Kidney Stone Surgeries
Kidney stone surgeries ensure that the kidneys remove waste materials from the body so that life can continue. On the other hand, kidney stones occur when the kidneys have a task such as filtering some substances necessary for the body and adjusting their levels due to problems in the mechanism related to this task.
Although it is still not clearly known why these mechanisms are disrupted, it is thought that kidney stone disease occurs due to various factors, from nutrition to genetics, from the geography of the person to gender. For this reason, it is known that people who research how to pass kidney stones have this disease in their genetics.
These stones, which sometimes do not show any symptoms for a long time, can sometimes fall into the urinary tract and cause patients to apply to health institutions with unbearable pain. Kidney stone surgeries are not applied to every patient with kidney stones. The size of the stone and the person’s possibility of passing it will be taken into consideration.
How to Identify Kidney Stones?
Kidney stone symptoms: Some minerals in the blood are excreted from the kidneys and are found dissolved in the urine at a certain solubility. However, due to various reasons, the solubility of the crystals decreases and accumulates, and the crystals precipitate in the chamber-like collecting systems in the kidney and kidney stones are formed.
Calcium oxalate stones constitute approximately 80 percent of the stones. In addition to these, stones due to infections, uric acid stones, cystine stones and calcium phosphate stones are also seen.
Kidney stone surgeries cannot be performed on every patient with kidney stones. Factors related to nutrition are particularly important in the formation of kidney stones. The most important of these is not consuming enough fluids. High animal protein intake in the diet, high sodium consumption, excessive use of refined sugars, and excessive consumption of coffee or cocoa-like foods can also be considered among the causes. Urinary tract infections, structural disorders in the kidney, some medications and genetic factors can also be effective in the formation of stones.
Kidney Stone Symptoms
While very small stones can pass through the urinary tract without being noticed, as the stone size increases, they can become stuck in the tube connecting the kidney and bladder (ureter).
The most common complaint in patients wondering who can have kidney stone surgery is pain. While some patients have mild pain that is not noticeable, others can be extremely severe. Pain caused by kidney stones is usually seen as pain that appears and disappears intermittently. Patients usually describe the pain as “flank pain.” Apart from this pain, kidney stone symptoms in women and men are as follows:
Pain while urinating, blood in the urine, nausea or vomiting, frequent urination, difficulty urinating or urinating in small amounts, fever and chills
In some patients, kidney stones may be detected incidentally during tests performed for other purposes, without any complaints.
Even if detected, kidney stone surgery is not the only solution. People can get rid of this disease with the solution suggestions offered by the doctor.
Diagnostic Methods of the Disease
What causes kidney stones? In this kidney stone disease, along with the patient’s history and physical examination, urinary system radiography and ultrasonography can be performed to support the findings detected here and to clarify the diagnosis. When these two examinations are used together, a large portion of kidney stones can be detected.
Urine analysis is performed to detect urinary tract infections or bleeding in urine that occasionally occur due to stones. In addition, blood tests can be used to determine the nature of stones or to investigate their causes. Non-contrast Computed Tomography (CT) can be performed to detect very small stones or to see the kidney anatomy in patients who are scheduled for surgery. In intravenous pyelography (IVP), another method used to break kidney stones and evaluate the urinary tract, a drug that can be detected under x-ray is administered through the patient’s vein and after the blood is filtered from the kidneys, x-rays are taken while the drug passes through the urinary tract, thus observing kidney stones in the body, blocked areas in the urinary tract and blood flow in the kidneys.
Treatment Methods
For kidney stone surgery, doctors will perform a comprehensive examination. The size of the stone in the patient, how it will be removed, and whether surgery is necessary are all very important.
After the tests are performed and the kidney stone is passed, the most important factors in treatment planning are the size of the stone and its location in the kidney. As the kidney stone size increases, the patient’s chance of passing the stone on its own decreases. In addition, stones located in the upper part of the kidney collecting system are more likely to pass than those located in the lower part.
The type of treatment is determined by the severity of the patient’s pain due to the stone, whether the stone causes any damage to the kidney, and whether it impairs kidney function.
In frequently recurring kidney stones, determining the underlying cause of these stones is important in treatment. For this, detailed laboratory tests may be required, especially checking the levels of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, uric acid, vitamin D and parathyroid hormone in the blood.
Examining the patient’s urine pH, cystine, uric acid, and oxalate levels in the urine, and treating any underlying metabolic or hormonal causes if detected, is important in the treatment and prevention of kidney stones.
Structural disorders that may exist in the kidney or urinary tract are investigated in detail with radiological examinations and, if necessary, can be corrected with kidney stone surgery.
In the case of persistent kidney stones, drug treatment can be chosen according to the type of stone. Although the treatment method and the drugs to be used vary, the main purpose of the treatment is to increase the solubility of the crystals in the urine and prevent them from precipitating and forming stones in the kidney.
What Can Be Done to Prevent Kidney Stones?
What causes kidney stones or what can be done to avoid this problem is one of the most frequently asked questions. Increasing fluid intake, especially water, is one of the things that should be done to prevent kidney stones. Under normal conditions, urine should be light yellow. Instead of tea, coffee, fruit juices and acidic drinks, water consumption should be increased. Because some of these drinks can cause fluid loss or invite other problems due to the sugar they contain. It should not be forgotten that people who do sports, do outdoor activities and do intense physical work should drink more water.
Consuming plenty of vegetables and fruits is also very important. Vegetables and fruits reduce the amount of acid in the urine. Therefore, vegetables should be consumed together with animal foods that have a risk of increasing uric acid levels.
It is highly probable that people who do not pay attention to these issues will have their stones removed through kidney stone surgery.
How Are Kidney Stones Treated?
90% of stones smaller than 4 mm pass on their own without requiring any kidney stone surgery. It can be said that half of the stones between 4-7 mm and stones larger than 8 mm rarely pass on their own.
If the kidney stone has started to move in the urinary tract and is small enough that there is no need to break the kidney stone, patients are advised to drink plenty of water and move. The aim is to reduce the problems that may occur during the passage of the stone with painkillers. However, intervention and consulting a doctor may be necessary for stones larger than 5 mm.
The urologist decides whether kidney stone surgery is necessary or not, depending on the location and size of the stone, the patient’s health status and age. It can be said that similar treatment methods are used in children and adults.
