Natural Health Remedies

What are Kidney Stones?

Kidney stones are a condition that both males and females can suffer from, where certain substances that are in your urine form into a solid hard lump within your kidney. Kidney stones are also known as renal calculi. Kidney stones then pass through the bladder and are removed along with the urine and can cause a lot of discomfort.

The formation of kidney stones starts in the renal pelvis. When the urine transfers from the kidneys to the bladder through very narrow tubes known as the ureter, kidney stones can also be taken with it. They are expelled with the urine when an individual urinates. Some stones are so miniscule and tiny that they cause no symptoms at all and some are so large that they can cause great pain and discomfort to the individual who has to face the symptoms.

The pain that kidney stones cause is usually felt on one side of the body and can last from just a few hours to a few days until it is out of the system. Once the stone has passed through ones system the pain then subsides and the condition is over. People can have kidney stones recur over and over again due to certain conditions one can suffer from. Kidney stones are most common among middle aged white men and treatment usually involves relieving pain through medication which either dissolves or completely removes existing stones in an attempt to prevent the recurrence.

One may know that they suffer from renal calculi if they experience any of the following symptoms. These symptoms include pain that is sometimes excruciating and begins in the lower back directly below the ribs and it travels downward. Men usually feel the most pain when the stone begins to travel through their testicles and penis. When the time finally comes that the stone needs to be passed the urine will usually be difficult to pass with frequent small streams. The urine will sometimes be bloody or darkened and may burn when urine begins to pass through the system. Nausea and vomiting may occur and one may get a fever due to a bacterial infection.

The cause of kidney stones is due to low urine volume and stones are formed. Other reasons are found through hereditary factors. Increased calcium in the urine can form kidney stones. High blood calcium levels that can lead to hypercalciuria and can form stones. Other diseases can cause kidney stones such as Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel disease. A diet with high oxalate can cause stones to form. The most common cause of kidney stones is excessively acidic urine. In some cases it is unknown why a stone forms with some individuals.

To prevent kidney stones from forming you must drink a lot of water a day to keep the amount of urine substantially large and having the movement of urine through the bladder more excessive. It’s said that you need to drink 8 to 10 cups of water to have enough liquid to try and avoid kidney stones. A healthy, well balanced diet is important also so your body will have the right vitamins and nutrients in order to have your organs perform their tasks correctly. To prevent a stone from forming again, your doctor may advise that you change your diet around to compensate for what you are getting too much of or not enough of. To decrease urine acidity a doctor may prescribe potassium citrate. Whatever the composition of the stone is will determine the type of medication prescribed in order to prevent future kidney stones from forming within an individual.

If you have a kidney stone, the only way to get through it is to treat it in a way that it will pass with ease. The best way of doing this is to drink a lot of water, as much as three liters a day in order to properly flush the stone out in a quick and as painlessly as possible. Antibiotics and pain killers will help in the passing and in some cases with bigger stones hospitalization may be needed. Sometimes in order to help the ureter muscles to relax, doctors will prescribe antispasmodic drugs.

With larger stones sometimes a special treatment is used called extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy in which case sound waves are shot at the area of the stone which helps break it up making it easier to pass through the bladder. In the worst cases surgery can be performed in order to remove the stone if it can possibly cause damage to someone while it passes. In the worst case, the removal of a kidney may be required since the body does only need one kidney in order to perform correctly.

Madison Alexander is a contributing editor and researcher for the website AZ Symptoms, an online encyclopedia medical symptoms reference site. Visit our site to learn more about kidney stone symptoms.

Constipation is a common complaint in clinical practice and usually refers to persistent, difficult, infrequent, or seemingly incomplete defecation.

Because of the wide range of normal bowel habits, constipation is difficult to define precisely. Most persons have at least three bowel movements per week; however, low stool frequency alone is not the sole criterion for the diagnosis of constipation. Many constipated patients have a normal frequency of defecation but complain of excessive straining, hard stools, lower abdominal fullness, or a sense of incomplete evacuation. The individual patient’s symptoms must be analyzed in detail to ascertain what is meant by “constipation” or “difficulty” with defecation.

