Lemon-derived nanoparticles block the progression of kidney stones | Hacker News Reader

Lemon-derived nanoparticles block the progression of kidney stones

pubs.acs.org

201 pointsWaitWaitWha142 comments

I'm a veteran calcium oxalate stone former; I've ended up in hospital three times because of them, and my last scan showed I currently am carrying 16 of them, (plus 3 bonus bladder stones). I'd thought I'd pass on what I've learned in the last 30 years; if helps one person, then I've been useful.

1. Drink lots of water (actually a very dilute lime juice/cranberry juice mix). I aim for 4 litres/1 gallon a day, more in hot weather.

2. Don't drink spirits (specifically - note to self - half a bottle of bourbon, no matter how delicious). They cause some weird kind of dehydration, which makes the stones painful.

3. If you start getting discomfort from a stone, drink more water. It seems to 'float' them somehow, and can usually make the discomfort go away.

4. The stones act like little breeding grounds for bacteria. So, if you have stones you will be prone to chronic infections. If you are a chap, then this can lead to chronic bacterial prostatitus, which can cause all manner of problems, leading to a having a catheter fitted. But, if you have bladder stones, the stones will break the little plastic widget that stops the catheter from falling out, which means it has to be refitted. So, you may need to take a low-level antibiotic like nitrofuratoin (there is some evidence that cranberry juice can also help, because it reduces the stickiness of bacteria).

5. If you are passing a stone, and they offer you morphine, decline it and hold out for something more powerful. Morphine seems to contract the tubes, only offers partial relief, and makes the problem worse in my experience. I once had an IM injection of (something beginning with pent~ - I wasn't in the mood to take notes at the time) which worked very well.

6. Avoid foods containing high oxalate levels, like spinach.

7. Don't take medical advice from strangers on the internet (like me).

Calcium stones run all along the male side of my family too.. and I've had a few. The notion to me that lemonade would be helpful is counterintuitive. Generally we've come to understand that high doses of Vitamin C are part of the problem, because that's been something the men in my family do to ward off sickness - but my father, who took 5000 milligrams of C a day for years, always got the worst stones of all.

>> 2. Don't drink spirits.

This is probably true, but it contravenes the one piece of hard-won family folk wisdom that has helped me. Our method of removing kidney stones is as follows:

1. Go to a bar, take a piss if you can, then sit and order a Guinness.

2. Order 5 more Guinnesses and make a concerted effort to drink them all without taking a piss. Wait until you're absolutely desperate.

3. Go to the men's room and eject the stone. [the intoxication helps numb it, too].

I've watched my father pass them in the hospital; I remember remarkably twiddling one of his kidney stones in my hand as we drove him home, it was iridescent white and about the size of a shriveled pea. So far, though, this method hasn't failed me and I've yet to be hospitalized.

> 5000 milligrams of C a day for years

Vitamin C supplements are synthesized from fermentation products of corn and wheat. [0]

A single lemon contains about 32 milligrams of Vitamin C, along with many other things. This study showed that it's lemon extract, not vitamin C alone, that improves kidney stones.

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24258144/

Yeah, I'd assume it's something in lemons that has the absolute opposite effect of Vitamin C, if it breaks up stones. I believe on strong circumstantial evidence that vitamin C contributes to them, so whatever lemons have, my dad should've squeezed more of it.

Citrate

I like that they do this in a bar rather than at home

Well, the whole point is not to sit around at home, thinking of the pain.

Call it a weird theory, but I've spent a good part of my life in bars and I've never actually seen anyone die in one. This is reassuring; it means as long as I'm inside a bar, I probably won't die. The moment I hit the sidewalk outside, anything could happen.

When I've gone to bars to pass kidney stones, I make sure to alert and tip the hell out of the bartender before I embark on this kind of thing. I consider it a sort of vulgar hospital. At that point, tipping $50 is basically medical insurance. The last time it happened, I was in Paris; I saw the stone on the doctor's ultrasound. I staggered up the street and a girl I had sort of a crush on was bartending; I just told her the whole story without embarrassment, and she lined up the beers for me and made sure I got a taxi home. I'm pretty sure she would've sent someone to pick me up off the bathroom floor, which is more than you can say about health care in America.

