Fact or Fiction: All kidney stones cause pain

This week on the podcast, we are talking about another fact or fiction. Do all kidney stones cause pain?

The following is designed to entertain and inform, not provide medical advice. Always consult your doctor before starting any treatment.

Welcome in to the Kidney Stone Diet podcast, the show about reducing your kidney stone risk and living your best life. I'm your host and fellow student, Jeff Sarris.

And I'm Jill Harris, your kidney stone prevention nurse. Nice to see you, Jeff!

Yeah, great to see you, too. Well, yeah, we are liking these fact or fiction episodes because there's so many myths, potential myths, question marks, I think, that people have that about things that are floating around on the internet, just naturally.

Yeah, you know, and the internet is wonderful. Where would we be without it? But if you're a patient, specifically for kidney stone disease, I mean, all of us who are patients with whatever we got, we automatically go to Google and we start researching stuff.

And there's, you know, there's some things, some, like for rectal cancer, like what I have, it's pretty much the same from site to site. You're not like, "Oh my god, what do I do?" Nobody's sipping on teas or, you know, special things. They're going to the doctor, they're getting chemo, they're getting radiation, they're having a surgery.

There is a succinct protocol for how to help cancer patients, rectal, whatever you got, diabetes, succinct, you know, protocol. For kidney stone disease, it's like the Wild West, man. So, you know, there's so much conflicting information.

I think the doctors that primarily take care of kidney stone patients are urologists, so they're surgeons. So, they're not, you know, talking to you about how to lower salt. A lot of people will say, "My doctor just wants to make money off of me." They don't study nutrition, they're surgeons, and we need them to take the stones out.

As far as prevention, you know, it's slim pickings for kidney stone patients. So, there's so much erroneous information, and kidney stone patients don't know what the heck to do. So, we think this series, Jeff and I think this series will be very helpful for patients to dig through what's the bull-dool, what's not, what can we count on, and, so, can—do all kidney stones cause pain?

No! "How could it be, Jill? It was the worst pain of my life!

I'd rather have a baby!" I mean, it's the same thing over and over. Well, here's the deal. People who don't have pain, they're not screaming that!

The people who have had the worst pain in their whole entire lives, quote unquote, those are the patients that you hear from. But I can tell you, talking to patients day in and day out, a lot of them have never had pain. "Jill, I didn't know what the hell was going on.

The only reason I knew something was wrong was I had blood in my urine." Or, "Jill, I didn't know anything. I was going into the doctor for something else. I had a CT scan and they're like, 'Oh, and by the way, you have kidney stones.'" Or, another one is, "I went to the bathroom and kerplunk in the toilet, there was a stone!

I didn't know what the hell it was!" So, there are many patients that don't have pain. What we hear about on the internet, though, is all the ones that have. So, that's fiction.

All kidney stone patients do not have pain. If you want to ensure that you never have pain from a kidney stone, please try the Kidney Stone Diet. Get 24-hour urine collections done, drink your fluids, pay attention to added sugar and salt, and all the things that the Kidney Stone Diet goals show you.

You can find them at kidneystonediet.com. And prevent them, so you never have to wonder, "Are you going to be the patient who's having excruciating pain, or are you going to be, hopefully, the patient that doesn't?" So, no, not all kidney stone patients suffer from horrific kidney stone pain. And, some people will have several stones, incidents.

Some of them said, "I've never had pain." Some of them have said, "I've always had pain." And some of them have said, "That occurrence I did, the new one I didn't." So, it can be all over the place. But it is a myth that all kidney stones will cause pain.

Would you actually say that fluids could play a role in that? Maybe someone who doesn't have pain, drinks more fluids, or do you think there's anything that could maybe impact how that feels?

You mean, can—is there anything that can lessen pain?

Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

When they're passing it? Well, there are certain drugs like Flomax, patients will, their doctor will prescribe that for them, and it kind of dilates the ureter, ureters. And that's the tube, you know, you have your kidneys up here in your back and then there's a tube on each kidney that leads to the bladder.

