Urine Test for Remedy Effectiveness

Dear Kelly: So you want a home test urine to know which remedies which responds to your specific kidney stones. I was already doing the same experiments just before opening your email. In order to answer that question, I had to prepare my own set of in vitro test (test tube test), which is basically peeing in a small cup of urine to perform the needed test to know what works for you. However, let's clear the basics first without a lot of going around in circles, where other websites seems to be doing a great job anyway, so you are free to visit them if you want more basic information. Here we just deal with getting ourselves cured, which is sufficient. Basically, there are many components of the stones which leads to kidney stones. All you need to know is the MAJOR components of kidney stones are basically

1. Calcium phosphate (or Tricalcium phosphate, and others in that similar category)

2. Calcium Oxalate

The other issue is if you have the "other stones" basically those other stones will either dissolve itself in either an acid medium or an alkaline medium. That is basically how it works. To simulate a calcium oxalate needed to perform the experiments, I didn't have calcium oxalate handy with me. But I do have oxalic acid. So if I mixed a small amount of oxalic acid DISSOLVED in the urine sample, I would easily get a cloudy solution, made up of mostly calcium oxalates. Calcium oxalate is perceived by the internet world as the most difficult to resolve. With that sample, I divided them into two small cups of the cloudy urine made up of mostly calcium oxalate. In one small cup I place citric acid, which is basically acid and it is the same as lemon juice. In another small cup I placed a sodium citrate (it's just lemon and baking soda for you), which is basically an alkaline solution where pH is about 8. The key is not how much you add, but how much you need to add to get the desired pH, in an alkaline medium which is perceived to be an "attainable" pH in vivo. A normal human urine pH can attain between a range of 5 to 7.5 quite safely when it is done during a brief period. In fact most people's urine pH are in that range anyway. So I am not pushing on the extreme. So, if I would add citric acid just enough to get pH of 5, I would stop, (it can get lower such as 4.5, but that is not attainable in-vivo-your body easily). The other alkaline solution I add enough sodium citrate to get a pH of 7.5. After waiting for about 15 minutes a sodium citrate have some tiny bubble going up, and then another 15 minutes, the solution of the alkaline became clear, while the acid urine pH remains cloudy. So to dissolve the calcium oxalate stone, it requires that you take sodium citrate. Since you will be taking this in fairly large amounts, most whole lime are rather small and it is often equivalent to about 8 teaspoon of lime juice. The amount of baking soda needed to get a sodium citrate is 1/2 teaspoon per lime fruit. So if I am planning to make 20 limes to drink per day, then I will need 20 x 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. In conclusion, for the calcium oxalate: sodium citrate works, but not lemon. So the hard part is done.

The second part is easier. I mixed a tricalcium phosphate (sometimes they have other form of calcium phosphate) and they are generally the same. As I understood the larger component of the kidney stones is actually made up of more calcium phosphate, I don't know but studies do show that when dissolving those stones, most of it they obtain is actually more than 60% to be calcium phosphate (it can be quite possibly as high as 80%). With the same procedure I add a tricalcium phosphate and dissolve them in a small cup and divided equally to two small cups. Then in one cup, I did exactly the same procedure, which is basically citric acid to attain a pH of 5 and another solution is sodium citrate to attain a pH of 7.5. After about 20-30 minutes, I looked for which solution is clearer, meaning that the clear solution has just dissolved the tricalcium phosphate. As it turns out the citric acid (acid solution) with pH of 5 dissolve the calcium phosphate, while the alkaline solution did not. So the way to dissolve THIS kind of stone is to drink plenty of lemon juice or citric acid, or ascorbic acid, for example.

Now how about YOUR urine. That's simple, just don't do any remedy for a day and make sure the urine becomes cloudy again. The most difficult part of the experiment is to get the citric acid, if you can get them from a supermarkets. Sometimes they might have it. But most bakery supply store do have it so they can make the taste sour in their icing or cakes. When you add citric acid, to the cloudy urine sample you can add as much as you wish and wait for about 30 minutes to see if it responds to dissolving them. If the urine doesn't respond to them, then it is likely that the urine is composed mostly of calcium oxalate, which responds better to sodium citrate alkaline medium. On the other hand if it does get clearer, then make your own lemon juice as much as you wish without much too water to make it more acid, and or take plenty of ascorbic acid vitamin C. If you are a skeptic, then you need to spend more money by getting a pH meter, and baking soda and see if it responds to alkaline solution also, when compared to the citric acid and compare side by side, just to be sure. If it does respond to this alkaline solution, then it is a calcium oxalate. You need to be careful when making sodium citrate, where baking soda is added to citric acid, until the pH solution reaches 8 then wait for reaction to stop before adding to the solution. Or you can always buy a sodium citrate from a chemical supplier.

