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Welcome to Memorial Health and You. The stabbing
shooting pain that accompanies a major kidney stone attack can be excrutiating.
Doctor Paige White, Memorial Urologist, is our special guest today.
Doctor White, why are kidney stones so painful? Well
not all kidney stones hurt. They only hurt when they block the flow of urine.
In fact, countless Americans will develop and pass kidney stones this year
but many of them won't even know it. The kidneys remove excess
water and waste from the blood and send it out of the body in the urine.
The reason it can hurt so much is because different substances in the urine
form crystals inside the kidneys. These crystals are usually small
but if they clump together into larger stones they can't pass comfortably through the
urinary tract. Your initial sign of a problem may be blood in the urine,
or extreme pain that starts in the lower back and radiates into the lower abdomen.
This could mean that stone has gotten stuck somewhere. With kidney
stone pain it seems like a person just can't be still. They're constantly moving
trying to find a comfortable position. You might first try drinking plenty
of liquids to move the stone along. If that doesn't help it's probably
time to get to the emergency room. A common treatment at Memorial is
lithotripsy. High energy sound waves pass through the body and
break the stone into very small pieces that can easily be eliminated with the urine.
Lithotripsy is usually performed as an outpatient procedure.
There may be some discomfort and some blood in the urine for a few days afterward but
most people can return to normal activities soon. Thank you, Doctor White.
Would you like to receive a free brochure about risk factors,
diagnosis and treatment of kidney stones? Call us right now at
228-868-6500 or visit us online at
Gulfport Memorial dot com. And you can call 867-5000 if you'd like
to schedule an appointment.