You should try to drink up to three quarts of water a day. Make sure it is only water you are drinking, as cranberry juice, grapefruit juice and ice tea can make it worse. It is also important to reduce your sodium intake.
If you are in the midst of kidney stone take-over, you need to avoid high-oxalate, stone-encouraging foods such as red meat, spinach, beets, wheat germ, chocolate, and peanuts. You should also limit vitamin C supplments to 500 milligrams a day.
Kidney stones are hard clumps of crystals, made up of calcium and oxalic acid or phosphate. They can be triggered by urinary tract infections, or by uric acid. They come in a range of sizes, from the size of a grain of sand to a golf ball! It’s important to get treated for urinary tract infections immediately. If you are particularly prone to these types of infections then increasing the amount of water you drink will do wonders for prevention of infections, and possible kidney stones.
Take charge of your health, increase your water intake, and decrease your sodium intake to try to prevent these nasty pebbles from invading your kidneys. Most kidney stones can pass through the urine, but others such as the golf ball sized ones may need medical intervention. When it doubt, get yourself checked out by your doctor.
Source: The Province
