Ah yes, I had one 10 years ago. I was only seen by the GP and out of hours, and told that they did not automatically send you for scans these days. Equivalent to 6 1/2 hours of transition labour with first born with projectile vomiting. Should have gone to A&E
The best prevention is to drink enough water to keep your urine straw coloured (obviously not overnight urine as it is concentrated by a hormone then). This has been proven to significantly reduce the risk in studies, and stones are more prevalent in very hot countries.
Another thing to do is to reduce the oxalate in your diet (stones are usually calcium oxalate) There are tables that show you how much oxalate things contain, but what is important is how much actually gets though the gut wall into the blood. Rhubarb and spinach are the worst offenders by a long way and worth completely avoiding. I am also suspicious about things like the dark bitter kale, chard, beetroot leaves so eat these occasionally. Strawberries are surprisingly high and best eaten with cream
On the strawberries and cream theme, there is a school of though that if you have calcium in your diet, that this will combine with the oxalates whilst still in your gut, and not get through. However, if your blood calcium is high, that is probably not a good thing. So the best thing is to make sure you are getting the right amount of calcium in your day to day diet, and not over do it. If your calcium gets low, then your body takes calcium from your bones and for some reason this calcium is more likely to combine with the oxalates in the blood - therefore eat the amount of calcium you need and drink plenty.
Do not take calcium supplements or indigestion tablets. Vitamin D is supposed to be a no no, but I was very low and have taken them for 3 years with no problems - and they contain a bit of calcium as a filler, but the least amount I could find. The calcium in supplements is not quite the same as dietary calcium and is more likely to form stones. It is also a cheap nutrient so commonly added to fortified things. Bread has it added, but should be ok unless you live on it entirely
Sardines and milk are fine.
Grapefruit is worth avoiding. There was a study that looked into drinking citrus juices to see if they could prevent stones. However, the group drinking grapefruit got more stones and they stopped that group. This is sufficient evidence for me - can't stand the stuff - used to put up with it for the sake of being 'healthy', but now I need never touch it again
Oh -there is some evidence to say not to overdo the protein - best avoid Atkins diet.
