Kidney Stone Season or Not

Carolina Pines Has Your Urology Needs Covered

Summer is unofficially “kidney stone” season, as slightly more cases occur during the summer months, typically due to dehydration caused by higher temperatures.

But to pin the condition on a season is a bit of a misnomer, according to two local urologists, Dr. David Horger and Dr. Wallace Vaught, who practice at Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center (CPRMC).

“More may occur in the summer because of dehydration and the stones may move on the individual,” said Dr. Horger, who is now in his 20th year of practice and fifth at Carolina Pines Medical Group. “But sometimes, it takes years to build up a kidney stone. You can’t really attribute it to a season when they take longer than a season to form.”

Summer is high season for onset of this painful condition. Proper hydration is critical to warding off kidney stones. If you've had kidney stones in the past, drinking lots of water is very important.

“It’s not like flu season, where summer comes and kidney stones are here - it’s really a year-round thing,” added Dr. Vaught, a urologist for 37 years, the past sixplus at Carolina Pines.

Still, approximately one in 11 individuals in the U.S. will suffer from kidney stones, and of those, approximately two million each year end up in the emergency room due to the pain caused by the ailment.

The urology team at CPRMC offered some simple suggestions to help you avoid kidney stones.

“Don’t eat a lot of red meat, have a lowsalt diet, and drink lots of water,” Dr. Horger suggested. “Avoid things like caffeine and sweet tea – and drink lemonade if you like it.”

Added Dr. Vaught, “If you have a history of kidney stones, you need to keep yourself wellhydrated, because the more diluted you can keep the urine, the less likely kidney stones will form.”

If by chance you do develop kidney stones, Carolina Pines offers a full range of services to get you back to health.

“We have the full array of services,” said Dr. Vaught. “Anything that can be done to treat kidney stones, we do. And, we have aroundthe-clock service.”

“We have the ability to do any kidney stone treatment,” added Dr. Horger. “We have all the technology we need – the lasers, the shockwave lithotriptor - and we can do percutaneous nephrolithotomy for really large stones, but thankfully we don’t see those as much anymore.”

The team’s services expand to the full gamut of urology issues, from kidney stones to incontinence, urinary infections, and cancers of the prostate, bladder, and kidney. They also perform in-office vasectomies and vasectomy reversals. They treat men, women, and children.

“We treat pretty much anyone that walks in the door with conditions related to the urinary system and the kidneys, bladder, and prostate,” said Dr. Horger.

Both doctors know and enjoy the area and like the variety of practicing urology with the patients and families they have come to know over the years.

“I like it because it’s a good combination of seeing patients in the office, but also doing major surgical procedures like taking out kidneys or prostates,” said Dr. Vaught. “And with treating men and women, children and adults - there’s a lot of variety, and I enjoy that aspect of it.”

“Urology is a lot of problem-solving for short-term problems like kidney stones, but then it’s also a lot of relationship building like taking care of people with prostate or bladder cancer where you are going to be their doctor for 10-20 years and hopefully get them through their problems,” said Dr. Horger. “I’ve been in the Hartsville and Florence areas for a total of 15 years now and I still have people coming to see me that I took care of their cancer 15 years ago and you see them on a year-to-year basis and that’s nice.”

Most of the week, you can find both doctors at Carolina Pines Medical Group Urology, located at 701 Medical Park Drive, Suite 110 in Hartsville. To schedule an appointment - this summer or any season - visit cprmc.com/urology or call 843.383.2764.

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