Having kidney stones: Is drinking a lot of water effective?

The article was professionally consulted by Doctor Department of General Surgery and Anesthesia, Vinmec Hai Phong International General Hospital.

Drinking lots of water is good for people with kidney stones. Water helps to reduce the possibility of stone formation and to dissolve stones with small stones.

The function of the kidneys is to filter and remove harmful substances from the body through urine. However, during the operation, many toxins that cannot be dissolved in the urine are deposited in the kidneys and form kidney stones. Depending on the location, degree of deposition and time of stone formation, the size of kidney stones in each person, each time is different.
Stones can form and move anywhere in the urine path. It could be a kidney stone, a bladder stone or a ureter stone. In the process of stone formation and development, patients do not have obvious symptoms. Only when large stones cause pain, blood in urine, pus in urine or accidentally go to the doctor, will the patient find out.

Pre-existing diseases: Intestinal diseases, history of intestinal surgery... also affect the absorption of fluids and minerals, causing kidney stones; Repeated urinary tract infections: Certain types of bacteria have the ability to reduce the acidity of urine, increasing the likelihood of stone formation. Drink less water: This is one of the common causes of kidney stones, especially for people who often have to work hard and sweat a lot. Drinking less water makes urine concentrated, reduces the ability to dissolve toxins in the body, making it easy for crystals in the urine to settle, forming stones; Eating too salty, too much protein: Salt and protein-rich foods, especially dried fish, dried meat, beef intestines, pork intestines, fish sauce... are easy to cause kidney stones;

3.1. Drink plenty of water Kidney stones smaller than 5mm can pass out with urine. Therefore, patients should drink a lot of water to increase the ability to eliminate stones and prevent stones from developing.
With larger stones, the ability to follow the urine out is very low. These stones also cause pain to the patient and are accompanied by many unpleasant symptoms such as: sharp pain, urination, infection...
3.2. Lithotripsy In case the stone is large, the stone has affected the kidney such as causing water retention, it should be treated by lithotripsy. The doctor will use a wave lithotripsy to apply pressure and break the stone into small pieces. At that time, these small pieces of stones can be passed out through the urine.
If the stone has gone lower, the doctor will put a special instrument into the patient's urinary tract to break up the stone and remove the small pieces of stone. This is a retrograde internal lithotripsy.
Therefore, regardless of how to treat kidney stones, the patient should drink a lot of water, ensure that each day discharges more than 2.5 liters of urine and clear urine; should drink boiled water to cool. If you work in a hot environment, hot weather, sweat a lot, you need to increase the amount of water you drink daily.