I cannot tell if this is a true story or not, but I don't really care. You're an excellent storyteller.

I want to believe he married the girl.

This is a heartwarming story that's given me a lot to think about.

Does the Guinness in particular play anything into it or could a lager or ale work better/differently? I find this gross, fascinating, and hilarious.

As someone who has mild problem with kindey stones since 15y old, any lager works.

lower alcohol lvls means your head won't exploed next day, higher alcohol lvls means it doesn't hurt that much.

This isn't a forum for unprofessional, unproven medical advice.

Let me be the first to state that nothing I have said here is intended as medical advice. [edit: I also specifically called it "family folk wisdom" which is about as clear as anyone can get that it's not scientific medical advice] Like everything else around here, it's just one person's opinion, and no one has leverage to brigade for or against it, which we all appreciate about this board. Just ignore it if it bugs you, or argue the damn thing on its merits, tell me what a fucking idiot I am if that helps; no one's reading this except you and me and like 30 other people, and their minds aren't going to be changed whatever the outcome of our conversation is.

I'd say if you're here to make a point about how to make a point, you're sort of missing the point.

Skip attacking the style and get down to arguing the content. You're thankfully not limited here to 140/280 characters.

Indeed, but it is a forum for sharing possibly useful experiences, and if this works for the author it may work for others and be a net benefit to all. So I'm for it given the trouble stones apparently can cause.

Can you give us a list of the allowed topics so we don't stray?

Ah, we can make analogue ChatGPT.

HN was ahead of the curve on NAC, Ivermectin, and Vitamin D during COVID while the experts screeched in dismay. I’ll take medical advice from the Internet any day, over the experts.

I've seen many actual doctors here.

I have a 15+ mm one. It's not going to pass and urologists already tried ESWL. They're waiting until it becomes a problem to remove it surgically because it will likely return.

Cola, excess vitamin C, and anything high in oxalate equal stone growth.

There are several stone types with different pathologies.

High citrate intake is generally good to counteract growth but there is no shrinking existing stones through diet. Anyone claiming this is a liar.

ESWL or surgery for anything larger than a few mm because passing would be brutal.

solute from a private; are you not mentioning flo-max (if not spelled wrongly)? I got the so far first stone out by it like almost effortless.

Similar stones here, all of the advices are spot on.

I got my first and so far only (fingers crossed!) kidney stone five years ago. At that time I started drinking lemon juice with hot water to start each day before consuming anything else, and it has so far kept any recurrence of kidney stones away. I really do believe the lemon juice has been key for me in this regard, and it is in any case a very healthy thing to do daily anyways (known and practiced by other cultures around the world).

Most folks who have kidney stones get them again and again, and anything that can help prevent this very painful event is critical. For anyone who does unfortunately experience kidney stones I highly recommend you try this option.

You're going to erode your teeth enamel like that. Hot water has nothing to do with it. Timing has nothing to do with it. Citrate and water increase; oxalate, protein, and cola decrease are generally important. Also, being endocrinologically stable is important.

See a urologist because they form silently again and again. Unless you have x-ray vision, it's impossible to know their status.

>You're going to erode your teeth enamel like that.

Honestly, this gets repeated a lot, but I've yet to see literature that shows this is true. It is true that you can show erosion under ridiculous conditions that don't mirror the real world like immersing loose teeth in acidic beverages for days. But I've yet to find evidence that drinking unsweetened acidic beverages like carbonated water or water with a little lemon juice has any meaningful impact on tooth decay. Over and over again the actual epidemiology shows an association between sugar / processed carbohydrates and tooth decay.

I've had a couple over the last few years. I've also started throwing lemon juice in my water bottle whenever I refill it. My urologist also suggested apple cider vinegar, I try to take a bit of that every day too (usually hot). It can help dissolve stones.

I personally don't find them particularly 'painful' more like profoundly uncomfortable. I find that I constantly am in a cycle of sitting for a few minutes then pacing around then maybe try and lay down, rinse repeat. A little heating pad time on my kidneys seems to make it less of a problem.

I’d say in your case your stones probably haven’t been that big. My stones were the worst experience of my life - only IV morphine helped. And even that made the pain just tolerable. Horrible!

