If You’re in Pain With Kidney Stones, it Must Be Summer

July 8, 2014  15:02

Summer may have just officially started, but kidney stone season began a couple of weeks ago. Many doctors see an increase in kidney stone cases when the weather warms up.

Kidney stones are solid, often sharp substances made of mineral and acid salts. They can travel into the ureter, which is the tube connecting the kidney and bladder, and cause excruciating lower back pain and genital discomfort.

Seasonal shifts

When patients come to the emergency room with pain, which is usually a sign that the stone is moving, it happens more often in the summer than in the winter months.

The risk of developing kidney stones is higher in the winter because there is typically more calcium in the urine during winter months. Having too much calcium in the urine, or hypercalciuria, is a risk factor for kidney stones.

Physical activity protects against stone development. So if you’re less active in the winter, your risk for developing a kidney stone increases. Then when warm weather hits, the stones that formed over winter start to move.

Seeking relief

Kidney stones cause pain when the ureter contracts in an attempt to pull the stone through the bladder tube. If the surface of the stone is sharp or pointed, as it often is, the stone creates a nagging or stabbing discomfort in the lower back and/or groin.

Kidney stones vary in size — from as small as a grain of sand to as large as a pea. The smaller the stone, the more likely it can pass through the body without medical treatment.

If you have kidney stones on the move, you may also experience bloody urine, fever and chills, nausea and vomiting as well as a constant urge to urinate.

Drinking water helps

Once you’ve had a stone, you have a 50 percent chance of developing another one within the next five years. This risk generally increases with advancing age.

Someone who is at risk for kidney stones should drink at least 12 glasses of water each day, especially during the summer.

Drinking plenty of water will help to dilute your body liquids, as well as calcium oxalate, the substance that forms most types of kidney stones.

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