How to pass a kidney stone (10 Tips!)

After 25 years as a kidney stone prevention nurse, today Jill has 10 tips on how to pass a kidney stone.

Welcome back 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, and an all-new set today, Jeff Sarris.

And I'm Jill Harris, your kidney stone prevention nurse. And if we aren't white and bright, I don't– I don't even know what to tell you. This has never happened before in the history.

It is so bright. I had to wear a white shirt because we are– we're on the road right now. So, we're in a little– little beach house in New Jersey visiting Amara's dad.

So, yeah, I had to change it up. I'm wearing black. It doesn't fit with the vibe, but we're not going to miss an episode.

We are 198 now into the show, and we are not missing.

We're not missing, but when we appeared, when I saw Jeff when we came on camera together– I'm at my house and he's in New Jersey– I was like, oh my god, could we be– could we have any brighter? I think our audience will like this. It's a nice little change.

I think it's good to change things up. And I have rarely seen you, in all the years I've known you, honey, in white. So, it's so fun.

Even the water bottle is white!

I know, right? That's what's funny, is, yeah, I have the white water bottle, Amara has the black one, so it like fits with like my even colors and everything that we do. So, I don't know, it's a lot of fun.

But yeah, so today we have some tips for passing a kidney stone.

Yeah, so–

And like there's so many questions like, does walking help pass a kidney stone? And all these things that people like naturally think about that we want to sort of touch on.

Yes, so this is for the– for the guy in the comment that said, "Hey, lady, when are you going to talk about how to pass a kidney stone?" And he's right. I mean, you know, here's the deal. There's almost 200 videos on this channel and we didn't even get to something so basic because we're– it's the Kidney Stone Diet channel, and that's what we're always talking about.

But he was absolutely right, and I said, "Oh, listen. The next one we do, which is this one, it's going to happen, baby." So here we go. How to pass a kidney stone.

Well, I'll tell you, I've heard some stories over the years of how people pass their stone.

And let me tell you this. Is there science behind all of these things? That would be no.

But this is what people have said has helped them. Now, remember, they may say, "I jumped off a building. It passed my stone." But you don't know the whole story.

Did they drink a lot of water? Was the stone ready to pass and no matter what the person did or didn't do, it was coming? You know, there's so many other contributing factors in what helps pass a stone or, like I said, is it just time for it to pass because they do their own things?

But here are the things I've consistently heard that definitely has helped over the years patients pass kidney stones.

The number one thing is drinking more fluids. This obviously is going to help flush, help that stone be on its way, help flush it out. And that's really important because you don't want it to be stuck in your urinary tract and cause issues.

So the more you're able to drink during the passage of a stone, the better chances you have of passing it. Now, typically one knows when a stone is passing, typically. I've definitely had patients that said, "I didn't feel nothing when that stone was passing, girl.

Next thing I know, I look down and there's a rock in my toilet." So not all of you will know that a stone's even moving, but many of you will. And so when that familiar back pain, groin pain, side pain, wherever you're feeling it, abdominal pain, nausea, wherever you're feeling it, when it comes, and if you're able, drink more fluids to help that puppy get out of there.

That's the number one thing I hear.

Within these– within these helping to pass incidences, we're also going to talk about pain, because if you're in pain, you're not going to be able to do some of the things that people do to pass stones, okay? So number– another one is people use a heating pad for pain to help them drink more water or move. So if you're in pain, you don't want to drink more water, you don't want to move.

So some of this stuff will be interjected in here. Walking, walking, walking, walking. Is it specifically walking that's helping pass the pain, or is it any kind of movement?

It's any kind of movement. From roller coasters to jumping jacks to pacing back and forth to jogging to all of it. Movement in general, I have heard people do, and they swear that it helped pass their kidney stone.

So I think movement in general is definitely going to be something that's on your side to help pass a kidney stone.

Just the roller coaster is just so funny to me. It feels like a really– a salacious title for a book. "Ride a Roller Coaster, Pass a Kidney Stone!" It's just so funny.

Yep. Yeah, I mean it's crazy, right? So people have sworn, and there have been little studies here and there that show that getting on– so in our Facebook group, the Kidney Stone Diet Facebook group, people will say, "Oh, I'm in the middle of passing a stone," and they'll all be like, "Get on a roller coaster." Well, that's not easy for everybody.

So in general, you know, is it because you're upside down? A lot of people will say, "If I go upside down on my bed, so if I if my feet are on my pillow and I'm putting my head all the way where my feet are and I'm going down–" if you're on YouTube, you can see me, you know, you're just you're just inverted and your head's all going toward the floor.

People will say that helped pass their stone. So headstands in yoga helped pass their stone. Don't try this at home, folks, if you're not used to doing headstands, okay?

But this is what people have said. People have said a jacuzzi has helped pass their stone. People have said that those massages, those guns, Theragun massages, has helped pass their stone.

Elliptical machines, people have said, help pass their stone. Treadmills. But again, people, I'm going to say, is it these specific things?

'Cause Chuck in the background is like, "What the hell? I don't got an elliptical or a treadmill. What am I supposed to do?" Just walk, Chuck.

That's it. Just walk. That's all you got to do.

So to me, it's just movement. It just so happened to be that was this form of movement for all these patients. They had access to that and that's what they did.

Bending and stretching has helped my patients pass kidney stones. Again, they're moving. Hang upside down off the bed, that was the other one we've talked about.

Jumping– this is a popular one, folks, if you have this at home– jumping on a mini trampoline. But for those who don't, you know, a jumping jack, same thing, same thing. You're going up and down, gravity up and down, movement, that's what's helping it.