I do identify with the constant uncomfortableness though.

I don't think size has much to do with it, or at least there is no deterministic correlation to pain. Mine, just removed, was only 3-4mm, but it caused immense pain. The pain was 11/10, such that I cried and vomited from the pain, and the pain pushed through toradol, hydrocodone, and oxycodone. The second hydrocodone IV juice I got was described as 10x more potent than morphine. On my second ER visit in just two days, I had to have a stent installed until the stone could be removed because my kidney was doing poorly. The stone still hadn't passed after a month.

The shape of the stone and size of the ureter have an effect as well. I think the main thing on pain is: is the stone blocking urine. If yes, then you will experience pain that you didn't think existed. And if things stay that way, you risk kidney failure, infection, and/or sepsis.

The insane-o pain comes not from the stone itself but from the stone causing urine to backup which causes the kidney to expand in its casing. I had more discomfort from the stent than I did pain from the stone while I had both, but the stent kept the insane-o pain and my kidney from failing since it kept urine flowing.

I literally cannot describe the pain I had when the stone first entered my ureter. It was existential pain, my back and abdomen muscles locked up and felt like they were dying and turning into stone, and the nausea was unbearable. The best analogy I can come up with is that it felt like someone was taking a screwdriver and stabbing me in the side all the way to my spine without it piercing, and then some, all the while having the worst stomach ache, immense pressure to void, etc. And I don't think that even gets to it.

Ouch, I had my first one a few weeks ago, 4mm too and this hits home.

3 days before the acute crisis which led me, vomitting with pain, to the ER, the symptoms were weird and not easily attributable to a kidney stone: a few drops of pink urine at first, discomfort more than pain, mostly in the morning after peeing, then almost ok for the rest of the day.

The ct scan showed swelling of the kidney. When I finally ejected the stone (more like peeing black sand) 6 days later, I lost ~2kg over the next 24h.

The medicine that helped with the pain was ketoprofene (and antispasmodics) but 2 doses a day were clearly not enough to cover 24h :(

didn't know about lemon though...

Was your pain acute? I get a stone in my right kidney every 5 to 7 years. My pain is usually very acute. I like to describe it as somebody slamming a large needle into my abdomen. Think Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.

These days my regimen is to avoid caffeine. I don't know if it's working, I had a year long relapse during COVID as caffeine free coke became unavailable.

I'm due for my next one.

The pain was beyond acute. When it first occurred I was sitting on the couch. I went from being perfectly normal, to being slightly uncomfortable, to thinking I had a back or stomach cramp, to thinking I needed to use the restroom, to thinking I needed to go to urgent care, to knowing I needed to go to the emergency room all in about 5-10 minutes. But at times, the pain was so radiating that I thought my abdomen would explode. I honestly thought I would die any minute.

I've been caffeine free since 2020, stopping it due to severe anxiety during that whole debacle of a year. I have been dealing with acid reflux in the prior months, and I have a suspicion my stone was caused by low water intake and Tums. Hopefully the stone analysis correlates with that because it would be an easy fix. I'm certainly increasing my water intake now and staying completely away from Tums.

I hope to everything this is my only experience. It was my first stone, and I hope my last.

Sounds like me. I occasionally get heartburn and worry that the Tums are a contributing factor but they are the only thing that provides consistent and immediate relief.

Stay hydrated and good luck!

That sounds horrible, something I don’t ever want to experience. I’m sorry you had to go through that, you’ve just convinced me to start including more lemon juice in my diet.

Yea, 0/10, would not recommend. Lol. Even dealing with the stent for four weeks was unpleasant. Everything's out now, and I'm so much better now. I think even just a lot water is supposed to help since it decreases concentrates.

I think when they saw them on the scan (they were very obvious) they said they were around 4-5mm.. I assume thats on the smallish side?

Though kidney stones are the most horrible experience of my life time (worse than being shot), you should take care of your bones as well.

Some studies linked high consumption of apple vinegar with early osteoporosis.

How much lemon juice? Like the juice of one whole lemon, or what?

Doesn't matter. Don't do this. Take citrate as a supplement.