Stool form and consistency are well correlated with the time elapsed from the preceding defecation. Hard, pellety stools occur with slow transit, while loose watery stools are associated with rapid transit. Both small pellety or very large stools are more difficult to expel than normal stools.

Psychosocial or cultural factors may also be important. A person whose parents attached great importance to daily defecation will become greatly concerned when he or she misses a daily bowel movement; some children withhold stool to gain attention or because of fear of pain from anal irritation; and some adults habitually ignore or delay the call to have a bowel movement.

Causes

Pathophysiologically, chronic constipation generally results from inadequate fiber or fluid intake or from disordered colonic transit or anorectal function.

These result from neuro gastroenterologic disturbance, certain drugs, advancing age, or in association with a large number of systemic diseases that affect the gastrointestinal tract.

Constipation of recent onset may be a symptom of significant organic disease such as tumor or stricture.

In idiopathic constipation, a subset of patients exhibit delayed emptying of the ascending and transverse colon with prolongation of transit (often in the proximal colon) and a reduced frequency of propulsive HAPCs.

Outlet obstruction to defecation (also called evacuation disorders) may cause delayed colonic transit, which is usually corrected by biofeedback retraining of the disordered defecation.

Constipation of any cause may be exacerbated by hospitalization or chronic illnesses that lead to physical or mental impairment and result in inactivity or physical immobility.

COMMON CAUSES OF CONSTIPATION:

• Colonic obstruction: Neoplasm, stricture, ischemic, diverticular, inflammatory

• Anal sphincter spasm

• Anal fissure, painful hemorrhoids

• Medications

• Irritable bowel syndrome

• Colonic pseudo-obstruction

• Disorders of rectal evacuation

• Hypothyroidism

• Hypercalcemia

• Pregnancy

• Depression

• Eating disorders

• Drugs

• Parkinsonism

• Multiple sclerosis

• Spinal cord injury

• Progressive systemic sclerosis

MANAGEMENT OF THE CONDITION:

A careful history should explore the patient’s symptoms and confirm whether he or she is indeed constipated based on frequency (e.g., fewer than three bowel movements per week), consistency (lumpy/hard), excessive straining, prolonged defecation time, or need to support the perineum or digitate the anorectum.

In the vast majority of cases (probably >90%), there is no underlying cause (e.g., cancer, depression, or hypothyroidism), and constipation responds to ample hydration, exercise, and supplementation of dietary fiber (15–25 g/d).

A good diet and medication history and attention to psychosocial issues are key.

Physical examination and, particularly, a rectal examination should exclude fecal impaction and most of the important diseases that present with constipation and possibly indicate features suggesting an evacuation disorder (e.g., high anal sphincter tone).

The presence of weight loss, rectal bleeding, or anemia with constipation mandates either flexible sigmoidoscopy plus barium enema or colonoscopy alone, particularly in patients >40 years, to exclude structural diseases such as cancer or strictures.

Colonoscopy alone is most cost effective in this setting since it provides an opportunity to biopsy mucosal lesions, perform polypectomy, or dilate strictures.

HOMOEOPATHIC APPROACH:

NUX VOMICA:

Ineffectual urging for stool,stools are passed unsatisfactorily

Constipation resulting after over use of medications and taking rich and spicy foods

Person feels that something is still left behind after passage of stool

BRYONIA:

Constipation ,hard dry stools are passed with much difficulty

Stiching type of pain in the rectum

Obstinate constipation

Stools are black s if burnt

ALUMINA:

Constipation resulting after eating potatoes and lead poisoning

Soft stools are passed with much difficulty

Constipation is accompanied usually by leucorrhoea

SILICEA:

Constipation due to inefficiency of anal sphincter

Stools recedes back

Suits chronic constipation

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The prototypic lesion of infective endo carditis, the vegetation is a mass of platelets, fibrin, micro colonies of microorganisms, and scant inflammatory cells.

Infection most commonly involves heart valves (either native or prosthetic) but may also occur on the low-pressure side of the ventricular septum at the site of a defect, on the mural endocardium where it is damaged by aberrant jets of blood or foreign bodies, or on intracardiac devices themselves.

