You may not realize it but kidney stones are one of the most common occurrences in the human body and its sheer presence can be labelled as negligence from your end to look after your body and care for it. While there are efficient treatments for this medical condition and a good medical billing company is available at all times to handle the financial aspects, there are several simple everyday habits that can help keep these stones at bay and help you lead a normal, pain free life. These simple habits involve eating healthy and eating the right type of foods that can help you immensely in the long run. Kidney stones can be extremely painful and the good news is that you can avoid it completely.
1.) Familiarise yourself with the type of stone that has been formed:
Just because you have a kidney stone does not mean that you need to follow the prescription and dietary plans of some close acquaintance who has suffered the same medical condition. There are myriad types of kidney stones like uric acid, calcium, struvite, calcium oxalate and the likes. Therefore, the food that you eat strictly depends on the type of stone that you have in your kidneys. Self medication, therefore, can have serious consequences and you must talk to your doctor.
2.) Increasing your consumption of water:
The first and the most common causes for a kidney stone is the absence of fluids in your body, water topping the list. You need to realize that water plays a pivotal role in your system. For starters, it keeps kidney stones at bay by keeping the urine diluted at all times and having unfavourable salts flushed out of your system. Drinking water becomes all the more important in case you already have kidney stones. As a rule of thumb, you must consume anywhere between two and two and a half litres of water on a daily basis. This should increase more if you live in hotter climates or sweat excessively to make up for the water lost through sweating and perspiration.
3.) Cut down your intake of salt:
This holds true especially if you have the calcium kidney stone. Excessive salt is said to have adverse effects on the body, which is further aggravated in the case of kidney stones. This does not mean that you need to reduce the amount of salt in your home cooked meals alone. The fast food that you eat on your way to work or in the evenings with your loved ones along with the processed foods like soups, cheeses and canned meats are also loaded with salts that can do your body more harm than good.
4.) Include foods in your diet that have a very high calcium content:
This may seem like an absolute bizarre thing to do considering calcium is found in the kidney stones. However, the stones in the kidney are not made up of just calcium. They are also combined with another substance by the name of oxalate. Therefore, when you eat foods rich in calcium like milk, milk products, and leafy veggies and the likes, the calcium from these foods attaches itself to the oxalate that would have otherwise entered your urine stream. Therefore, as a matter of fact, calcium helps in reducing the occurrences of kidney stones.
Following these nifty tips is important as it can keep you away from surgical and medical procedures that are completely uncalled for. However, if you do fall into this trap, the best thing that you can do is get in touch with a medical billing company to help you with your finances while you give all your time in getting better sans the stress.
