I hate this topic. I do, because people have gotten in real trouble. Well, I hate love it.
I love talking about it because it will help people. I hate it because a lot of people say, "I dissolve my stone." Okay, I will always say, " unlikely." Okay? So, let's talk about this.
There's all kinds of magical potions on the internet that will tell you can dissolve your kidney stones, from teas to gummies to parsley smoothies to all kinds of stuff. So, I hope one day we can just take something and our stones dissolve. There is a form of stone called uric acid stones, and they can be dissolved with a very alkaline product, something like potassium citrate.
So, uric acid stones are made because there's too much uric acid in your crystals. I have a lot of people that come to me from the carnivore diet. You know, they heard superfoods are toxic to go on the carnivore diet, and then they make a different kind of stone.
You can make calcium oxalate from that diet, and very common uric acid stones from that diet. And so, typically, when you're eating a diet that's high in purines, which is meats, primarily, there are some vegetables that are very high in purine, but it's rare that people are overeating them so much to make uric acid stones.
But, typically, one is eating too much meat. I have a lot of carnivore people in my practice, paleo people overdoing the meat portion, and so, your and, also, on a another segment of patients that make uric acid stones are diabetics because along with the carnivore people, there diabetic and carnivore people will have very acidic urine, acidic urine, and that is an environment which uric acid crystals thrive.
So, anything less than a 5.6 urine pH, a 24-hour urine pH, 5.7, 5.8, even that, uric acid crystals can begin to form. So, in that case, your doctor will do a 24-hour urine collection. That's how you know you have this problem.
You do a 24-hour urine collection. The doctor will say, "Here's the reason you're making uric acid stones. You're eating too much meat.
Your urine pH is extremely low, so it's very acidic. Your citrate is very low, which is a natural stone inhibitor." Citrate is a molecule in the body that basically shields calcium so that oxalate and phosphate cannot connect to her. So, when you eat too much meat, your citrate goes low, your pH goes low, and your calcium can be high.
That's another way you get high urine calcium. So, anyway, specifically for dissolving stones, if you do make uric acid stones, the doctor could give you potassium citrate. This will alkalinize your urine.
He will also or she will also tell you to stop eating that diet because that's not working for you and your chemistries, but they will put you on potassium citrate to help dissolve, may not dissolve fully, but will dissolve some, some fully, yes, the uric acid. That alkaline citrate that you're taking, the potassium citrate, it will start dissolving those uric acid crystals so you can start passing them.
Some people, it will just dissolve it, depending on how big that stone is, the uric acid stone. There are no other kidney stones that you can dissolve. Now, people are going to say to me, "Jill, but my stone did break up when I drank some tea." Oh, did it break up or did it did the stone move because you're drinking a lot of fluids?
I'll ask the patient, "Did you Were you also drinking a lot " "Oh, yeah, Jill, I was drinking so much water." So, how do you know the tea worked? That's all I'm asking. So, here's the other thing, though.
So, I just People will say, "Well, of course, she's going to say science doesn't say it." Well, science doesn't say. Before like Chanca Piedra, what science does say with that is it can relax the ureter a little bit to help the stone So, your ureter is the tube that's connecting the bladder to the kidney to the bladder, and so that's where you feel the pain, typically, when the stone is sliding through that tiny, little, narrow tube from the kidney to the bladder so you can leave that stone.
Now, so the tea may dilate the ureter a little bit and help the stone pass, but we're using the word "dissolve" for a reason. Parsley smoothies, what am I just talking about now, Jeff? The tea?
That's not They're not dissolving stones, is the point here. So, people will say, "Well, I'm just going to start drinking that tea. I'm going to drink a lot of lemon juice.
I'm going to drink " But you don't know, first of all, there's a lot of people that start apple cider vinegar, lemon, Crystal Light. They'll start doing all this stuff, and they don't even know what kind of stone they made because, number one, it hasn't come out yet, and, number two, they haven't done a urine collection.
So, a lot of you are doing these things, and that could make your matters worse. "I heard lemon juice dissolves kidney stones, so I'm going to drink lemon juice." And they drink so much lemon juice, number one, they lose the enamel on their teeth, and, number two, now they're forming another type of stone, or the same stone they were forming, but they didn't even know what stone they were making.
They used lemon juice, increased their pH so much that made a calcium phosphate stone. So, number one, I will tell you to get a urine collection to see what type of stone you made. There's nothing that's going to dissolve calcium phosphate stones or calcium oxalate stones.
They're not being dissolved. And people say, "She's saying that because she doesn't want us to pass the stone." Why would I say that, cuz I don't want you to pass the stone? I'm just telling you what I've seen for 30 years.
There's no science that says that's holding up anywhere. Those stones, the lasers can't even break them up a lot of the times, more times than you'd like to know about. Uric acid stones can be broken up, but you don't know what kind of stone you make.
"Well, I know I've made uric acid in the past." But you make Stones change all the time. So, some people say, "Jill, I've made every stone there is: uric acid, calcium phosphate, a combination of, you know, because they're trying to" If you make a uric acid stone and the doctor says, "Take this. Take this," you stop eating as much meat, you do all the things the doctor says, maybe even to way more than you should, now your pH is too high!
I mean, the things I have seen. So, again, it always comes down to moderation, right? There's a lot of things nowadays that alkalinize your urine: Liquid I.V.s, electrolyte drinks, things you don't need.
Could that help a uric acid stone dissolve? Maybe. But, typically, if the doctor knows you make uric acid stones, he or she is going to put you on potassium citrate because they want the citrate to come up and the pH to come up, and that will help dissolve the stone, perhaps.
Lots of times they don't, but it could help that along. But it will definitely keep you from making uric acid stones, along with getting off carnivore diet for those of you who are prone to stones. Some carnivore people will say, "Jill, this is bull-dill.
I have not made a stone." And I'll say, "Yet!" Or you may just not be It's like the guy that smokes two packs of cigarettes a day, he's 92, still breathing. I mean, there's some people that diet is not going to affect them. But if you are bent toward making kidney stones, it will, for sure.
Seen it I see it every day. So, it may not just happen to you or yet, because stones take a while to form, but, not everybody will form stones by eating the carnivore diet, so I do want to make sure of that, okay, that people understand that. But dissolving kidney stones, the only one that can be dissolved, it is uric acid stones.
There's no guarantee of it, but it is possible when we alkalinize the urine. Calcium oxalate and calcium phosphate stones do not break up.
