Kidney stone. Just say the words and someone is likely to give you a grimace. No one ever forgets the suffering they experience after developing these painful pellets. The same can be true of serious bladder infections. Add in the anxiety of not knowing what is causing such discomfort and you’ve got a downright miserable experience. A doctor’s diagnosis, and pain relief, come not a minute too soon.
It sounds simple, and it is. Drinking more water is an important step in preventing kidney stones. It dilutes the urine and keeps calcium, oxalate, and uric acid from turning into solid crystals. If you are getting about 21/2 quarts (roughly 9 cups) of liquids each day, including water, juice, soup, or other varieties, your risk for getting a kidney stone is about a third less than that of a person drinking half as much.
Doctors have long been advising patients with kidney disease to keep meat and all animal protein to a minimum. This is good advice for people at risk for kidney stones as well. Animal proteins overwork the kidneys and cause their filtering ability to decline.
Your mother or grandmother may have clued you into the power of cranberry juice for avoiding urinary infections. Well, they were on to something. In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association involving 153 elderly women, half were asked to drink 11/4 cup of cranberry juice while the other half drank a redcolored, juiceless drink. (more…)
Some women have what feels like a urinary tract infection, with pain, pressure, and burning upon urination, but no bacteria show up on a urine test. Both they and their doctors become frustrated at the failure to come up with a diagnosis, and antibiotics do not help.
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