KIDNEY STONES coping with

Urologist solves Kara’s painful problem

By Catherine Jelsing / Photos by Scott Thuen / Thuen Studios

Kara Olson was convinced her painful kidney stones were her fault. She simply wasn’t drinking enough water.

That’s what she’d been told when she was fi rst diagnosed with kidney stones after her son Drew was born six years ago. That’s what she heard when she developed more stones while pregnant with her second son, Will.

Shockwave treatments broke up her fi rst kidney stones. Then Olson passed 12 kidney stones and was hospitalized twice before she went into early labor with Will. When he was airlifted to a newborn intensive care unit, she stayed behind with a 105-degree fever, a severe kidney infection and a large kidney stone.

“The doctors did some testing,” Olson recalls, “but they kept telling me I just wasn’t drinking enough water. I was a little discouraged with that answer, but at age 21 I accepted it as, ‘OK, I’ll try to drink more water.’ ”

In 2011, Olson’s family moved to Glyndon, Minn. She knew things still weren’t right. Despite faithful water consumption and a high tolerance for pain, she told her family, “I swear I am peeing gravel.”

Last August, Olson walked into Essentia Health-Fargo with what she thought was a bladder infection. A CAT scan found six stones in her left kidney.

Dr. Farhan Khan, an Essentia Health urologist, offered Olson the option to remove her kidney stones with a minimally invasive procedure called ureteroscopy. Olson scheduled the surgery a month later.

By then she had 12 stones. Dr. Khan placed a uretroscope through her bladder into the ureter and kidney. Then he used a laser to break the stones into tiny fragments and carefully removed them using tiny basketlike instruments.

Dr. Khan knew it was time to fi nd out the cause of Olson’s kidney stones and ordered a 24-hour urine study. He found she was excreting too much calcium in her urine. Olson was placed on a special diuretic and a moderate calcium and vitamin D diet to restore the proper balance between the calcium in her urine and bones.

“I feel the best I’ve felt in six years,” Olson says. “Dr. Khan was the fi rst doctor who told me the reason I had kidney stones wasn’t just because I wasn’t drinking enough water. He looked at me and told me there’s something defi nitely wrong here. That statement alone gave me a glimmer of hope.”

One in 11 Americans will have at least one kidney stone in a lifetime. Men and people who are overweight or obese are more likely to get one. The most common type of stone is made of calcium oxalate so consuming foods high in oxalates – such as nuts, chocolate and some fruits and vegetables –increases the risk. Stones also can be caused by bacterial infections. Some people are genetically predisposed.

Dr. Khan agrees the best prevention is drinking plenty of water and recommends drinking at least 80 ounces of fluids each day. Symptoms of kidney stones include unexplained, constant pain in the flank, blood in urine, recurrent urine infections or an unexplained fever.

Severe pain occurs when a stone leaves the kidney and gets stuck in the ureter, blocking the flow of urine. That’s what sends people to the emergency room. Dr. Khan says patients with small kidney stones are given medicine to relax the ureter and advised to drink lots of fluids to help the stones pass on their own. There’s a 65 to 70 percent chance the small stone will pass, he says. Patients are given the opportunity to pass stones on their own if they have normal kidney function, no fever and aren’t in much pain.

When stones don’t pass, or the pain can’t be controlled by oral medicines, doctors can place temporary stents in the kidney. Another option uses shockwaves to break down stones so they pass more easily. If stones are numerous or very hard, or if the patient is obese, the procedure Dr. Khan used to treat Olson is used. For very large kidney stones, Dr. Khan recommends percutaneous nephrolithotomy. It requires a tiny incision on the back so a special scope can be used to enter the kidney and remove the stones.

Olson says the longer she remains healthy, the more hopeful she is that Dr. Khan – the doctor who listened – found the way to keep her free from painful kidney stones.