Kidney-stone sufferers say that no pain, no torture, no desperation quite matches the jagged agony caused by the presence of a small chip of stone inside a human kidney.
Those whose composure has been. rocked by one of those attacks have left few stones unturned in their search for the right diet or drug or medical device that will prevent them from ever going through that kind of misery again.
Prevention of these stones is a must because there is no easy way to remove a stone once it forms and lodges itself in the kidney. Open-kidney surgery is still the treatment of choice in the United States, but people sometimes lose kidneys, or parts of kidneys, as a result.
Difficult as they are to get out, most kidney stones get in by a simple biochemical process that anyone can understand. First, imagine a glass of water and a carton of table salt. Start pouring salt into the water and it will dissolve and disappear. Pour in enough salt, however, and the water becomes saturated - it can't hold any more salt - and you'll start to see crystals of salt falling like snowflakes to the bottom of the glass.
Most kidneys stones start the same way. The fluids that pass through your kidneys contain different kinds of minerals and molecules. One of those minerals is calcium, and one of those molecules is oxalic acid, which combine to form calcium oxalate. Normally, it floats invisibly in the fluid, but when there's too much of it, or too little fluid, it starts to fall out of solution. Here or there a calcium oxalate crystal forms and attracts another and another until there are enough to make a nice little stone snowball, with sharp edges to torment its owner while defying almost every effort to get rid of it. This problem has stumped many people, including the inventive Benjamin Franklin, who tried and failed to shake loose his stone by eating blackberry jam and standing on his head.
Home Remedy for Kidney Stones
- Apples are useful in kidney stones. In countries where the natural unsweetened cider is a common beverage, cases of stones or calculus are practically absent. The ripe fresh fruit is, however, more valuable.
- Watermelon, either eaten as a fruit or had a juice is very good.
- Drink more and more water.
- Kava kava (Piper methysticum) ?Has antianxiety and sedative qualities.
- Celery is a valuable food for those who are prone to getting stones in the kidneys or gall-bladder. Its regular intake prevents future stone formation.
- First thing in the morning, drink 1 glass of fresh Tomato juice. Add a pinch of salt and pepper to this.
Subodh Jain is a freelance writer with more than 25 years experience as a health care professional. He is a contributing editor to Natural remedies, a site dedicated to the home remedies for common ailments.