-Welcome to National Kidney Day.
I'm Dr. Ralph Clayman and I'm a Professor of Urology
in the Department of Urology at the University of California, Irvine.
My area of expertise is in kidney stones.
I thought it might be helpful on this important day
to share with you some important facts with regard to kidney stones and you.
So who gets kidney stones?
Well, it is something that occurs more commonly in males than females, but it's a very common disorder.
And upwards of 10% of males may have a kidney stone during their lifetime
and upwards of 7% of females may have a kidney stone during their lifetime.
So this is an area of certainly concern,
especially since the peak age for kidney stones to occur are somewhere between your 20s and your 60s
when you are actually most productive and gainfully employed.
it is about 2x higher in the South, if you will, but Southern California also
because of its heat has a high incidence of kidney stones.
One problem is that once you have a kidney stone,
the chance that you're going to get another one within 7.5 years is upwards of 40%.
Kidney stones each year cost upwards of $2 billion in medical expenses.
So how do you know if you have a kidney stone?
One way is that you get a sudden onset of severe pain in the right or left side of your back.
This is an incredibly sharp pain and usually will cause someone to go to the
emergency room when it does occur.
You may have some nausea and possibly vomiting associated with this pain,
and you may even have some fever and on rare occasion chills with this discomfort.
you may also notice that there's blood in your urine.
These stones are a variety of types and in this particular slide
are two pictures of the most common stone which is calcium oxalate, in its two forms.
One is a dark form which is very hard,
then the other is a spiculated yellowstone that does breakup much easier if you will,
but regardless both of them can cause blockage of the kidney
which results in all these potential symptoms and signs.
So what's going to happen to you if you do have a stone?
Well if you're having this kind of pain, the first stop is going to be the emergency room,
where they were likely do a CT scan to see what is the cause of your pain,
and this is an excellent way to diagnose the presence of a kidney stone
that is blocking the kidney or a stone in the ureter tube.
If it looks like you have a small kidney stone that stuck in ureter tube,
then you may be given medications to help you pass it if indeed it's small enough.
On the other hand, if the stone is too large, you may well be admitted to the
Urology Service at the University of California, Irvine - Douglas Hospital
and there, treatment for this stone would be undertaken.
Fortunately the treatments at UC Irvine for kidney stones no longer involved open surgery.
What if you have a giant kidney stone?
These stones can be as large as literally a tennis ball.
When these stones affect the kidney,
you run the risk of actually kidney damage as well as kidney infection.
The entire white area this slide is a kidney stone.
However today with regard to our techniques we can remove that stone
entirely through a hole in the back no larger than the tip of your finger.
By removing the stone entirely we can preserve the function of the kidney and
if we're able to remove all the pieces of the stone, we can help prevent it from recurring.
So lastly how do i make sure that I never get a kidney stone
or if I had one how do I ensure that i will not get another?
There's nothing more important than drinking a lot of fluid.
The average kidney stone patient needs drink at least 3 quarts of fluid a day
in order to make 2.5 courts of urine a day.
Once you're doing that, the chance of any recurrence stone disease drops by over 50%.
This is more important than any medication you can take or any diet.
Second to drinking enough fluid is your diet.
You should have a normal calcium diet, usually 1 gram a day,
a low-salt diet usually no more than 2-3 grams a day,
and low animal protein less than 50 grams a day
All of this will help prevent a recurrent kidney stone, but again diet is secondary to drink.
Finally if you have more than one stone,
you should see a urologist for full metabolic evaluation and treatment plan to prevent recurring stones.
In the Department of Urology at the University of California, Irvine,
we have several experts with regard to treating kidney stones and preventing them from recurring.
The beauty of the program that's been established by Dr. Landman
is the fact that at the University of California , Irvine, there have been no open stone surgeries
in over a decade and likely there'll be none in the decade to come.
Thank you.