Tag: Oxalates

Kidney Stones: Errr, Maybe Not?

(Title image: Photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash)

So my health has taken an interesting turn.

About a week ago, I went to see a nurse practitioner (NP) for an interesting combination of symptoms: nausea and middle back pain. After listening to my complaints, she determined that the cause was most likely kidney stones.

So…I’m not the typical kidney stone sufferer…but I wasn’t the typical breast cancer getter either, so I accepted her diagnosis while we awaited lab confirmation of whether there was blood in my urine (TMI, sorry).

And then I proceeded to waste an entire weekend on the Internet, driving myself bonkers about what foods contained oxalates (a common kidney stone culprit) and how to combine foods that did with calcium, but not too much calcium.

I was treading in the Wild West of the Internet and I soon learned that kidneys are big business and everyone not only has an opinion, but is also selling something.

Kidneys = $$$ and clear and concise info was harder to find than I anticipated. More stress!
(Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash)

At the same time, except for one relatively bad night with a lot of pain, most of my symptoms remained mild-ish. Definitely not “hurts more than childbirth” level.

However, as a result of this, I was afraid to eat, which seemed to increase the pain and I realized that it was actually kinda sorta in my stomach?

Four days after submitting the urine sample, my NP called with the results: no blood in the urine.

That made the “kidney stones” story more difficult to believe. So after more discussions with her, she settled on the possibility that I might just be experiencing particularly bad heartburn and prescribed omeprazole to reduce the levels of acid my stomach produces.

This actually made a lot of sense to me. I am one of those “stress non-eaters”: in difficult situations I lose my appetite quickly, go for longer periods without eating and tend to lose weight. That leaves a lot of time for my stomach to sit empty.

But this also brings up another point that I find personally interesting. I have consistently been doing better with handling general stress and anxious episodes. I now have a plan for stress that includes understanding my reactions and using mindfulness, meditation and exercise. As a result, I experience far fewer episodes of runaway anxiety.

Stomach, stress…it all feels like fire.
(Photo by Yaoqi on Unsplash)

However, I am not able to control everything that happens in my body. I might be able to soften my response to stress and anxiety, but over the long term my body may still show signs of wear and tear from the pressures that I face.

This may also mean that while I’m doing great with keeping my stress levels lower, I might not be doing as great as I think I am. If this is truly “heartburn” or a little ulcer or something, it’s a reminder that managing stress is a constant process that requires vigilance.

Oh, and there’s also the oxalate thing, which my NP said not to stress over since it’s probably not a kidney stone. Which is good. Except now I’ve bought a bunch of low-oxalate foods, a number of which are the ones that I learned I should avoid for stomach issues.

Health is becoming a nonstop game of whack-a-mole.

Kidney Stones: Like I Needed That, Too

File this under, “lucky me”.

Well, I started experiencing nausea with no discernable cause last week. Wasn’t too bad and I assumed it was, I dunno, just my body being weird. Or maybe the pack of raw sugar snap peas that I had eaten the day before.

But the next day I woke up with middle back pain. I assumed that it was due to a new strength training workout that is known for evoking muscle soreness, and I figured that I’d just overdone it.

The nausea got worse, the backpain didn’t abate.

After a few days of this I decided to make an appoinment to get it checked out. This was partly because Dr. Google suggested that this could be an issue with my gall bladder or a kidney stone. I waved the gall bladder possibility off because the symptoms didn’t seem to match…but the kidney stones? Kind of ridiculous, I thought. I regularly drank a lot of water, ate limited processed food, was a vegetarian…you get the gist. I didn’t think I had the most common risk factors for it.

Then again, I didn’t have the most common risk factors for breast cancer either.

My nurse practitioner listened to my complaints and pronounced the most likely diagnosis: kidney stones.

I just don’t get it.

Why do these things happen?

This…is not gonna be fun.
(Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan on Unsplash)

After trying to live an exemplary life diet and exercise-wise, breastfeeding my kids and whatnot, seven years ago I got cancer. That’s one of the most terrifying diagnoses you can get.

I did not enjoy treatment. But eventually I got through it and learned to deal with the uncertainties that cancer brings.

Now, I may have a kidney stone. A “more painful than childbirth” kidney stone, which people that I’ve told like to point out is *ahem* very painful. Exceptionally painful. Severely painful. Hello, these reminders don’t help.

On the bright side, this probably won’t kill me. I’ll only wish that I were dead.

I was already thinking about how ridiculously unfortunate it was that the stressors I’m currently dealing with were taking place all at once (that’s another story that I won’t bore you with). I was not asking for yet another one.

And it gets even worse: I was given the opportunity to teach yoga to cancer survivors in about a month, something that I was so excited about! It was such an amazing chance to do exactly the thing for which I become a registered yoga teacher.

By the way, the average time for a kidney stone to pass is, you guessed it, a month. (To be fair, I’ve also heard anywhere from 1 to 6 weeks, so it kind of depends whom you ask). The timing just sucks.

I learned that the main protein sources for vegetarians are very high in oxalates, which are some of the most likely culprits in the formation of kidney stones. As a matter of fact, so much healthy food (dark leafy greens, for example) is actually high in oxalates, with spinach being number one. Who was eating spinach almost daily? Right here, me!

In the meantime, conflicting information on the internet about what I should be eating is stressful because I feel like I’m making things worse every time I put food in my mouth. My main staples are coming up as no-nos.

So what am I going to do? Try not to catastrophize. My mind is my worst enemy and comes up with all kinds of unpleasant possibilities as I wait for urine test results and probably a CT scan.

I’m going to ride this out the best that I can. That means keep practice teaching for my yoga class and consider this another test of how well I can prevent my scary thoughts from dragging me down a frightening rabbit hole.

Update when I know more.