Some people are born as targets for kidney stones, and one man found out the hard way that he was another among the unlucky bunch. Douglas Armstrong, 53, had his first kidney stone three years ago. He has had five oxalate stones in all, two of which left him hospitalized. "It really scared me, an intense internal pain in my right kidney," said Armstrong of the pain of having a kidney stone. "It can bring a grown man to tears." According to The Doctor's Doctor Web site, about every 5 in 11 persons are affected by kidney stones, and men are affected with calcium stones more often than women. Kidney stones can especially be common in the South because the temperatures are so hot, and people are spending a lot of time outside and getting dehydrated, Armstrong said. When dehydrated, all of the liquids in a person's bladder and kidneys gets concentrated and can lead to forming stones. There are two different types of kidney stones, uric acid and calcium oxalate, and the calcium oxalate are the ones plaguing Armstrong with their intense effects. "I'm trying to be very conscious about reducing the amount of oxalate I take in," Armstrong said. According to the eMedicine from WebMD Web site, kidney stones result in approximately 20 percent of its victims being hospitalized with more than 450,000 visits to emergency rooms annually. The male-to-female ratio of people who suffer from kidney stones is a 3-to-1 ratio. Robert Harper, an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner who has dealt with a kidney stone of his own, says that though kidney stones are fairly common, many people do not know that they have them or what to do to help prevent more until after they have passed a stone. In the case of oxalic acid stones, people can pass a stone and not even know that it was there unless seen or filtered. After successfully passing his first kidney stone, Armstrong was then able to recognize the feeling of the stones that followed. "When the stone is moving from the kidney to the bladder, is has to go through the ureter and that's where it's really painful." Armstrong said. "If you've ever seen a picture of a snake eating an egg, the egg is like the kidney stone squeezing down the inside of the ureter." Based on doctor's recommendations, Armstrong has altered his diet to work to prevent more kidney stones. By eliminating or restricting intakes of oxalates, Armstrong has been forced to cut many foods including dark green vegetables, nuts, black pepper and black tea out of his diet. Anything with seeds, such as strawberries and tomatoes, are a high risk for kidney stones and must be cut out of a person's diet as well. "After going to England, I was drinking tea every day and had to stop that," Armstrong said. "Here I am and I thought that tea was really good for you and that I was being really healthy drinking tea, but I was making the building blocks of the kidney stones." Though a form of kidney stone is known as calcium oxalate, Armstrong's doctor warned him not to cut calcium out of his diet. This effect could cause the kidney stones to form faster. Another very important part of a person's diet is making sure they are hydrated on pure lemon water. Armstrong drinks a quart to a half gallon of freshly-squeezed lemon water every day, reiterating the fact that staying hydrated is the most important thing a person at risk for kidney stones can do. One of the biggest concerns for Armstrong is that the foods that are permitted and even encouraged when dealing with kidney stones are the kind of foods that can cause many other problems such as high blood pressure and cholesterol problems. "If you're looking at the oxalate diet, I can have bacon, cheese, beef and mayonnaise, but I can't have a salad with lettuce and tomatoes," Armstrong said. "So I could end up with high cholesterol but no kidney stones." Harper sees a few people a year come into his walk-in clinic complaining of pains and not knowing the cause. He will diagnose a person based on where the pain is located and the differentiation between side pains and lower back pains. "If you have high levels of calcium in your blood then it's going through your kidneys, knotting together to form stones," Harper said. Harper's main concern for people at risk for kidney stones is dehydration, which is what he says to be the biggest contributing factor of kidney stones. Next in line are the diets of the people getting the kidney stones and foods that they must be educated on to eat and to not eat. "If you're diet is high in black pepper and tea, those will contribute a whole lot to kidney stones," Harper said. Harper said that calcium metabolism must have something to do with the fact that some people form stones throughout their entire lives and others may simply have one stone and none ever again. Kidney stones are also known to hereditary, perhaps because a person most likely has a metabolism and body type similar to their parents. "A lot of Doug's main concerns with his kidney stones may be because he used to run and play sports and just didn't drink enough water," Harper said. Just like problems such as cancer can run in a person's family, kidney stones can run in a person's family. "My dad had kidney stones," said Armstrong, pointing out that genetics could give a person a predisposition in the formation of stones. Kidney stones can be prevented by making the effort to follow all diet rules placed on a person by their doctor. "I have been following the low-oxalate diet and have been drinking lemon water every day, and I haven't had a kidney stone since," Armstrong said. | 
