Exercise has health benefits but can lead to pain or illness if you do not stay hydrated. Kidney stones can result from dehydration and infection. These stones can cause back or side pain, blood in your urine, fever, chills, vomiting, strong urine smell or burning when you urinate. Recognizing the signs of kidney stones and dehydration can prevent complications that result in hospitalization or severe illness.
Dehydration Due to Exercise
Dehydration occurs when your body loses fluid faster than it replaces fluid. Intense or strenuous exercise increases your body's need for hydration. Your need for fluid increases when you exercise in warmer weather because your body sweats more. When this fluid is not replaced, acute dehydration occurs due to a large loss of fluid in a short amount of time. Drink small amounts of water to replace lost fluids when you become dehydrated. MedlinePlus reports that the biggest risk factor for kidney stones is dehydration.
Kidney Stones
Kidney stones occur when there is a development of hard crystals that collaborate from urine within the urinary tract. Urine usually contains chemicals that stop the crystals, but when these inhibitors do not function properly, the formation of stones occur. Crystals that remain small enough will exit out of the body through urine without being noticed. Medical intervention may become necessary when these crystal are too large to pass out of the body.
Calcium Stones
According to the National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse, the most common type of kidney stone contains calcium. Excess calcium in the body is transported to the kidneys where, in most people, the calcium is expelled from the body through urine. When the calcium is not expelled, calcium stones can develop within the kidneys.
Struvite Stones
Struvite kidney stones affect women more than men, according to MedlinePlus. This type of stone may form following a urinary system infection including kidney infections. Strutive stones have more potential to be large and harmful to the kidneys than other stones. Struvite stones contain the mineral magnesium and the waste product ammonia.
Treatment Options
Your physician may need to intervene if you develop a stone that can not pass without assistance. Your doctor may choose to send shock waves to your kidney stone with a machine, which will break a large stone into pieces small enough to pass out of your body. This procedure is called shock wave lithotripsy and is the least invasive intervention offered. Percutaneous nephrolithotomy is a surgical procedure that makes a tunnel through the patient's skin to the stone which allows the surgeon to retrieve the stone. Ureteroscope is another stone removal procedure that involves a long wire guided into the patient's urethra up to the ureter where the stone is located and removed. This scope has a light and camera that helps the surgeon locate the stone.