Now the problem about all this is a stone has two components and in some case people (worse case) who have tried the lemon formula that did not worked, were either not taking enough lemon, add too much water, and did not take it long enough. Or if they DID take it long enough, then most of the stones are NOW calcium oxalate, in which case, a taking plenty of lemon with baking soda to get a sodium citrate is needed to dissolve the rest of the stones. Another variation is seen by taking lemon straight one day and the next day it is lemon with baking soda. The proportion is add just enough baking soda to get the pH of near 8, or a minimum of 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda per one lime fruit. So if you are planning to drink 5 lime fruit that day, it will require 1/2 x 5 teaspoon of baking soda to have sufficient sodium citrate to remove the calcium oxalate from the solution. By alternativing between acid and alkaline this will dissolve both the calcium phosphate and the calcium oxalate portion. The above home test is a simple test that I might do on myself so that I don't have kidney stones. Basically my approach is actually prevention of kidney stones which is basically is to have sufficient baking soda so that the intestines will have sufficient bicarbonates to neutralize the oxalic acid before it enters your intestines, goes into the bloodstream and become a stone. In the same likelihood that I eat too much phosphate, phosphoric acid may form and without sufficient bicarbonate to neutralize that, the phosphoric acid enters the blood stream to form calcium phosphate.

If you eat too much meats and phosphate rich foods, as well as excess calcium supplements (there's a conspiracy theory there) and food with high calcium, chances are your stones usually a good chance is a calcium phosphate. On the other hand, if you are a vegetarian, calcium oxalate is a greater chance, especially if the foods are rich with beans, nuts, cocoa, chocolate, etc. Then the remedy for that still will be baking soda. While lastly if you eat too much uric acid rich foods, such as oysters, bamboo, certain meats (liver), octopus, cucumbers, for example until you get a gout. Taking plenty of baking soda and 5-10 mg of lithium citrate would help. Lithium dissolve uric acid directly, but also baking soda dose slowly dissolved that. For some reason, there's a pattern in many Western diets, that the diets are deficient in alkaline buffers (e.g. baking soda), and the food are acid forming causing many kinds of sickness we see today. Easy way to tell is if urine pH is below neutral of 7. Most are like that. One recent accidental finding that I wasn't looking for is taking plenty of iodine supplements also helps normalize pH too, but the body still needs bicarbonates, citrates, etc. It is just that iodine helps the body control pH for a longer period without the frequency of taking them. The reason for that is iodine normalizes glandular function which is involved in water balance, hormones, pH, and a lot of other glandular activity which on many ocassions if taken in the right amount is actually a fountain of youth. Finally don't count on using other alkaline or acid chemicals. I tried that. Citrates and citric acid are the best form to chelate or remove excess calcium out of the body, while baking soda is seen as a preventive toward kidney stone formation. Eating too much of anything is not good either. The best calcium phosphate chelator, actually is disodium EDTA, but unfortunately it is not easy to find, so we can leave that one out for now.

Hello, This is very interesting. I have a huge stone which is beleived to be calcium oxalate due to it showing up on xray and also my acidic urine.

It is interesting you found citric acid did not dissolve the crystals as I have done the lemon juice tx several times and still have the stone. However, I think baking soda did make it smaller. At teh same time as doing the lemons, I was doing baking soda (not at the same time, diff days). My pH was quite high - 7. 5 or 8. A 1. 6cm stone broke into 4 pieces measuring 3, 3, 2, 1 mm which was great but unfortunately it grew again. I wonder if it was the baking soda that broke it down. Is that possible?

Do you know of anyone who used the sodium citrate to dissolve their calcium oxalate stone (as measured by xray or ultrasound )?

Many find success with lemons - I wonder if they have calcium phosphate?

Finally, some may have combination stones so may need to do different methods.

I'm facing surgery to remove mine so I'm really hoping this works for me.

Ted- I am a combination stone maker- 60% cal phosphate and 40% cal oxalate. I am curious to try this 2 prong approach to try and dissolve my stone. I have a question about the lemons though. My understanding is that while lemons are quite acidic, once they are introduced into the body they have an alkaline effect. How does this factor in if at all? Thanks. Also how much lemon per day and how much water can be added or is it better undiluted?