Those trampolines are also interesting because like lymphatic drainage is a thing, too. And I– we got one specifically for that kind of stuff. And you just– you feel the difference.

Like obviously not everyone can be jumping on a trampoline, but if you can, that can really get sort of the lymph flowing. It's interesting. I don't know, I've felt so much better.

It's all interesting. It's all interesting to me, and I don't leave any possibilities out, for sure. People will say that they took a bath with Epsom salt 'cause that relaxed their muscles.

So people have said that has helped them pass a kidney stone. People have told me that their doctor has given them Flomax to help, you know, dilate the ureters, make them a little to help the flow of the kidney stone go down. People definitely can– you can ask for that from your doctor.

Also, and I have an article on this on my blog, just pain management for kidney stones. And you may say, "Well, that's not a tool," but it is a tool to help pass a kidney stone, because if you're in pain, you're not going to want to do all these suggestions that my patients have done. So you've got to manage the pain first so you can do all these other things.

A lot of people, another tool that they've used is anti-nausea medications. Again, if you can stop throwing up, you'll be less dehydrated, you'll be able to drink more to help pass that stone.

Other things to help manage pain so you can do some of the tricks we talked about to, whether it's walking or going on a trampoline or whatever, some other tricks that patients have used as far as to manage pain, CBD, THC where that's legal, Tylenol, Advil, Aleve, these things can help with pain if you are allowed to take those things based upon other medical conditions you have.

Want to be very specific about that.

Now, there are many times where you're going to have to give up on your walking and your roller coaster riding and your drinking fluids, all of that. What are the signs– and of course this could be a whole other video, but it's very important to put it in this video– what are the signs where it's time to hang all that stuff up and get your butt to the?

Here are the signs for that. So, when to go to the: if you have fever and chills, that's very important. You could be sporting an infection.

So it's very important. You could have a stone that is infected. You could have a stone that got stuck.

Some people will say, "Well, all of a sudden the pain went away, I just assumed I passed it and didn't notice." But actually the stone was stuck in the ureter or was blocking the UVJ junction, and you can– you will know if that happens lots of times, because you feel like you have to pee, but nothing comes out. Also fever, chills, infection, you'll have signs of that, so that's very important.

Blood in the urine, difficulty, as I said, urinating or peeing.

When your urine is cloudy or has a distinct color or odor, these are signs of infection and also reasons you should be going to the. Constant burning with urination, and vomiting that may lead to dehydration. So some people will be like, "Jill, I tried all– I was on Zofran, I was on all these anti-nausea drugs and nothing helped.

And before I knew it, I had to be taken to the hospital because I was so dehydrated."

And so it's really important to know, and I need to say this because like as a patient myself, you know, the last thing I want to do is take myself to the so I get it, folks. Number one, it's so difficult to be seen. It's it's expensive.

It's scary. It's all the things. And so, but I cannot tell you how many patients I've had in my career that did go septic.

And that's when, you know, you've had a stone that's infected, you may or may not know this, and now you have an infection in your blood and it's spreading within your body, and that's really serious. And that's not rare that I hear this. At least once a week I have a patient that had– that was septic, and that is– can be ICU.

So let's do what we can. And when nothing's working, we do take ourselves to the doctor and we say, "Look, it's been a couple weeks, doc. Nothing's happening here.

I'm in pain, I'm not eating, I can't I can't– I'm not doing my daily activities. I need to be seen, I need new imaging, I don't know if the stone is stuck." And that's when you call it off and get help. So that's very important, too.

Some stones just come out on their own.

Some stones, no matter what you do, they will need an intervention. So be wise. Don't put it off.

If you have signs of infection, get your butt to the your doctor's office, something. That's very serious. I can't undermine that, okay?

Oh, and also, here's a fun thing. So people will say, "Jill, I swear, I had sex, and it popped right out." Now, if you're feeling well enough to have sex, God bless. Go have sex.

It's movement.

It's movement. So a lot of people will say, you know, "I ejaculated, and there came the stone." Okay, so I'm just saying. So sex is movement.

So, have at it, folks. But, you know, lots of you will be in pain and let's just say you're not going to be in the mood. But it all counts.

So, I'm not opposed to that either. Why not?

Definitely. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, I mean, that's a whole thorough list. I like that because it sort of runs the gamut of everything. You have fluids, you have the activity, you have all the different things that you've sort of experienced or heard from people that you've worked with throughout the years.

And I just wanted to touch on the sepsis thing real quick. That's what's so, I'm sure, just so hard to hear on your end because people have gone through just horrific things before they get to you.

And like we have the show and we always ask like, "Oh, if you can share. If you can like, subscribe, share." Because we want to reach people before they get to that point. And like, I'm sure just on your side having so many people who are already past that point, it's just, it's crushing because you know how you can help them before they even get there.

Look, I think I think it's a great point. And one of the things, there's so many things that drive me– Finn, no. Shh.

He's had it today 'cause I've been talking a lot. There's so many things that drive me to keep up this work, and one of them is just how sick people have gotten. And that's because, you know, there's not a lot of good information out there.

And at the very best, it's very conflictual. So people really don't know what to do to prevent kidney stones. And so that's why we're here.

And Finn is also very, very upset by all of it, too, as you can see.

He's hitting a sore spot with Finn, as well.

Yeah, for sure!

Well, I think that's a perfect place to wrap this week. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Remember to go to kidneystonediet.com to find everything, all the free and premium resources, but thanks again.

Like, comment, subscribe, and we'll see you next time.

Bye, everybody. Finn.

Bye.