Kidney Stones!

[Andrew]

Soft drinks are made from filtered water, but they also contain lots of other stuff - like coloring, high fructose corn syrup, etc.  If you have really hard water, installing a water softening system might be a good idea.  You can also go with distilled water.  However, unless the mineral content of the water is unreal, I wouldn't worry about it.  In general, most doctors recommend more water, because it makes you urinate more often and the common theory is that helps prevent stones from forming.

Also, exercise will help regulate your body. 

Extreme exercise can lead to deficiencies.  Used to run with another SSgt years ago and he started losing his (head) hair in patches.  They tried everything.  It turned out he was running so much that he was anemic, he needed to increase his iron intake.  I've heard of calcium deficiencies in hardcore cyclists and runners, too.

[Menard]

Soft drinks are made from filtered water, but they also contain lots of other stuff - like coloring, high fructose corn syrup, etc.

Would you like a list of what all tap water contains?

It is pretty long.

Coloring and high fructose corn syrup are used in many foods and there is nothing wrong with them as ingredients; especially if you compare them to the ingredients in tap water.

[Rev. Powell]

If you haven't shown blood on a UA, it's hard to think it was a kidney stone.  I assume that has been done, and blood has been shown.

UA showed no blood, although it was done weeks ago.  I've decided I almost certainly don't have kidney stones; what I have is an infection, and anxiety about the possibility of kidney stones. 

I wish the doc had never mentioned the possibility, after originally ruling them out.  I'm sure it was a CYA move.  But she had no way of knowing I was particularly susceptible to hypochondria on this one condition. 

Thanks everyone for the advice and support.     

[Patient7]

A lot of men in my family have gotten kidney stones so I'm  taking a page out of my brother's book and drinking a lot more water, I'm pretty much addicted to soft drinks so I need to get out of that anyway.

1) Read what I wrote about tap water.

2) Soft drinks are made from filtered water, as is most any commercial beverage, in order to maintain a consistency in taste and clarity. Quite frankly, soft drinks are better for you than what comes out of your tap. If you want to drink lots of water, stay with distilled or reverse osmosis filtered water.

REALLY???

I should probably read up on the subject.

[Zapranoth]

Soft drinks tend to contain caffeine, which is a diuretic and can produce a relative dehydration in enough of a dose.  I tend to advise against it in people with kidney stones.  Water is the key.  Lots of it, flowing through the collecting system, reduces the concentration of many solutes so that a nidus doesn't form as readily to create a stone.

There are other measures that can be taken to prevent stone formation, too, depending on the composition of what one forms... lots of stuff about that online, it's tedious reading.