Increasing citric acid intake does seem to be helpful, at least for calcium oxalate stones (one of the more command kinds).

I've had more than a few stones over the past couple decades, and when I finally got myself in to see a urologist, that was one of her primary recommendations.

That, along with some other treatment, seems to have helped considerably (only one non-trivial stone in the last ~12mo & the few others were barely noticeable).

I'm tempted to start taking a tablespoon or two of lemon juice in my morning orange juice - should be pleasant enough, as I like tart flavors anyway.

...maybe not that tart, though.

In fairness, I keep the stuff around mainly for cocktails, but if Kingsley Amis is any example, having one of those every morning will certainly cause me many more problems than it's at all likely to solve.

Why hot water specifically? That sounds like the worst kind of lemonade.

Think of it like a lemon tea. You can in fact get lemon flavoured tea (e.g. lemon and ginger).

It's actually very nice and refreshing. I've done this too at times for unrelated reasons. It feels "healthy".

In my experience, it isn't perceived as bitter/sour as it feels in cold water.

Hmm, I’ll go ahead and assume that consuming the lemon juice in a cocktail (e.g. a Sidecar) negates the benefits.

Do you think squeezing some lemon juice into, say, a morning tea, like maybe a Yerba Mate, would cover the requirement here?

Drink terere instead

Did you have the kidney stones removed the first time round?

I opted for surgery on my 2nd stone and it was a terrible mistake IMHO I should have tried to let it pass. The first was painful but not THAT bad. Worst experience I've ever had.

Now when I get a tinge of pain I immediately take Chanca Piedra and it seems to have helped for past few years, no reoccurrence, but could just be anecdotal & conicendental.

What procedure, and what was a mistake about it? I've had to have a 5mm stone removed endoscopically, and that didn't seem to do me any harm, although I was anesthetized for the procedure - if that's the difference, then say no more, as I'm sure it would have been fairly agonizing if I'd been aware of what was going on at the time.

FYI I replied about the particulars of the surgery here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35036735 . I post this because I don't think you would get notified otherwise.

It was super painful!

Is blowing them up using ultrasound not an option where you’re from? Surgery sounds horrible. Would have probably also opted for passing the stones if that was an alternative… Also the procedure is pretty sci-fi - https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-t...

I asked about this after I passed my first stone (went to my gp, they gave me flomax and a painkiller, the later of which I really only used to help me sleep, I didn't find the stone particularly 'painful' just very uncomfortable). My urologist said they really only use ultrasound for stones they consider large.

TIL - I must’ve had huge ones then .

Maybe smaller stones don’t show up on the scans and there’s a much larger risk of collateral damage.

Kidney stones are the worst things I’ve ever experienced in my life. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Ugh.

> Worst experience I've ever had.

wait... did you... have a surgery without anesthesia or something??

They consider it a surgery, but it’s not unlike a colonoscopy where there is no investing, just instruments entering orifices.

I’ve had two ureteroscopies while awake without any kind of anesthetic. It’s likely the worst experience I’ve had another human inflict on me. You’re in a very vulnerable position, it’s very painful, and it induces the sensation of urinating uncontrollably.

After my first, the doc decided he might as well do a prostate exam as well. I went in not knowing either was going to happen. I was shaken for about a week afterwards.

> two ureteroscopies while awake without any kind of anesthetic. It’s likely the worst experience I’ve had another human inflict on me

well, that makes me feel good, because there were trace amounts of urine in my blood not long ago and they wanted to do one of those to me, but instead I got a second opinion and test done and the trace blood had disappeared, so hopefully I dodged that bullet. it sounds terrifying

FYI I replied about the particulars of the surgery here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35036735 . I post this because I don't think you would get notified otherwise.

It was nothing like a colonoscopy!

s/investing/incision

Autocorrect!

Oh no, I was fully asleep. I remember nothing of the surgery.

The bad experience was after I woke up. The pain was excruciating. They had first tried to zap it with ultrasound but it didn't work. Then they went in and did some kind of scraping of the urethra. I know this because there was a descent amount of discharge that I can only describe as skin scrapings. It was insanely painful to pass each of these and I think it was that painful because it was passing them through the raw skin that was scraped off itself (within the urethra).

