Kidney stones can be very painful. They can also cause complications like urinary tract infections. But they are often preventable with a few dietary changes.
Where does oxalate come from?
Oxalate comes from many of the foods in our diet. The main dietary sources of oxalate are:
- French fries and baked potatoes
- spinach and other green, leafy vegetables
- rhubarb
- wheat bran
- almonds
- beets
- navy beans
- chocolate
- okra
- nuts and seeds
- soy products
- tea
- strawberries and raspberries
When you eat these foods, your GI tract breaks them down and absorbs the nutrients. The leftover wastes then travel to your kidneys, which remove them into your urine. The waste from broken-down oxalate is called oxalic acid. It can combine with calcium to form calcium oxalate crystals in the urine.
What are the symptoms?
Kidney stones may not cause symptoms until they start to move through your urinary tract. When stones move, the pain can be intense.
The main symptoms of calcium oxalate crystals in the urine are:
- pain in your side and back that can be intense, and may come in waves
- pain when you urinate
- blood in your urine, which can look red, pink, or brown
- cloudy urine
- foul-smelling urine
- an urgent and constant need to urinate
- nausea and vomiting
- fever and chills if you have an infection
What causes calcium oxalate crystals?
Urine contains chemicals that normally prevent oxalate from sticking together and forming crystals. However, if you have too little urine or too much oxalate, it can crystalize and form stones.
Reasons for this include:
- not drinking enough fluids (being dehydrated)
- eating a diet that’s too high in oxalate, protein, or salt
In other cases, an underlying disease causes the crystals to form into stones. You’re more likely to get calcium oxalate stones if you have:
- hyperparathyroidism, or too much parathyroid hormone
- inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), such as ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease
- Dent disease, an inherited disorder that damages the kidneys
- gastric bypass surgery for weight loss
- diabetes
- obesity
Potential treatment options:
Small stones may pass on their own without treatment in about four to six weeks. You can help flush out the stone by drinking extra water.
Your doctor can also prescribe an alpha-blocker. These drugs relax your ureter to help the stone pass from your kidney more quickly.
Pain relievers such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen can help relieve your discomfort until the stone passes.
However, if you’re pregnant, talk with your healthcare provider before taking non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs (ibuprofen, naproxen, aspirin, and celexcoxib).
If the stone is very large or it doesn’t pass on its own, you may need one of these procedures to remove it:
Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL):
ESWL delivers sound waves from outside your body to break the stone into little pieces. Within a few weeks after ESWL, you should pass the stone pieces in your urine.
Ureteroscopy:
In this procedure, your doctor passes a thin scope with a camera on the end through your bladder and into your kidney. Then the stone is either removed in a basket or broken up first with a laser or other tools and then removed. The surgeon may place a thin plastic tube called a stent in the ureter to hold it open and allow urine to drain while you heal.
Percutaneous nephrolithotomy:
This procedure occurs while you’re asleep and pain-free under general anesthesia. Your surgeon makes a small incision in your back and removes the stone using small instruments.
Possible Prevention:
You can prevent calcium oxalate from forming crystals in your urine and avoid kidney stones by following these tips:
- Drink extra fluids. Some doctors recommend that people who’ve had kidney stones drink 2.6 quarts (2.5 liters) of water each day. Ask your doctor how much fluid is right for you.
- Limit the salt in your diet. A high-sodium diet can increase the amount of calcium in your urine, which can help stones form.
- Watch your protein intake. Protein is essential to a healthy diet, but don’t overdo it. Too much of this nutrient can cause stones to form. Make protein less than 30 percent of your total daily calories.
- Include the right amount of calcium in your diet. Getting too little calcium in your diet can cause oxalate levels to rise. To prevent this, be sure you’re getting the appropriate daily amount of calcium for your age.
- Cut down on foods that are high in oxalate, like rhubarb, bran, soy, beets, and nuts. When you do eat oxalate-rich foods, have them with something containing calcium, like a glass of milk. This way the oxalate will bind to calcium before it gets to your kidneys, so it won’t crystallize in your urine.
References:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1455427/
All Your Lab Results.
One Simple Dashboard.
Import, Track, and Share Your Lab Results Easily
Import, Track, and Share Your Lab Results
Import lab results from multiple providers, track changes over time, customize your reference ranges, and get clear explanations for each result. Everything is stored securely, exportable in one organized file, and shareable with your doctor—or anyone you choose.
Cancel or upgrade anytime
Laboratories
Bring All Your Lab Results Together — In One Place
We accept reports from any lab, so you can easily collect and organize all your health information in one secure spot.
Pricing Table
Gather Your Lab History — and Finally Make Sense of It
Finally, Your Lab Results Organized and Clear
Personal plans
$79/ year
Advanced Plan
Access your lab reports, explanations, and tracking tools.
- Import lab results from any provider
- Track all results with visual tools
- Customize your reference ranges
- Export your full lab history anytime
- Share results securely with anyone
- Receive 5 reports entered for you
- Cancel or upgrade anytime
$250/ once
Unlimited Account
Pay once, access everything—no monthly fees, no limits.
- Import lab results from any provider
- Track all results with visual tools
- Customize your reference ranges
- Export your full lab history anytime
- Share results securely with anyone
- Receive 10 reports entered for you
- No subscriptions. No extra fees.
$45/ month
Pro Monthly
Designed for professionals managing their clients' lab reports
- Import lab results from any provider
- Track lab results for multiple clients
- Customize reference ranges per client
- Export lab histories and reports
- Begin with first report entered by us
- Cancel or upgrade anytime
About membership
What's included in a Healthmatters membership
Import Lab Results from Any Source
See Your Health Timeline
Understand What Your Results Mean
Visualize Your Results
Data Entry Service for Your Reports
Securely Share With Anyone You Trust
Let Your Lab Results Tell the Full Story
Once your results are in one place, see the bigger picture — track trends over time, compare data side by side, export your full history, and share securely with anyone you trust.
Bring all your results together to compare, track progress, export your history, and share securely.
What Healthmatters Members Are Saying
Frequently asked questions
Healthmatters is a personal health dashboard that helps you organize and understand your lab results. It collects and displays your medical test data from any lab in one secure, easy-to-use platform.
- Individuals who want to track and understand their health over time.
- Health professionals, such as doctors, nutritionists, and wellness coaches, need to manage and interpret lab data for their clients.
With a Healthmatters account, you can:
- Upload lab reports from any lab
- View your data in interactive graphs, tables, and timelines
- Track trends and monitor changes over time
- Customize your reference ranges
- Export and share your full lab history
- Access your results anytime, from any device
Professionals can also analyze client data more efficiently and save time managing lab reports.
Healthmatters.io personal account provides in-depth research on 10000+ biomarkers, including information and suggestions for test panels such as, but not limited to:
- The GI Effects® Comprehensive Stool Profile,
- GI-MAP,
- The NutrEval FMV®,
- The ION Profile,
- Amino Acids Profile,
- Dried Urine Test for Comprehensive Hormones (DUTCH),
- Organic Acids Test,
- Organix Comprehensive Profile,
- Toxic Metals,
- Complete Blood Count (CBC),
- Metabolic panel,
- Thyroid panel,
- Lipid Panel,
- Urinalysis,
- And many, many more.
You can combine all test reports inside your Healthmatters account and keep them in one place. It gives you an excellent overview of all your health data. Once you retest, you can add new results and compare them.
If you are still determining whether Healthmatters support your lab results, the rule is that if you can test it, you can upload it to Healthmatters.
We implement proven measures to keep your data safe.
At HealthMatters, we're committed to maintaining the security and confidentiality of your personal information. We've put industry-leading security standards in place to help protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of the information under our control. We use procedural, physical, and electronic security methods designed to prevent unauthorized people from getting access to this information. Our internal code of conduct adds additional privacy protection. All data is backed up multiple times a day and encrypted using SSL certificates. See our Privacy Policy for more details.