All about kidney stones
Lodgement of a concretius mass in the renal tract, is known
as a kidney stone. The mass is compared to a stone, for its physical
equivalence with the stone. It is hard, grating, and doesn't usually dissolve
with water, thus making this condition, painful.
How are they formed?
Kidney stones are
usually masses of calcium and phosphate
deposits. They're usually seen when there is deranged metabolism in a
susceptible individual. This includes conditions wherein blood calcium is
elevated, as seen in hyper parathyroidism. Increased blood calcium is finally
filtered off in the kidney and thus excreted in urine. The kidney is an
effective pump for calcium excretion but it has it’s own threshold. Excess
calcium from the blood fails to be filtered off and thus results in stone formation
in the kidney.
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Pain leading to the side and the back
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Pain radiating to the abdomen
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Pain in the groin
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Pain in sitting position
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Pain which increases and decreases in intensity
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Urine can be red in colour, which is due to blood.
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There can be associated fever with chills
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In severe cases, there's a chance of development of
urinary tract infections
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There can be associated testicular pain too,in males.
These are the typical features seen in a patient with kidney
stones. Many other non specific symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, etc can be
seen too. They can be associated with many other conditions have no great
clinical significance. Typically, the patient has pain while micturating and
complaints of decreasing micturation frequency.
The symptoms are due to obstruct of urine flow. The
obstruction can be at the level of
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Kidney
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Ureter
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Bladder
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Urethra
Why do women suffer less ?
Urethral obstruction is rather uncommon in women due to
shorter length of the urethra as compared to men's. The obstruction causes
impairment in urine flow.
How do you treat this condition?
If the stone is smaller in size it may be dislodged
and may even break in tiny pieces and drain off on the urine. Excess water
consumption is advocated in such cases. Pain killers are advocated to counter act
the pain caused by their lysis. Alpha blockers is a commonly used class of
drugs which relates urethric muscles and allows easy flow of the stones with
the urine.
Bigger stones are much difficult to lyse and may need
surgical intervention. To name some are
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Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy
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Scopic removal of the stone.
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Percutaneous removal of the stone
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Parathyroidectomy in cases of hyper Parathyroidism
Even after surgery the patient is advised to drink plenty of
fluids to prevent recurrence. Kidney stones presents as one of the most painful
symptoms and thus needs immediate medical attention.
