Spinach and almonds are something are two foods that people specifically overeat. They eat them every single day, and they eat them in any amounts they want. It's very common that somebody goes to their dietitian and, they have diabetes.
And so the dietitian, no shade on dietitians, they're what they're telling their patients is correct, you know, for a healthy snack, have almonds, put spinach smoothies, eat some spinach, eat your leafy greens. So, what they're being told, 'cause now they've got to lower carbs, and so they incorporate these healthier foods into their diet.
The dietitian never said, "And also, Sally, make sure you eat a bag of almonds a day. And so much spinach it's going to come out of your eyeballs." The dietitian didn't say that. But when we health healthcare professionals tell a patient to do something that is healthy, they tend to say, "Well, more of it means more health." And if you're a diabetic and now you've taken away a lot of carbs, you're looking for something that you can snack on throughout the day.
And almonds are crunchy and they're there, and, you know, they're easy, you can put them in the car, you can bring them to the office, whatever. And they're good for me. So, you don't eat three almonds, you really overeat them.
And so, and along with that, nobody's getting any calcium needs met at that point. And so,
And the old timers that have been around here for a long time may know what I'm going to say. But for anybody that's just found us, you will not be able to prevent kidney stones unless you do a 24-hour urine collection. That is vital to start a kidney stone treatment plan.
You may think you know why you're forming stones, but until you do a urine collection, folks, you don't know why you're forming stones. I can't tell you how many people they call me because I do urine consults all day long with folks. I help them understand the report, so then they can have a better appointment with their doctor.
When you are educated on why you're forming stones, then you can get on a better treatment plan, talk to your doctor, all of the things. But if you don't understand why you're making stones and you just drink more water, I can't tell you how many patients, "Well, Jill, I was drinking more water. That's what the doctor said and I was still making stones." And "I did a urine collection 'cause I saw your YouTube channel and then I realized I'm eating so much salt and I never used the salt shaker, so I was shocked." Or somebody's eating way too much meat protein because they're on the Paleo diet.
And so, yes, up to 80% of stone formers are calcium oxalate stone formers, but uric acid stone formers are getting up there, too, just because so many people overeat meat products. And then, typically, when you're on Paleo and keto, you're way overeating salt. Okay?
You're doing a good job on sugar, but you're way overeating salt. So, there's so many things in the urine collection. Your saturations will be listed there and your saturations are the driving force of stone formation.
Supersaturations are telling the doctor, that will be found on a urine collection result, how saturated your urine is with stone-making crystals and which one. It will also tell the doctor what stone are you most at risk for making. It will tell you how much how much water you're drinking.
You may say, "Jill, I drink like a fish. Why is only this much coming out of me?" Because you're eating 10,000 mg of salt a day, so that fluid is staying inside your body instead of you instead of you urinating it out. And so it will tell you your citrate level, your pH, your calcium level, all the things matter in stone disease.
So, when you're scouring the internet on kidney stone prevention, mostly what you're going to see is oxalate. Is oxalate a big factor? Yes.
Is oxalate the easiest thing to deal with in stone disease? Yes. You all It on the internet it seems like, "Oh my god!
Oxalate!" But I promise you in almost 30 years, it's the least important thing. You take away your spinach and almonds and a few foods, you can find those foods at kidneystonediet.com. But mostly, there's all the other values.
I think there's like 50 values on that urine collection test, 30, 40, whatever there are. There's a lot of them. It's not just oxalate.
And so the urine collection will take all these values, mesh them all together in a very beautiful little algorithm, and spit out why you're forming stones. And so you If you have low citrate, if you have low pH, if you have really high pH, you're never going to know this stuff. So, what are you going to do?
You're just going to go off the internet or the generic advice your urologist gives you, "Drink more water, add lemon." That's not touching 99.9% of you. And then you come to me and you're like, "Well, I guess I'm just a stone maker." And I say, "No, no. Get a urine collection done." You get a urine collection done, you call me to go over the results, you're like, "Holy pejole!
Look at all this!" And then you stop making stones because the doctor is then going to look at that result. You're going to impress your doctor with all the knowledge. I hear that all year long.
"Jill, my doctor was so impressed by how much I know. Jill, my doctor just sat down and really listened to me and it was a way longer visit." When you know what you're talking about, the doctor's like, " oh. Let me just sit down.
Let me take my time. Great questions here." So, it's vital to prevent kidney stone. You see I always get very passionate about this part of it because it's the most important step that so many of you are skipping.
Do you know how many stone formers come to me, "Jill, I've been making stones for 20 years. I found you on Facebook, Kidney Stone Diet on Facebook, and I saw someone talking about a urine collection. So, I got one done.
And after, you know, and now I see why I'm making stones. I have high urine calcium. I didn't know.
And now my doctor says I have to get my parathyroid taking out because that's what's making my urine calcium high." Guys, I bring I bring this in a light way, adorable, funny, I'm passionate about it, but I'm telling you, if you listen to the things You don't got to pay for one thing, not one thing. If you just listen to what I'm saying and do the very first step, which is to tell your doctor you "Oh, my doctor says he ain't going to do it.
He wants to wait for the second stone." Why would no Nobody would wait for another tumor to pop up in my body before they decided to do some treatment on me. Why are we waiting for two stones to prevent? Why are we waiting for Why?
Why are we not testing? If your doctor says, " we don't really do those here," you say, "I would like to do a 24-hour urine collection because I want to make sure I never form another stone again and I want to see why I'm forming stones." It's very rare that the doctor will say no after you say that. Many of you have told me that you have said that to the doctor, and when the doctor said no, you felt a little timid in gently pushing back.
And God, I understand that. I have a big mouth, but I can be kind of timid in real life. And, you know, when you're talking to a doctor, even though I'm a nurse, I'm like, "Oh, well, they know best." You know, I was brought up in a certain generation.
Who are you to question Dr. Marcus Welby? I mean, you know, we didn't we didn't do that.
So, I know it may be a little uncomfortable, but my god, please let's not get another lithotripsy, ureteroscopy, cystoscopy, a stent, a surgery. Guys, sepsis, do you know how many of my patients have sepsis before they take this seriously? And it's not because they didn't want to take it seriously.
It just wasn't brought up to them that really bad things can happen. So, I'm begging you to please ask your doctor to do this very important first step in preventing kidney stones. You don't know why you're making them.
You may think it's spinach, but in almost all cases, it's never just oxalate. Ever. Ever.
It's a combination of things and this is why it's kind of complicated, and this is why also urologists are surgeons, so they're dealing with the surgeries. Okay? They're not sitting down and talking to you about how to lower salt.
Most doctors don't do that. But that's why you have me, kidneystonediet.com. I'll teach you how to do that, order a urine collection consult with me, get on board.
It will save you thousands and thousands of dollars going forward, not to mention the pain and suffering that one has when they go through a kidney stone.
