Up to one in 10 of us will get kidney stones, according to the NHS. Even teenagers are at risk from what was long seen as an older man’s affliction. Why – and what can we do to prevent them?
Donna, 33, from Suffolk, first developed the telltale signs of kidney problems 13 years ago when she experienced excruciating pain under her ribs. “I was being physically sick because of the pain, and kept going to hospital,” she says. “I was repeatedly dismissed by doctors because they couldn’t find anything on my scans. They thought I was a hypochondriac.”
She was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome and told to make lifestyle changes. “I tried different diets but nothing helped, so I learned to live with the pain,” she says. Ten years later, while living and working in Spain, she was finally diagnosed with kidney stones. “A doctor did a scan to check I wasn’t pregnant and couldn’t believe the state of my kidney.”