vitamins and kidney stones

I am old and have never had a kidney stone, and now my doc says I have one and it may be caused by all the vitamins I am taking. What are your thoughts on this subject? ..John

Are you taking calcium citrate??  Or is it calcium carbonate??  From what I've read the carbonate is more likely to cause kidney stones.

Some of the multi's have a combination of both, some use carbonate and some use citrate.  You need to also check your multi's to see what's there.

OK, here is the skinny on what I take. In my multi-vitamin I have "50 mg of tricalcium phospate, d-calciumpantothenate and dicalciumphospate". I take 250 mg of calcium citrate malate. I take 333 mg of calcium carbonate which contains 200 units of vitamin D, 133 mg of magnesium, and 5 mg of zinc.
Please keep in  mind that I had a VSG, not a RNY.
I appreciate all infor.....Thanks John

calcium carbonate causes stones in normies, so your lack of malabsorption doesn't mean much.

mostly our stones are oxalates, encouraged by Tums, calc carbonate, brown liquids (coffee, tea or cola--the acids, not the caffeine), some leafy green veggies

uric acid stones are entirely another animal, not as common among us and treated entirely differently

Thanks Michelle for the information. I regard your advice as something special.

I do drink alot of coffee now, that in my earlier life, I did not. Since the operation and them telling me not to drink fizzy drinks, I have given up diet cokes. You had told me earlier that Tums are not our friends, so no more Tums.

I have been told by other people that have had kidney stones that drinking lemonade made with real lemons in distilled water would help dissolve the stones. I am doing this and it seems to be helping. I don't have  the pain that I have had.  I will be going back to my doc in a couple of weeks, to pick his brain on what he thinks.

Do you  think I should give up the coffee?  ...Thanks John

John,

Many in support group report the same thing, you might ask your doctor for a strainer (if you have another bout of this) and by straining your urine, they can analyze the stones and better tell you what is causing them; but more than likely it is caused by the calcium supplement, which we need to take, just be sure to drink your water, as it usually helps them from being too hard to pass. . .

Laureen

John, I wanted to wait to reply to your post until I had an opportunity to chat with a man in my support group.  After RNY he has had issues with kidney stones (never had them before).   He went to a urologist who wasn't too much help.  He had three issues requiring surgery.  He got on line and did a lot of research, and discovered that by taking extra calcium the problem could be resolved.....I know this sounds crazy, but he has taken extra calcium since a year ago in July and not had anymore flare-ups.  He checked with the urologist first before doing this, and got an okay.

I'm not sure why he wasn't taking calcium prior to the problem, most of us take between 1,000 - 1,500 mg. of calcium citrate daily.  Anyway he is taking calcium carbonate - one or two pills per day (1,000 mg.)  I spoke to him about using the calcium citrate and he is reluctant to change at this point....why change something that is working, I guess.

I do know it is imperative to drink lots and lots of water, which I hope you are doing.

This is FYI -- I'm most certainly not a doctor, but I did have some knowledge of this problem because of the guy in my support group.  I hope this helps. 

Pat R.

time bomb

he's got it backward

citrate binds the oxalates from cabonate and holds them harmless. carbonate is kidney stone "seeds", as I call them