To alleviate the pain I was put on some kind of opioid pain meds for 2.5 weeks that had an insidious effect on my personality. During that time I was (without realizing it) a total unhinged ass it had a terrible effect on my working and personal relationships.

Beforehand I asked the Dr. do I need the surgery? He said "Well we don't really know. You haven't passed it yet (2 weeks) and the only way we can be absolutely sure is with with surgery." There was no real explanation about the tradeoffs of how painful scrapings etc would be.

After the fact, the cynic in me wondered, was this guy gaming the system by tipping the scales in favor of surgery (since he was the one to do the surgery in private US medical healthcare system). FYI It was a 4-5mm stone.

Fortunately I passed the stone in about 5 days. That's the best possible outcome as painful as that can be. I started the lemon juice about 3 days into the event and I do think it helped already in making the stone a bit smaller and getting it out of my body.

Oh wow actually reasonable use of “lemon derived” - I expected the usual “heavily processed with innumerable chemical reactions we converted oil from lemons into a new structure that in practice/volume would require starting with petroleum byproducts”.

This seems to be “we filtered these particles from lemonade and compressed them into pills to give to rats”

That said there’s also the required “in rats” missing from the headline, and I’m guessing the rats used are intentionally bred to get kidney stones, and fed a diet that encourages kidney stones, so the applicability to humans in normal cases isn’t a give . (Recalling the cranberry vs UTIs bs of a few years back)

Two fun facts about kidney stones:

1) Roller coasters help dislodge and pass kidney stones because of their high-intensity jerky motions.

2) Although calcium supplements increase the risk of kidney stones, dietary calcium seems to reduce it.

I’ve known two people who have had kidney stones and I don’t think either of them would have been able to withstand the pain from the stone enough to go on a rollercoaster. Then again, maybe the promise of ending the pain will give enough motivation to grit it out.

I had one that took a year to pass (and it was a big one). Only knocked me out for a couple hours every 2 to 3 months. Finally scheduled a procedure and I passed it one week before on Thanksgiving morning while cooking our dinner.

Had another smaller one that had me on hardcore painkillers for two straight weeks. It was so bad I wasn't eating or taking care of myself. I just popped pills and slept. Thankfully I was able to pull myself together and go back to the doctor to get on a different medication that at least allowed me to function minimally until I could pass it.

Point is you never really know what's going on in there and I certainly did go on some rides during the year of the larger yet somehow less bothersome stone.

I don't find they, at least the three I've passed, as particularly painful. It's more like an intense discomfort. I find myself in a cycle of pacing, laying down and sitting (mostly on the toilet, you feel like you have to pee constantly). It's like discomfort limbo.

I think you’ve just been lucky. For me this was like being kicked in the balls. Except continually, for five days straight.

It’s organ pain, the worst of pains. My doctor said that research had shown it to be worse than birth pains (although my wife vehemently disagrees with this). Intense discomfort doesn’t begin to describe it.

Based on everyone else I've ever spoken with who had kidney stones (about six people), your experience is unusual.

Several have described it as the worst experience of their life, including one who has it recur a couple of times per year.

It's possible that I've been very lucky, but I also have a pretty high pain threshold when it comes to other things... I blew my Achilles and walked around on it for days thinking I sprained an ankle. I will admit to an almost altered state of consciousness while passing a stone though that might have been tied to not really being able to sleep for days.

This is unhelpful. There are many types of kidney stones. See a urologist.

One of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced. I let myself get way too dehydrated while exercising on a very hot summer day, which brought it about (though I was obviously susceptible to them). I started hydrating a lot more and taking potassium supplements and luckily haven’t had them since. Thankfully I went to a great hospital, and the staff there knew how painful the condition is, so there was only around 15 minutes between when I arrived at the ER and when I had an IV of morphine in my arm.

Do you to think crystals can form that quickly to have been caused by a single day of dehydration?

I had one a couple years ago. My theory is that I had accumulated crystalization the year prior. I had a heart nerve issue and my heart rate was significantly reduced for several months, getting as bad as 30 bpm for a couple weeks. Normally it's about 80 bpm. My kidneys were definitely underperforming as indicated by blood labs performed when I ended up in the ED/ICU with "total heart block". With that problem resolved, my kidneys were happy again and the crystals presumably started to gradually dissolve.

