the Yangtze River, with the highest difference of about 3 times. The high incidence areas of urinary calculi in China are Pearl River Delta, southern Hunan, Yulin, Guangxi, and the middle and lower reaches of Huaihe River. The countries with high prevalence of stones in the world are all located near the subtropical equator. Researchers believe that hot weather may lead to rapid water loss. If the water intake is insufficient, it is easy to increase the urine concentration and form stones.

Now that we know that kidney calculi is related to these factors, can we also take precautions from these directions?

The answer is of course correct.

Everyone's physique is determined at birth, and it can't be changed, and the climate and environment are not easy to change (except those who have money to buy houses everywhere), so the only thing we can control is living habits. We can avoid the accumulation of harmful substances in the kidney by changing living habits, reducing free radicals produced in the body, reducing metabolic waste in urine and increasing the water concentration in urine. Simply put, it is three points, which is also a cliche.

1, a balanced diet and good eating habits.

People who eat too much meat in their diet or vegetarians are prone to stones, but according to the current diet structure of ordinary people, there are mainly more meat and less vegetables. Therefore, for ordinary people, we should appropriately reduce the proportion of meat and increase fruits and vegetables. Eat fist-sized meat every meal, and don't eat too much. And try to keep a light taste, too much salt can easily lead to kidney calculi.

2. Maintain normal weight and healthy living conditions.

According to research, the heavier the weight, the higher the risk of kidney calculi. The reason may be related to weight gain, increased metabolic waste and greater organ burden. Generally speaking, the body mass index (BMI) is between 18-24, and you should exercise more at ordinary times, which can also promote metabolism and discharge waste. Give up smoking at ordinary times, drink alcohol in moderation and avoid contact with all kinds of undesirable substances. The three highs should be actively treated and controlled, and the increase of uric acid should also be controlled or treated with drugs.

3, the simplest prevention, drink water.

Drink enough water every day. Although the amount of drinking water depends on personal physique, it is medically recommended to drink about 2 liters a day, and sweating should be appropriately increased in summer. In addition, it should be noted that don't drink too much water in one breath, but drink it in different periods. However, if there are patients with kidney damage, it is recommended to consult a doctor first.

So how do you know how much water you have drunk? There is a simple way to look at the color of urine. Urine color is light, close to colorless and transparent, that is, drinking enough water, appropriately reducing the amount of drinking water; If the color is yellow or dark yellow, it means that the amount of drinking water is too small, so increase it appropriately. In addition, drink water before 9 o'clock in the evening to avoid frequent going to the toilet at night, which affects sleep, but it is not good for kidney recovery.

After talking about prevention, before talking about treatment, let's talk about some problems of patients. For example, is there kidney calculi because he eats too much tofu and spinach? Is the water quality at home not good? Should I buy a water purifier ... and so on? In fact, many problems in kidney calculi have no scientific basis. Here I will talk to you one by one.

This is a very common saying, because spinach has oxalic acid, tofu has calcium, and the main component of stones is calcium oxalate, but the two are combined, so they will definitely get stones when they eat together. There is some truth in this statement. Eating too much oxalic acid and calcium will definitely increase the burden on the kidneys and increase the risk of stones. But the problem is that people need to eat a lot, which means you don't eat anything else. What can have this effect every day is spinach and tofu. However, it is estimated that it is difficult for normal people to do it.

Therefore, for the prevention or kidney calculi patients, it is ok to eat a little spinach and tofu properly.

This is similar to the above question. Supplementing normal amount of calcium will not lead to stones, but also prevent osteoporosis. The daily intake of adults can be 1000- 1200mg, and there is no risk of stones at this dose. In fact, for nutrition and health products, as long as the intake is within the normal range, there is generally no risk, including supplementing various vitamins and trace elements.

Therefore, if you need to prevent osteoporosis, you can still take calcium tablets.

Can you have stones when drinking strong tea?

How can I put it? If you drink too much strong tea, you will consume too much oxalic acid. For example, if you drink it as water all day, the chances of getting stones are definitely higher than the average person. But the problem is that few people do it. If someone does this, then you should control it. Strong tea can be drunk, but the right amount is enough, about 2 cups a day, certainly no problem.

Therefore, drink strong tea in moderation, otherwise it will affect sleep.

Can drinking beer help stone discharge?

This is also a question that people often ask, but it is usually asked by many people who drink or often eat barbecue together. Some people do have this experience, drinking beer, peeing and getting stones out. The principle of drinking beer to remove stones is that drinking beer will generally cause a lot of urination, and the discharged urine will wash away stones or stones in the urinary tract, and the continuous impact will increase the chance of removing stones. However, just like drinking water directly, it works by urinating.

