Kidney Stone Surgery
Kidney stone can be removed by surgery in rare cases, as most of the cases are treated by pill prescription. Majority of kidney stones are within 5 mm size and can be dissolved through dedicated diet and other therapies, but the kidney stones larger than 5mm need to be removed by a major surgical operation. Generally, kidney stones that are bigger than 10mm size cannot be dissolved into the kidney. Researchers believe that these larger size kidney stones can remain in the kidney unnoticed for long time and can cause some serious damage to the body.
What is Kidney stone surgery?
Before the actual surgical operation for kidney stone, a patient needs to go through some test and laboratory examinations to determine the health system and body's stabilization. These tests include blood tests, urine sample diagnosis, kidney diagnosis, stone analysis and calcium tests.
After the kidney stones are detected by CT scan or x-rays, the doctors can determine the size and location of the stones. Therefore, it helps to fix the area where they need to make a hole into the abdomen to remove the stone from the kidney. The surgery includes the opening of the kidney removing the stone physically. After removing the stone from the kidney, a small catheter is placed near the kidney to drain the urine till the kidney is recovered.
Kidney Stone Surgery Side-effects
- The only thing that remains after the surgery is the scar on the skin made for surgery. This scar may from 6-10 inches in size and that may last for long time or life time in some cases.
- The patient needs to be hospitalized about ten days after the surgery. The recovery period from the surgery pains and scar can be for 4-6 weeks.
- The most common side effect of surgery for kidney stones is getting infected by the contaminated surgery equipments.
- The patient may suffer from continuous bleeding.
- In some of the cases, the surgery may severely damage the kidney that can affect the kidney functions also. Hence, the kidney needs to be removed from the body in these types of cases.
Kidney stone Surgery Methods
Kidney stone surgeries have some alternative techniques that can be used in different cases. These techniques include the surgical incision for the removal of the kidney stones.
Following are the most commonly used techniques in kidney stone surgery:
- Ureteroscopy: In this type of surgery, the urologist needs to use ureteroscope, a viewing tool. It is inserted into the urethra, bladder and the kidney. Finally, it locates the stone and removes from the kidney.
- Lithoclast: It includes the pressurized air to break the stone by vibration. And the small pieces of stone taken out by the water or other instruments.
To conclude, it is necessary to be careful while determining that you need surgery for kidney stone removal. This treatment should be considered as the last option for kidney stone.