My urologist dismissed my theory completely, but I've been generally disappointed by my experience working with them and I am on the verge of finding a new provider. My most recent ultrasound shows that the kidney that had the stone pass is totally clear, while the other kidney still has some crystalization.

I actually don’t know much about it from a medical standpoint. But just from a pure Bayesian reasoning it seems overwhelmingly likely to me that it was the precipitating cause, since I never had it before that. I do think most doctors are very weak at identifying or even understanding patterns that are very unusual and which they haven’t seen before or read about. They generally don’t rely on first principles thinking but reason through pattern matching and referencing their training and experience.

They take time to build up. You probably knocked it loose during your exercise regimen and it got stuck in a new much worse place.

I get them regularly and I swear there are times where I feel a tightness that I attribute to one getting built up. Then one day the pain comes.

The one stone I passed took about a month and a half, and I suspect it dissolved because I never saw it. It turns out I have an anatomical variation on that kidney where I have two ureters. The double ureter meant that my kidney had a redundant path to my bladder, and so there was less pressure on the stone to migrate. It hurt really bad when it first developed because I was tensing up from worry, but once it was diagnosed I was able to mostly manage the pain just by relaxing.

Are those particles containing potassium citrate? Lemon is high in potassium and its citrate is known to dissolve existing kidney stones.

False, fraudulent medical advice. Nothing can dissolve a kidney stone.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20576821/

> Treatment with KC is effective in preventing renal stones

Not dissolving existing ones. At least not that source.

OK, a doctor told me about taking it for 6 months to dissolve smaller stones but I can't find any medical research talking about it dissolving them, so let's assume it's for prevention only.

Time I made a habit of drinking lemonade - a suggestion I'd have expected from my urologist, but not one I'm sorry to have run across whatever the source.

Yes, it's strange that my urologist has never mentioned it either. I wonder if this result applies to all types of kidney stones or just calcium oxalate.

A preventative like this is good to know, but, really, all you need to do is drink a lot of water through the day. That is the number one way to avoid a kidney stone. I have had a urologist say, "Hell, you can drink enough beer, and you should be good." - Though, if you are prone to gout (your body generally likes to make crystals), beer ain't a great choice.

Believe me when I say that I make strong habits of anything and everything I come across, including hydration, that offers a reasonable prospect of reducing the chance I will have another kidney stone.

See a urologist because self-diagnosis has a fool for a patient.

That is certainly not "all you need to do". It is good, and helpful, but if a person is prone to stones, it's often not enough on its own.

Also I just hate drinking water unless it’s hot.

I know doctors tell us to chug water but it’s just tiring sometimes. In winter for example, I just don’t feel thirsty and I just get bored heating water, making time to drink it etc.

So yeah, drinking 2-4 litres of water can feel unnatural to me.

I mean, ideally you don't do it all at once, but if you can chug a pint of beer then you can chug a pint of water, too.

Thirst is weird. I find it manifests as an unaccountable malaise and lack of focus well before I begin to perceive the sensation I understand as thirstiness per se.

Completely agree , If I’m ever feeling cloudy, foggy, down, extremely tired during the day I usually feel better almost immediately after 2 glasses of water.

Yes I know what you mean, you don’t have to drink it all at once, but I still get bored having to drink. It’s just. Personal thing I guess. Kind of have to force water into my system.

Maybe because unscientific, folk advice on the internet isn't a replacement for evidence-based medicine.

I drink lemonade regularly (I make my own), but to prevent heartburn, as lemon turns into a base in your stomach and is very helpful with heartburn. Now knowing that it is also good for kidney stone prevention just puts the cherry on top!

> lemon turns into a base in your stomach

This doesn't make any sense to me. How can two acids combine to create a base?

You're trying to make sense out of pseudoscience quackery. Please don't.

Thinking the same. Lemonade gives me severe heartburn. Hurts just thinking about what a glass would do.

It looks [1] like limes have about as much citric acid, so cherry limeade should be as good an option, too!

