Kidney stones? OUCH! RIGHT? A number of my female patients over the years have said passing a stone is worse than childbirth. And women tend to know about pain.
Treating stones these days is high tech, and that’s good news for patients. No more making incisions. No long hospital stays. In fact…
Kidney stone procedures are usually completed without hospital admission, and often in our outpatient surgery center, which is generally cheaper than the hospital. They are done under general anesthesia, so you sleep through the procedure. Nowadays the treatment may be performed externally with shock waves pointed at your stone to break it up. For other stones, we look inside and use lasers to break them.
The recovery from stone procedures is also much quicker than in the old days. Sometimes this equates into just one day off of work. Plus, the less invasive treatments mean less risk of problems.
Perhaps you have had stones in the past and you’re pretty motivated not to do THAT again. We can help with that, too. Sometimes a simple diet change can lower your risk. But don’t just guess. If you limit the wrong thing in your diet, you may INCREASE your risk instead of decreasing it. By using a combination of analyzing what kind of stones you make and what’s in your urine in the course of a day, we can usually make simple recommendations to reduce your risk of making more stones.
If you have been diagnosed with a stone or have a history of stones, consider consultation with one of our board-certified urologists who are experts at the latest techniques. We can usually get you in for consultation within a day or two if you are in pain.