By Dr. Michael Wald
How and why can a 45 -year old man, in top physical condition, a renowned doctor of nutrition and marathon runner, fall victim to an excruciating kidney stone?
I just got over an excruciating kidney stone attack.
It was just a few weeks after I completed running the New York City Marathon (time: 3 hrs, 48 minutes) when I was accompanying my daughter to her place of work in Mount Kisco. I sat down in the car and within just a few minutes I had a strong urgency to urinate – unlike any urge I had every experienced. I asked my daughter to “step on it” and her reply was, “sorry dad, I can’t speed”, so I quietly bit my lip. After 3-4 minutes we finally arrived at her place of work; I took the drivers seat and sped to my office just a block away.
I rushed in to urinate, but to my surprise, I could not.
I immediately knew something was really wrong. I knew that I had some sort of blockage preventing the free flow of urine. I quickly ran down the list of possible causes in my mind including:
• enlarged prostate
• kidney stone (I had had another 5 years earlier)
• kidney infarction, urinary track infection and a few others).
I slowly made my way home and started to develop sever left sided pain over my abdomen. As the hours progressed, later into the evening and the next day, I was feeling very sore in my back over my kidneys and was sure that my kidney stone had recurred.
I have treated many patients with kidney stones as well as people who knew that they were predisposed and wanted to reduce their risk of recurrence.
I have always been aware of keeping my water intake very high. My type of stone was a calcium oxalate stone; a type of stone most commonly caused by dehydration. I had trained eight months straight for the New York Marathon and was always conscious to drink lots and lots of water – I even ran with a camel-back (a pack back filled with water that I would drink continuously through a straw).
In summary here is what I did…
• drinking water throughout the day
• running with a camel-back I had in fact trained the prior 750 miles of my marathon training runs with my trusty camel-back. In the end however, it was clear that my calcium-kidney stones were not adequately prevented even with my knowledge and preventative strategies.
No magic herb can dissolve a kidney stone once it has formed; no amount of water or any other fluid will dissolve a kidney stone once it has formed. So what is one to do to prevent and to deal with kidney stones once they have formed? First, let’s start with a brief description of the different types of kidney stones.
What is a kidney stone?
A kidney stone is a solid piece of material that forms in the kidney out of substances in the urine. Normally, urine contains chemicals that prevent or inhibit the crystals from forming. However, these inhibitors do not seem to work for everyone.
Kidney stones may contain various combinations of chemicals. The four most common types of kidney stones contain:
• Struvite
• Calcium
• Uric acid
• Cystine.
Stay tuned for part 2 of this article shortly…..
– Dr. Michael Wald, aka The Blood Detective, is the director of nutritional services at Integrated Medicine of Mount Kisco, located in Westchester New York. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer, Channel 11 PIX, Channel 12 News, CNN, The Food Network and other media outlets. Dr. Wald earned the name Blood Detective for his reputation to find problems that are often missed by other doctors. He earned an MD degree, is a doctor of chiropractic and a certified dietician-nutritionist. He is also double-board certified in nutrition. He has published over a dozen books with three additional titles due for release late 2013 including: Frankenfoods – Genetically Modified Foods: Controversies, Lies & Your Health and Gluten-A-Holic: How to Live Gluten Free and the Blood Detective’s Longevity Secrets. Dr. Wald can be reached at: www.intmedny.com or www.blooddetective.com or by calling: 914-242-8844.