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2637791/

Instead of dissolving tooth enamel, working on cavities, and type-2 diabetes perhaps take magnesium citrate in reasonable amounts in pill form. There is no sense to drinking sugar water.

Can you link a study showing that magnesium citrate pills block the progression of kidney stones? If not, I'll stick with lemonade, which does have such a study. I don't need to put sugar in it.

A good way to dissolve your enamel and get cavities. See a urologist instead.

...he said, in direct response to a comment which includes the phrase "my urologist."

I can see that you know how to produce language, albeit by all appearances rarely at best to worthwhile effect. Do you know at all how to consume it? Or is jumping to wrong conclusions and then being snide about them the only trick you have?

I just passed 6mm kidney stone - the stone itself travelled its way out for 2 months. It’s calcium oxidate based, so no chance of easy dissolving.. if it’s possible at all. I’ve had maybe about 4-5 days of strong, sometimes unbearable pain that I was taking painkillers for (without that much an effect..). Then few weeks of pain low down there.. Doctor wanted to give it a try for a “Via naturalis” passing, to which I agreed (no regrets). I have few more stones, with smaller sizes now... My doctors always recommended me beer with some lemon in it. Once in the past, I passed a kidney stone for less than 24h of the first pain (about 4mm) right after drinking 3 liters of beer. This whole thing sucks.

I'm a little astounded that there hasn't been a more effective physical intervention invented to handle kidney stones and gout. It seems like there should be a way to use high intensity ultrasound waves or something similar to break them up.

Ultra sound is pretty effective and a common treatment. Basically breaks the stones up and you pass them on. My father had treatment for this some time ago and I wouldn't be surprised if I have to deal with this at some point either.

Lemons are nice in any case so consuming a bit more of those is not a burden for me. You can work them into food and beverages in all sorts of ways. Probably you should be careful with sugary drinks like lemonade. I wonder what's so special about lemons vs. e.g. oranges, tangerines, grapefruits, etc.

The procedure is called extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy. The idea was seeded by the observation during WWII that under water explosions caused organ rupture in survivors of ship sinkings that were in the water.

Dornier makes them:

https://www.dornier.com/products/

Funnily enough using ultrasound is actually a pretty common treatment: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-t...

Does anyone know if you can drink something to reduce the size of an existing stone ?

I know it’s likely a “no”, but any novel treatments on the horizon ? I’ve received EWS and it’s not fun, did seem to reduce the size of a big stone I had though, 20mm

My urologist suggested that apple cider vinegar can help break up some types of stones. I usually do an oz or so in a mug of hot water. Lemon juice goes into my water bottle whenever I refill it.

Take potassium citrate; eventually, drink a lot of beer.

Thanks I'll look it up!

Also, I took some time off the booze, oh the irony...

It's specifically beer which has the ability to dissolve the most common type of kidney stones. You can try the alcohol-free versions which work as well ;-)

Wait , you’re serious ?

How does one induce more such nano particles to a preparation starting from a lemon? I don’t have a centrifuge, but is there a way to increase the concentration of such nanoparticles by using kitchen tools?

In some types a lithotrity machine can do wonders. Is basically being bombed with ultrasounds while taking a long bath, so could even be doable to DIY at home if you have some maker skills and for some reason can't go to a doctor.

The main concern should be to take serious care of not being electrocuted, put the speaker far and out of the water, protect your ears and assure that everything is well isolated. Using a 12 volt car battery as source of power could add a lot of safety.

Read a book for some time and then urinate into a piece of cloth in a strainer to see if it collects some sand. Rinse and repeat after some resting days for several weeks.

Or you can go to a discotheque

I don't know if this comment is intended seriously but just to be clear. Lithotripsy can cause acute tissue damage and long-term loss of kidney function.[1] The shock waves need to be carefully targeted at the stone and for the correct amount of time to reduce the risk of this, typically with X-ray or ultrasound. You can absolutely not do this at home!

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2900184/

"It appears that what was once considered to be an entirely safe means to eliminate renal stones can elicit potentially severe unintended consequences"

Doh! I stand corrected then. Thank you for the info

A DIY lithotripsy machine sounds like a reeeallly bad idea...

I am not medically trained, and have only read up on kidney stones having seen a friend deal with them over several months.

