The numbers tell us that half of all people who have had a kidney stone will develop another one.
One of the safest and easiest at home methods to reduce your risk of forming kidney stones is to drink extra water. Extra fluid intake dilutes the minerals in urine that can cause stones to develop.
To prevent the reoccurrence of kidney stones: Aim to drink at least 3 quarts (or 10, 10 ounce glasses) of water daily.
Keep in mind, this is just a guideline. If you are particularly active, or your climate is hot, you might need to drink even more water to replace any fluid loss from sweat.
If you’re not in the habit of drinking lots of water throughout the day, these 5 tips can help you hydrate in no time.
5 Tips to Help You Drink More Water:
- Make it a game. Mark lines on your water bottle, and write times of day next to each line. Throughout the day, make sure you’ve consumed the liquid line by line in order to meet your goals.
- Mix it up. Drinking water doesn’t have to be boring. You can make your water more interesting by freezing grapes or citrus peels and adding them to your water in place of ice cubes.
- Swap soda for sparkling or mineral water. If you can’t part with your daily carbonation fix, reach for soda water in place of traditional soda.
- There’s an app for that. If you’re tech savvy, you can download an app to help you track how much water you drink. Or, simply set alarms or notifications to remind you to drink up.
- Play with temperatures. If you need a warm drink to start the day, or if it’s cold outside, drink hot water with lemon and honey.
If you’ve been downing water all day, and need a break, you can have lemonade or orange juice to mix things up. Water is generally best. However, some research suggests that citrus can actually add an extra layer of protection against kidney stones. That’s because it contains citrate which prevents crystals in the urine from solidifying into stones.