The analogous process involving arteriovenous shunts, arterioarterial shunts (patent ductus arteriosus), or a coarctation of the aorta is called infective endarteritis.

CLASSIFICATION:

Endocarditis may be classified according to the temporal evolution of disease, the site of infection, the cause of infection, or a predisposing risk factor such as injection drug use.

EPIDEMIOLOGY:

While rates of congenital heart diseases remain constant, other predisposing conditions in developed countries have shifted from chronic rheumatic heart disease to illicit IV drug use, degenerative valve disease, intracardiac devices, and health care–associated infection. The incidence of endocarditis is notably increased among the elderly.

Etiology

Although many species of bacteria and fungi cause sporadic episodes of endocarditis, only a few bacterial species cause the majority of cases.

The pathogens vary somewhat with the clinical types of endocarditis, in part because of different portals of entry.

The oral cavity, skin, and upper respiratory tract are the respective primary portals for the viridans streptococci, staphylococci, and Haemophilus, Actinobacillus, Cardiobacterium, Eikenella, and Kingella causing community-acquired native valve endocarditis.

Streptococcus bovis originates from the gastrointestinal tract, where it is associated with polyps and colonic tumors, and enterococci enter the bloodstream from the genitourinary tract.

Prosthetic valve endocarditis arising within 2 months of valve surgery is generally the result of intraoperative contamination of the prosthesis or a bacteremic postoperative complication.

The nosocomial nature of these infections is reflected in their primary microbial causes: coagulase-negative staphylococci ,S. aureus, facultative gram-negative bacilli, diphtheroids, and fungi.

Transvenous pacemaker lead– and/or implanted defibrillator–associated endocarditis is usually nosocomial.

Endocarditis occurring among injection drug users, especially when infection involves the tricuspid valve, is commonly caused by S. aureus strains.

Number of these cases are caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida species, and sporadic cases are due to unusual organisms such as Bacillus, Lactobacillus, and Corynebacterium species.

Tropheryma whipplei causes an indolent, culture-negative, afebrile form of endocarditis.

Pathogenesis

Organisms that cause endocarditis generally enter the bloodstream from mucosal surfaces, the skin, or sites of focal infection. Except for more virulent bacteria e.g., S. aureus that can adhere directly to intact endothelium or exposed subendothelial tissue, microorganisms in the blood adhere to sites at NBTE. If resistant to the bactericidal activity of serum and the microbicidal peptides released locally by platelets, the organisms proliferate and induce a procoagulant state at the site by eliciting tissue factor from adherent monocytes or, in the case of S. aureus, from monocytes and from intact endothelium. Fibrin deposition combines with platelet aggregation, stimulated by tissue factor and independently by proliferating microorganisms, to generate an infected vegetation.

The pathophysiologic consequences and clinical manifestations of endocarditis—other than constitutional symptoms, which probably result from cytokine production—arise from damage to intracardiac structures; embolization of vegetation fragments, leading to infection or infarction of remote tissues; hematogenous infection of sites during bacteremia.

Clinical Manifestations

The clinical syndrome of infective endocarditis is highly variable and spans a continuum between acute and subacute presentations. Native valve endocarditis (whether acquired in the community or in association with health care), prosthetic valve endocarditis, and endocarditis due to injection drug use share clinical and laboratory manifestations.

1. Fever

2. Chills and sweats

3. Anorexia, weight loss, malaise

4. Myalgias, arthralgias

5. Heart murmur

6. New/worsened regurgitant murmur

7. Splenomegaly

8. Clubbing

9. Peripheral manifestations (Osler’s nodes, subungual hemorrhages, Janeway lesions, Roth’s spots)

LABORATORY FINDINGS:

• Anemia

• Leukocytosis

• Microscopic hematuria

• Elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate

• Elevated C-reactive protein level

• Rheumatoid factor

HOMOEOPATHIC APPROACH:

DIGITALIS

It suits to slow pulse but primarily strong

There is great weakness of cardiac tissue and secondarily pulse becomes weak

Extra exertion increases its rapidity but diminishes its force

This makes the pulse irregular and intermittent

Heart feels as if stood still

There is weakness and numbness of the left arm and often blueness of the surface of the body

The patient fears that heart would stop beating if he does not make a move

CACTUS GRANDIFLORUS:

The characteristic symptom in this remedy is sensation as if heart is grasped with an iron band.