And that's how these little stones come down, and they're ripping up your ureter. Your ureter are very, very narrow tubes, and those kidney stones are made up of crystals that are like shards of glass. So, it's very painful when they're ripping down.

Could there—so Flomax could dilate your ureters a little? Yes, so that can make the pain less, absolutely. Drinking more water, it will help you flush it out, but it won't necessarily help with pain.

Does that make sense? So, so there's a lot of things that can help you flush them out, and we've talked about that, I think, here, and certainly, if not, you know, we have. So, find that video.

But, you know, pain medications will help lessen the pain, obviously. And if you're in a lot of pain, of course, you may need to go to the. You should have some pain meds on hand if your doctor will give you that, if you're a frequent stone former.

But the best way to ensure that you never have pain from a kidney stone is prevent them. And I know you're like, "Ugh." But, but you can prevent kidney stones in most cases. We can curtail 80% of recurrence.

Okay, so if you follow the Kidney Stone Diet, get a 24-hour urine collection so you can find out exactly why you're forming stones. Some of you will have to go on medications as long, as long with your, the Kidney Stone Diet. And, listen, I couldn't be paying, Jeff, we couldn't be paying our rent if, if this didn't work.

Okay, for 25 years I've been doing this. I'm able to sustain myself because my patients have success, because they're taking what I'm asking them to do and they're running with it and they're doing it because they never want to form another kidney stone again. So, you can prevent kidney stones.

You're not a stone maker for the rest of your life. Even those of you who have medical conditions like MSK, or you have diabetes, or you have malabsorption, or a bariatric surgery leading to malabsorption, even you guys, maybe we can't 100% prevent them, but I promise you, we can lessen the amount you're getting. That I can promise you.

But you've got to do the work, too. So, we are a vehicle of information. Take it, run with it, change your life.

Because what we're asking you to do, too, by the way, is just healthy, healthy stuff. Lower your added sugar, lower your sodium, get enough fluids, make sure you get calcium every day through food and/or drink because you have bones and you need to protect them. The oxalate, once you take away the highest oxalate foods, you really don't have to worry about unless you have malabsorption issues.

Don't eat a side of beef every day. Make sure you're eating adequate meat protein, but not over the top meat protein. And, what did I leave out?

I think that's it. Fluids, make sure you drink enough fluids to produce 2.5 to 3 L of urine a day. And you could change.

Go on the website, you'll see all the raves, all the praise about how people changed their life! They joined the group calls. They get a support group.

We have a support group for kidney stone formers, so you can talk about what's going on with you, how do you keep weight off for the long term, invaluable stuff. Having a support group, accountability, all of this comes into play with long term success. I don't want patients to change their diet for a few months and then when, you know, they're not thinking about stones, old habits creep up.

I want you to change your whole life and you can do that. Kidney stones are terrible things, but they have prompted my patients to change their whole entire life. I'm not being dramatic about that.

Again, go to kidneystonediet.com, the praise page, so you can see what people are saying. That's it. Anything else, Jeff?

Yeah, no. I mean, kidneystonediet.com is where you can find absolutely everything. All the additional free resources, all the past episodes of this podcast.

We are 184 episodes in. We've talked about all everything, though there's still more because this is a deep topic. But we've talked about so much.

Just we've run the gamut on this show and there's so much free content even if you never spend a penny. Like we'rd just trying to help as many people as possible and you can find all of that plus the premium paid resources at kidneystonediet.com. So, with that, I think this is another great fact or fiction.

So, it is fiction that all kidney stones will cause pain. I think next week we're going to come back with another fact or fiction because we have a list that we want to get through because there are so many things out there that aren't exactly clear, per se. And we want to clarify as much as we possibly can.

Yes. Yes!

And if you're out there with a question, the number again is 773-789-8763. We will go back to answering listener questions, but for a little bit right now we're doing some more fact or fiction. So, thanks again for everyone who tuned in.

Thanks for watching, giving a little thumbs up on this episode, leaving a comment down below, and we'll see you next week.

Thanks, everybody. Have a great week!