However, it should be noted that beer contains more uric acid, which may increase the probability of discharging stones and kidney calculi.

So drinking beer may increase the discharge of stones, but drinking water directly is better.

Many of these ideas may come from the promotion of water purifiers. Many salesmen talk about the hardness of water because the proportion of calcium carbonate in hard water is high. But medically speaking, there is no evidence that drinking hard water will lead to kidney calculi. As I said before, as long as you drink more water, you can prevent kidney calculi.

So, if someone sells you soft water to prevent kidney calculi next time, you can refute him.

Is kidney calculi easy to relapse?

That's right. According to statistics, 50% of people who have had stones once will have stones again within 10 years. Blame it on physical quality, living habits and living environment. You can reduce the risk by changing your living habits.

It's quite possible. Because kidney calculi's personal physique is an important reason, it actually implies that it has something to do with heredity. It is also common for outpatients to see stones in the whole family. Patients with familial stones are younger and more prone to stones than ordinary people. However, physique is born by parents and cannot be changed. Only good living habits can reduce the incidence.

In fact, patients with stones may know that sometimes stones hurt, but sometimes they don't. In fact, this is mainly related to the position of the stone. Kidney calculi stay honestly, there will be no symptoms of pain. However, if he gets stuck in the ureter on the way from the kidney to the bladder, the urine will not be discharged, which will lead to the increase and expansion of renal pressure, which will cause renal edema and serious symptoms such as low back pain, abdominal pain and hematuria. Without treatment, the pain will continue, and bacteria may enter the urinary tract, causing pyelonephritis or sepsis.

Generally speaking, there are two conditions in kidney calculi: one is that there are symptoms, such as pain and hematuria. This situation suggests active treatment to avoid subsequent complications and even life-threatening; The other is asymptomatic kidney calculi, which needs to evaluate kidney calculi to see the serious risks in the future. If the risk is high, early treatment is needed. The basis of evaluation is to see the size of kidney calculi, whether there have been any related symptoms and whether stones are growing continuously.

If numerical comparison is used, asymptomatic stones with stones smaller than 10mm are generally not treated; If there are symptoms, infection, stones larger than 15mm, and the volume is still increasing, it is necessary to treat them in time. Clinically, doctors are generally needed to judge whether surgery is needed.

Drug treatment of calculus

In fact, there are no good drugs available in kidney calculi. Painkillers are generally used to treat severe pain, such as non-steroidal painkillers, which can relieve pain and have a certain stone-removing effect. In addition, some antispasmodics or alpha blockers can be used, but if the patient has no symptoms, taking these drugs has little effect.

Surgical treatment of calculus

There are many surgical treatments for stones, that is, breaking stones by various physical methods, which can be divided into extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy, nephrolithotripsy, ureteroscopic lithotripsy, etc. according to the different methods used:

1, extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy

Extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWL) is a method that focuses shock waves on stones through a probe to break them in vivo, and then drinks a lot of water to produce urine to expel stones from the body. The advantage of this treatment is that there is no need for hospitalization or surgery. The treatment time is only 30 minutes, and you can leave the hospital after the treatment. The disadvantage is that the success rate of treatment is low, only one stone can be treated at a time, and the effect will not be known until after a period of treatment, and this method may cause hidden damage to the kidney.

2. Traditional nephrectomy

Also known as percutaneous nephrolithotomy. Compared with non-invasive extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy, nephrolithotomy is more invasive. It is necessary to drill a hole through the kidney from the patient's back, find the location of the stone, and then break it out. Although it is minimally invasive surgery, it is still invasive and risky, and such surgery may lead to obvious bleeding, because the kidney itself is an organ with rich blood flow. And the wound will be more painful after operation. However, this treatment is more effective for removing relatively large stones (greater than 20 mm) or multiple stones.

3. Ureteroscopic lithotripsy

This method is to insert ureteroscope through urethra, and then clamp out the stones with tweezers, or take them out with ultrasound or laser lithotripsy. Mainly suitable for stones smaller than 20mm, with less trauma, less bleeding, less risk and quick recovery. However, relatively speaking, because the diameter of ureter is too small, the stone can not be removed after being broken, so the treatment effect is not very good when it is very large or frequent, and it may take many operations to remove the stone. However, with the progress of surgical technology, the effect of ureteroscopy should be better and better in the future and will become the mainstream treatment method.

In fact, no matter which method is adopted, it has its most suitable condition and corresponding risks, so it is best to discuss and communicate with doctors before deciding the treatment method.