You just had kidney stone surgery and you’re terrified you’re going to make another one. You’re not alone, and what you do next matters more than you think.
In this episode, kidney stone nurse Jill Harris walks you through everything you need to know after surgery: the one test you should be asking your doctor for, the diet changes that actually matter, why you still need calcium, and the common mistakes that land people right back in the operating room.
Whether this was your first stone or you’ve been through it before, understanding your next steps is the difference between prevention and another surgery.
Chapters
0:00 – Intro
0:08 – What should you eat (and avoid) after kidney stone surgery?
0:52 – How you can prevent another surgery?
1:50 – What can you eat or drink to recover quickly?
2:35 – 3 Post-Op Mistakes You Might Make
Transcript
Jill Harris: You just had your kidney stone surgery and you are terrified you’re gonna make another kidney stone.
I’m Nurse Jill and I’ve been helping people prevent kidney stones since 1998.
The first thing you should do after you’ve had a surgery is make sure you’re getting a follow-up, because you wanna see if there’s any stones left. But, as far as diet goes, you wanna make sure you’re drinking enough fluids.
You want to make sure you’re lowering your salt, and added sugar, and you’re not getting rid of a lot of plant foods. You’re getting rid of spinach, and almonds, and cashews. The things that you’re overeating the most that you’ve heard have high oxalate. But, of course, we have a list at Kidney Stone Diet.
You also need to get your calcium needs met, and most of you don’t know that, and and most of you will think that you’re supposed to get rid of calcium if you’re even getting it anyway, because you made a calcium oxalate stone.
And then also you can’t be doing things like Keto and Carnivore, and overeating meat all the time ’cause that’s also part of the Kidney Stone Diet goals.
Surgery fixed your stone, but here are next steps in preventing another.
So now that you’ve had your stone, you’ve gotta figure out why you made it so you don’t make it again. The first thing you need to ask your doctor is, can I get a 24 hour urine collection done. It’s gonna tell the doctor exactly why you made a kidney stone.
Now, here’s the pain in the neck of this. A lot of doctors will say, let’s wait till the second stone. Well, why would we wait for a second stone before we started on a prevention plan so we don’t get that stone? You want that test done!
“Well, he said no, Jill. What do I do?” You tell the doctor “I wanna do everything I can, and I’ve heard that the first thing I need to do is do a 24 hour urine collection so we can see what my urine chemistry say, and then I can start fixing things.”
When you tell your doctor that you are a proactive, wanna-get-this-done kind of patient, they’ll order it for you.
So once you get that completed, that urine collection is going to tell the doctor and you what is going on in your diet that you need to change so you don’t continue making stones. And you’re gonna be shocked at what you see.
You wanna recover quickly? Here’s the number one thing you need to know.
Drink. Your. Your Fluids. There aren’t any magic foods I’m gonna suggest right now, but water is magical when it comes to kidney stone prevention and when it comes to after surgeries.
You wanna be drinking enough fluids, so you’re producing two and a half liters a day. Now, for some of you, maybe you don’t really drink much at all. Alls I’m asking is you drink more than you have been. Dehydration is one of the number one reasons people form kidney stones, so you really wanna get those fluids in.
And, also after surgery, especially if you’ve had a lithotripsy or they blasted your stones, you wanna get that sand out so those crystals don’t stay in your kidney and form stones later on. So you wanna flush out. I’m sure your doctor will tell you that, but fluids are really important after surgery.
Finally, here are the mistakes that so many stone formers make after surgery.
Here’s what a lot of kidney stone formers tell me: as soon as they had their surgery, they did nothing. That’s a huge mistake and you’re gonna make more kidney stones.
Why did you do nothing? ” Because the doctor said ‘Ahh, it’s just one stone!”
The doctor didn’t make a big deal out of it. The doctor didn’t talk about prevention. So you just think it’s a one-off. I can’t tell you how many patients tell me that until they call me ‘ cause they got a second stone and another surgery.
So, common mistakes, that’s number one, thinking it’s no big deal.
Number two, not increasing fluids. You have to do that.
Number three, you’re limiting way too many plant foods because now you’re afraid of oxalate. When oxalate is the least important part of all of this, I promise you. Once you take away spinach and almond products and cashews and eating peanut butter all the time on the Keto diet, you can eat plenty of plant foods.
Another thing, you don’t understand how salt affects kidney stone formation or added sugar or meat protein. Yes, you can eat meat, but you can’t be on the Carnivore diet and think you’re gonna not make kidney stones.
People don’t understand that diet can prevent kidney stones, and I know it can ’cause I’ve been doing this for 30 years.
Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next week.
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