What are bladder stones?
They are characterized as solid mineral masses in bladder. Moreover, bladder stones form when urine turns concentrated in bladder, causing minerals to crystallize. Often, stagnant, concentrated urine is resulted in case the bladder fails to empty completely. Usually, the symptoms of bladder stones go unnoticed until discovered in tests conducted for some other reason.
Sometimes, small stones pass themselves, however others may need medical treatments to get removed. In case left untreated, they can cause serious complications and infections.
What are the symptoms of bladder stones?
At times, individuals those have bladder stones experience no symptoms at all, even with large stones; however, if they obstruct the urine flow or irritate their bladder wall, symptoms can occur, such as:
- Painful urination.
- In men, discomfort or pain in penis.
- Abdominal pain.
- Difficulty urinating.
- Urine flow interruption.
- Frequent urination.
- Dark urine.
- Difficulty controlling urine.
- Blood in urine.
- Burning sensation in your urethra while passing urine.
- Urine can appear cloudy.
What causes bladder stones?
Typically, they start forming when bladder fails to release urine completely. As a result, the left urine present in the bladder develops crystals which form bladder stones eventually. Moreover, in certain instances, a causal condition tends to affect the ability of bladder to release urine completely. Some common conditions known to trigger bladder stones are:
- Neurogenic bladder.
- Prostate gland enlargement.
- Kidney stones.
- Inflamed bladder.
What are the risk factors of bladder stones?
In developing countries, the condition is common particularly in children, due to a diet low in protein, infection and dehydration. However in certain countries, it mostly strikes adults, particularly in males above 30 years of age.
Certain conditions known to contribute in the formation of bladder stones are:
- Neurogenic bladder.
- Bladder outlet obstruction.
What are the possible complications bladder stones can lead?
If bladder stones are not removed, they can lead certain complications which include:
- Urinary tract infections.
- Chronic bladder dysfunction.
How are bladder stones diagnosed?
In order to diagnose bladder stones, the doctor can conduct:
- A thorough physical exam.
- Urine analysis (urinalysis).
- CT scan.
- Ultrasound.
- X-ray.
- Intravenous pyelogram.
How are bladder stones treated?
Clearly, bladder stones must get removed. For small stone, the doctor can advise you to increase the intake of water so that the stone can pass itself. Though, since the formation of bladder stones tend to occur due to the inability of the bladder to release urine completely, thus prompt stone passage is quite difficult. So, nearly all cases need stone removal procedures.
- Cystolitholapaxy procedure in order to break/remove bladder stones.
- Open surgery for removing hard and large bladder stones.
Prevention:
It is advice to drink enough water in order to avoid bladder stones. 10 to 12 glasses of water a day cannot just help preventing bladder stones, but also prevent many other health problems.
By : Natural Health News
