Laser for Renal Colics- “Kidney stones”

Laser for Renal Colics- “Kidney stones”

In the year 2006, when I was in England pursuing Masters in Laser Engineering, as part of the curriculum, I had the rarest opportunity to witness kidney-stone-removal-procedure.

Laser science has carved a niche to a different-level. Laser Lithotripsy is one of the procedures to get rid of these (stones) renal colics. This treatment crushes kidney stones without touching any sharp instruments.

The technique, Laser Lithotripsy uses fibre laser. This is ingrained into the patient’s body through the urethra and up to the ureter. Once it reaches the stone, the laser is turned on and the stone is abraded.

The advantage of laser surgery is a higher success rate than with traditional methods and the laser is more effective on bigger stones.

After the surgery, when I spoke with the patient, he was very happy as the pain was less and that too the doctors claimed that the recovery period in this type of surgery is very less.

The advantage of using laser for surgeries is that the contract area is very minuscule, almost negligible, but the surgery has its own drawbacks. A few to say: the patient may experience bleeding for few days after the procedure.  It may cause infection, tissue scaring, and fluid overload.

Pain -- Kidney Stones

The Real Pain--

Pain has started all of a sudden in the abdominal region. Initially, the pain was mild and then it excruciated. My father never had this severe pain. I immediately rushed for the doctor; both my father and doctor felt that it was because of adulteration of food. He felt nauseated and started feeling weak.  Doctor gave him some tablets to soothe from pain, but in vain.  Even after an hour, he was hollering with pain and started screaming, “Give me some poison, I can’t bear this pain”.

He doubted about something and passed saline into him. He has injected some medicine into it and exactly after half an hour the pain subsided.  He was skeptical that my father has kidney stones and exclaimed that the injection is rudimentaril used to relieve the pain from kidney stones.

The next day in the scanning, it was confirmed that he has two, not so big, stones. These are also called “Renal Colics”.

What We Can Do—

It is really hard to explain as why the kidney stones are formed; there are plenty of reasons and factors that form them. Kidney stones are not dangerous, but the pain will kill you. Sometimes even blood comes out of the urinary tract. If the stones are small, they can be removed naturally by allowing them to pass through the urine.

The best things to do, when you are writhing in pain because of kidney stones:

1)      Drink more water. It will help the passage of stones to be smoother.

2)      Citric acid helps to break the salt from the stones.  Take fruits rich of citric acid like lemons, oranges, grapes, etc.

3)      Be away from calcium rich diet; it will enhance the formation of stones.

4)      Keep away from tomatoes and spinach.

5)      Be away from alcohol and have fibre rich fruits.

The pain is really unusual for those who have no health problems, but there is no need to perturb, if proper care and medication is taken.