Treatment for Kidney Stones

Baptist Health Paducah: Treatment for Kidney Stones

Urologist Donald Spicer, MD, explains how kidney stones form, describes signs and symptoms and outlines how doctors use minimally invasive technology to break up the stones.

Treatment for Kidney Stones HealthTalks Transcript

Donald Spicer, MD, Urology
Kidney stones are basically where certain minerals that are in the urine precipitate and become insoluble in the urine and create crystals, and the crystals then join enough to become big enough to be a stone, and the stone can then cause symptoms.

Bill Hinson, Mayfield, Kentucky
You know, I might’ve had lower back pain, but I thought that was work related. I was having that some, and that’s a sign. I didn’t realize that was what was going on. When he saw the X-rays, Dr. Spicer said, basically one of your kidneys is starting to shut down. He said, it will never be back to what it was, but we can recover and stop that.

Dr. Spicer
We offer complete treatment for the patient with kidney stones here. We treat them when they first present to get them out of pain. The options that we have available for treatment include ureteroscopy, where we take a small scope and get the stone out using a laser to break it into small fragments. Or, we can even treat some patients from outside the body by using shockwave lithotripsy to bust up stones. Even the largest of stones, we’re able to use a minimally invasive technique where we can go to the kidney through a single needle stick into the kidney from outside the skin and then dilating a track that is about as big around as the thumb and use scopes through that to get the stone out.

Bill Hinson
I want both kidneys to work, but it’s been a blessing, the whole experience has. Dr Spicer did well. I’m very pleased and would recommend people to come see him.