There is soreness and constriction of the chest and it has pains shooting to the left arm.

There is edema and quick throbbing intense and hard pulse which may be intermittent.

There is great irritation of cardiac nerves.

Useful in intense palpitations and fluterring of heart.

Difficult breathing, suffocation, fainting, violent palpitations and inability to lie down are the symptoms.

SPIGELIA:

It is the remedy for painful affections of the heart.

There are sharp shooting pains from the heart to the back and radiating from the heart down the arm ,over the chest and down the spine.

There is palpitation worse from any movement of the arm or body.

There is a purring sensation left in the cardiac region.

The pulse is intermittent and the slightest motion of the arm and hands makes the patient worse.

Irregular and tumultuous action of the heart is also met in this remedy.

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Jaundice, or icterus, is a yellowish discoloration of tissue resulting from the deposition of bilirubin.

Tissue deposition of bilirubin occurs only in the presence of serum hyperbilirubinemia and is a sign of either liver disease or, less often, a hemolytic disorder.

The degree of serum bilirubin elevation can be estimated by physical examination. Slight increases in serum bilirubin are best detected by examining the sclerae, which have a particular affinity for bilirubin due to their high elastin content.

CLINICAL FEATURES:

As serum bilirubin levels rise, the skin will eventually become yellow in light-skinned patients and even green if the process is long-standing; the green color is produced by oxidation of bilirubin to biliverdin.

Another sensitive indicator of increased serum bilirubin is darkening of the urine, which is due to the renal excretion of conjugated bilirubin. Patients often describe their urine as tea or cola colored. Bilirubinuria indicates an elevation of the direct serum bilirubin fraction and therefore the presence of liver disease.

Increased serum bilirubin levels occur when an imbalance exists between bilirubin production and clearance. A logical evaluation of the patient who is jaundiced requires an understanding of bilirubin production and metabolism.

TYPES:

Unconjugated Hyperbilirubinemia

The critical determination is whether the patient is suffering from a hemolytic process resulting in an overproduction of bilirubin (hemolytic disorders and ineffective erythropoiesis) or from impaired hepatic uptake/conjugation of bilirubin (drug effect or genetic disorders).

Hemolytic disorders that cause excessive heme production may be either inherited or acquired. Inherited disorders include spherocytosis, sickle cell anemia, thalassemia, and deficiency of red cell enzymes.

Conjugated Hyperbilirubinemia

Elevated conjugated hyperbilirubinemia is found in two rare inherited conditions: Dubin-Johnson syndrome and Rotor’s syndrome.

Hepatocellular Conditions

Hepatocellular diseases that can cause jaundice include viral hepatitis, drug or environmental toxicity, alcohol, and end-stage cirrhosis from any cause.

Wilson’s disease, once believed to occur primarily in young adults, should be considered in all adults if no other cause of jaundice is found.

Autoimmune hepatitis is typically seen in young to middle-aged women but may affect men and women of any age.

Alcoholic hepatitis can be differentiated from viral and toxin-related hepatitis by the pattern of the aminotransferases.

Laboratory Tests

These include total and direct serum bilirubin with fractionation,

Aminotransferases

alkaline phosphatase

albumin

prothrombin time tests.

HOMOEOPATHIC APPROACH:

BRYONIA:

Stiching pains in the right hypochondriac region

Liver is swollen and congested and inflamed

Pains in the hypochondriac region are worse from any motion and better by lying on the right side

The patient is chilly and there is bitter taste in the mouth and the stools are hard and dry

MERCURIUS:

Much sensitiveness and dull pain in the region of the liver

Patient cannot lie on the right side

The liver is enlarged and the skin and conjunctiva are jaundiced

Stools are clay colored or yellowish green bilious stools with great deal of tenesmus

PODOPHYLLUM:

Indicated in torpid or chronically congested liver and when diarrhea is present.

The liver is swollen and sensitive, the face and eyes are yellow and there is bad taste in the mouth.

The tongue is coated white or yellow.

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