No mention here of Shockwave lithotripsy to working breaking up the stones, obviously prevention is better than cure but at least in the NHS in the UK they can attempt to shatter the stones.

Also there’s several different type of kidney stones, of which 80% are Calcium:

https://www.healthhub.sg/a-z/diseases-and-conditions/629/kid...

I guess a key point is to drink lemonade made from lemons, I’d imagine some lemonades use synthetic lemony chemicals.

Gives a new option for the old saying “If someone gives you Lemons, use them to treat kidney stones”

Pretty good to know. For those of you that get gout and don't know about it, cherry juice is a good preventative and useful if you are having an attack. I will be making cherry lemonade a staple...

Thanks for the tip! I've had a few bouts of gout the last 3ish years. The first time it happened I thought I broke my toe!

Band: Bouts of Gout.

Song: I thought I broke my toe.

Album: The last 3-ish years.

Beautiful

I hope Realemon has the same nanoparticles

I can drink that stuff with seltzer forever

This is timely. I'm in hospital having just removed a 9.4mm stone from one kidney and some stones from the other. I don't want to go though this again.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368169226_Lemon-Der...

A honey and lemon tea is often recommended as an aid to digestion. To be taken first thing in the morning prior to breakfast.

Pasteurized lemon juice or fresh squeezed?

For example, when tenderizing meat with pineapple or lime, only fresh squeezed retains the enzymes that break down connective muscle tissue. Cans of pasteurized fruit or juice have no effect.

I wonder if this effect requires the same fresh source.

Question to stone-havers, wouldn't using tamsulosin/flomax make sense when trying to pass stones. I'm surprised to see only one mention to this in all the comments here. Perhaps it's not as helpful as I'd expect?

I do usually take Tamulosin when a stone starts playing road music. It seems to help, especially with middling and larger (say 4mm and up) but not as much as upping my liquid intake even more than usual. I've passed several without it and many with, and judge it to be worth keeping on hand.

Biggest thing for me has been to try to avoid additional formation (though I know from my annual imaging that I have at least 6 or 7 of my little buddies laying in wait). Citric acid, increased liquid intake, reduced intake of high oxalate foods (and/or taking calcium citrate or high calcium foods at the same time), trying not to hold my pee unnecessarily, and a prescription for hydrocholorothiazide have together greatly reduced my kidney stone formation. I got by with only a couple little ones last calendar year, and only one middling one (~4mm) so far this year.

Don't take any of that as medical advice, of course.

fyi March is National Kidney Month - https://www.kidney.org/content/national-kidney-month

Chanca Piedra works well too for kidney stones, UTI’s, and gallstones.

At least in my experience and people I’ve suggested it to, it seems to help significantly.

Worth a shot if you’ve tried a few things that haven’t helped.

What’s the difference between a nano particle and a molecule?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoparticle

The answer to my question is 6 paragraphs into that article:

> Being at the transition between bulk materials and atomic or molecular structures, they often exhibit phenomena that are not observed at either scale.

I remember some urologist’s advice, she advised drinking a shot of cognac and two bottles of beer. The guy was having too many stones.

Ask HN: I have Sialolithiasis, which is like kidney stones but in the upper throat/jaw.

Any research like that? recommendations?

I had them, got simple surgery procedure to get them out. There are very low chances to get them out without surgery.

That’s stones in the salivary gland ducts. Can occur together with kidney stones. Sometimes caused by certain medications.

Besides lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, any other recommendations??

I wonder if C.C. Lemon counts? It contains lemon juice and, in my opinion, is the best thing ever.

Here's my goat with urinary stones - https://imgur.com/a/q7K26Z5

They paw the ground when in pain. Stones can kill in 24 hours. A lot of money later he was ok.

We fed him ammonium chloride in case it was a struvite a phosphorus based stone (magnesium ammonium phosphate)

But in the end it was a calcium based stone which requires an operation, which can be deadly and costly, so this is interesting.

Full paper here - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368169226_Lemon-Der...

But lemons will make struvite's worse since they are alkalizing and you need acidic.

(This is just rough in my head, research the medical stuff properly)

The sooner we have cheap devices that can see inside bodies the better.

Cool goat

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