Serious question, how common are these? I am in my 50's and don't go to doctor's or take pills of any kind. Is this something I have to look forward to?

I can tell you my before diet, after doing the 24 hour urine test and having several stones crushed and evaluated chemically

To much soda, had a love for carbonated drinks, I shut that off, to much red meat, dropped that to maybe a steak every other week and a cheese burger once a week, now eat fish enough to swim with them, do chicken but don't care for other birds, but never been a veggie eater so never did anything with that but did include more fruits to take the place of vitamins, increased my water intake, dropped any heavy sugars, candy bars snacks, still have trouble with cakes and brownies though, LOL watch heavy spices that have a long time being broken down in your system

Weight dropped considerably which I believe caused me some heavy stress headaches worrying about the stones ending or getting worse, as I was still passing them regular for about a year through this. Once I conquered the stress and just accepted the fact I probably was going to have stones the rest of my life, things seemed to equal out and they just stopped being as frequent. Was more the diet than anything !

Wasn't easy either, I don't drink alcohol never have, but I wanted other than water all the time, found out that natural lemonade was a good thing for to keep stone development down. Most difficult was leaving the soda's alone, but after the return of a few stingers I just cut them out completely, never looked back, the smooth stones are tough still due to size, but them cactus ones are such to make one an addict to pain killers.

One other thing that 24 hour urine run ain't as easy as they make it seem, especially when you got to drink at least 8 to 10 glasses of water a day.

Doctors say once you have them be prepared to always have one show up, and for the most part thats true, time wise it seems about every two and a half years I still get one, though now it's only on my right side kidney.

Do not have diabetes either which is a good thing the diets about knock me over as it is cause I just love meat, be much more difficult with that disease hanging on me, the wife has it so my diet makes it easier on her to

One other thing I learned after this about stress is that having it releases a couple chemicals besides the carbonation in the drinks that act as binders or building glue for excess chemicals or vitamins that the kidneys filter out, instead of filtering they act as glue while in the kidney, so stress should be avoided as much as possible and don't take more vitamins unless ordered by your doctor.

I'll be 70 this September and I still get around very well for my age and these little stingers, I try not to worry about a lot of things that just don't amount to anything personally or in the family, my persistence in not having to take a pain pill for them is a real key that I lean on though, as they are not good for you either, get one of them stingers and you will see, I hope no one does, they will make you weep I don't care how strong you think you are, I have had enough of my family wondering about me when I talk about that pain when having it, they follow me around to make sure what I say does not come true !!

Good Luck to any of you that have them and make sure to have your doctor analyze them and change your diet, it will make a difference in a year, seems like forever but it moves fast !!

I see red meat getting blamed for auric acid problems, cholesterol, and other nonsense. Totally false. Its all the other stuff . Not the meat. Meat is our natural diet. Cakes and brownies are not. Fruits only in season, and they are not needed to keep us healthy, in fact we do worse on them too. Its a bag of sugar. You can get the same vitamins and more out of meat without the sugar.

Yukon, you are welcome to do it your way, however I'm doing they way I stated and it's working for me, so maybe I'm one out of the whole world your idea don't work for LOL , I'll just stay with it, it's working for me.

I believe it's not necessarily the meat per-se, as it's the amount one ingests that is the problem, and dropping the amount I used to eat has helped, don't know if you have stones or not but your diatribe there is just right contrary to just about every thing I've ever read about stones, and believe me I've read and studied up a lot about them as well as seen three urologists in my years, that have all agreed on only two things, carbonation in fluids people binge on and stress !

One usually studies things that can end taking you out if you don't learn to cope with them !

Awesome, if your diet change is working for you no need to listen to my diatribe.

I just find it funny when people think meat is the culprit for their problems when its really not. Its like saying a lion eats too much meat.

Funny thing is I had 4 but never knew they where there . Because I had paid 3 grand in medical expenses and it was maximum for the year I to a proactive approach. Had them busted up and rest is history!

Drinking lots of water can help reduce kidney stones. Sorry for the bad luck, jbyrd63.

Yukon, I find it funny you compare humans to lions ! There is quite a difference !!
I guess you still miss the point of its not the meat we eat, it's how much of it we eat, it's really a fact !
Even if it is funny to you !

Lions are carnivores just like us. eyes facing forward, canine teeth. Same with wolves, and same with humans.
But if you dont buy into that analogy that's fine. Give up your steaks no sweat off my brow. I am just trying to let jbrd know he can still BBQ without worry.

But let me add that if you ate nothing but meat you would be much healthier and have no stones.

Meat and water. Don't forget to drink water!

You can't eat meat all the time and drink soda something bad will happend.

LOL Yukon your a riot really, I never said give meat up, but thanks for putting it out there like I did, never said J couldn't BBQ either, is this how you make a living by being so wordy to those who can't speak back, then take advantage and make you look like your some know it all ?

You have your opinion found who knows where but it's not backed up with any experience I can tell, I at least have mine backed up by experience, proof of the experience and change by experience !

Now lets just wait for J to bring some more of his experience here to share, shall we !