Treatment Myth 1: Thinking you can stop taking medication if you don’t have pain The treatment of urinary stones needs to be based on the size of the stone to determine the treatment plan. Usually, small stones less than 5 mm can be treated conservatively with medication; stones less than 2 cm can be removed by extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy or holmium laser lithotripsy and lithotripsy under ureteral soft microscope; stones larger than 2 cm can be removed by percutaneous nephrolithotripsy. There are also two misunderstandings in the treatment of urinary stones. One is that many patients who use medication to treat small stones think that if they don’t have pain, they can stop taking the medication and that they are cured. This is not true. Stone patients do not have pain, does not equal to the stone does not exist. Many times it is because the small stones are stuck in the ureter and do not move, thus the patient feels no pain. However, as the stones block the ureter, it is easy to cause hydronephrosis, resulting in the loss of kidney function. And once the kidney function is seriously damaged, it is irreversible. Therefore, patients with urinary stones, especially ureteral stones, are treated with medication, which usually requires two weeks of medication and a follow-up visit within two weeks. “If the stones have not moved down from the kidney to the ureter, they need to be checked every three to six months, even if they are not painful.” Treatment Myth 2: Thinking that extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy will lead to kidney damage Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy began to be used in China in the early 1980s. At the beginning of its use, there were indeed some doctors who abused this technology. Sometimes the stone reaches four or five centimeters or even cast stone, there are still doctors using this technology, resulting in patients receiving multiple extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy, resulting in renal atrophy and serious damage to renal function. However, in fact, kidney stones or ureteral stones less than 2 centimeters, if the obstruction is not serious, can be considered by extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy, as long as no more than three times lithotripsy, and each two lithotripsy time should be separated by more than two weeks, which is not a great impact on the kidney. Moreover, this lithotripsy technique is non-invasive, patients hardly have any pain, and the cost is cheap, only six or seven hundred dollars. In terms of stone recurrence rate, it is not much different from surgery or minimally invasive stone removal. Prevention: Different types of urinary stones have different prevention priorities: 1, calcium oxalate stones: eat less spinach. In urinary stones, calcium oxalate stones accounted for 70% -80%, therefore, in the diet, in addition to drinking more water, to prevent calcium oxalate supersaturation, and calcium oxalate crystals flushed out, but also try to eat less spinach. Because spinach is rich in oxalic acid, at the same time to limit the intake of protein and salt. 2, uric acid stones: eat less high purine food. Although patients with uric acid stones may not all have gout, gout patients may not always have uric acid stones, but urinary stones do have a part because of high uric acid and lead to stones. Uric acid stones are prevented in the same way that gout is prevented. In terms of diet, it is important to avoid high purine foods. For example, red meat, animal offal, seafood, beer, red wine, old fire soup are high purine food. 3, infected stones: control infection. Many of the female urinary stone patients are caused by urinary tract infections. Due to the presence of urinary tract infections bacteria produce urease can catalyze the decomposition of urea into ammonia and carbon dioxide, ammonia and then combined with water into ammonium hydroxide. When the urine pH reaches 7,2, ionized ammonium can combine with magnesium and phosphate in the urine to form magnesium ammonium phosphate. When the magnesium ammonium phosphate in the urine reaches a supersaturated level, crystals are precipitated. However, these crystals adhere to the epithelium of the urinary tract and, over time, form stones. This type of urinary stone has a high recurrence rate, up to 50% within a year if left unchecked. Therefore, infected stones, in addition to replenishing enough water, but also to find out what bacterial infection caused by the symptomatic medicine, control the infection, while as far as possible to take the stone clean, in order to effectively prevent recurrence. 4, pediatric cystine stones: drink more water, control protein intake. There is also a class of urinary stones belonging to cystine stones, is a kind of hereditary stones caused by too much cystine in the urine. This type of stone usually develops at a very young age and is prone to recurrence. However, this type of stone has every chance of preventing recurrence if proper precautions are taken. First of all, it is necessary to ensure a daily urine output of more than 3,000 ml, in addition to alkalizing the urine. The patient must control the intake of proteins and eat a low-protein diet based on vegetables and cereals. If necessary, medication should be taken Finally, it is emphasized that for patients with complicated conditions, easy to recur, and those whose stones are still not clean after treatment, close follow-up is needed. Currently, clinical follow-up mainly takes 24-hour urine stone-forming risk factor analysis as the main means to give dietary adjustments as well as medication to patients with stones by analyzing the composition of urine, so as to achieve the purpose of preventing stone formation.