Prevention

After you have had a kidney stone, you are more likely to have stones again. But you can take steps to help prevent them:

• Drink more fluids. Try to drink enough water to keep your urine light yellow or clear like water, about 8 to 10 glasses of water a day. Slowly increase how much you drink, perhaps adding one more glass of water a day until you are drinking 8 to 10 glasses a day. This slow increase will give your body time to adjust to the extra fluids. You are drinking enough water when your urine is clear or light yellow. If it is dark yellow, you are not drinking enough fluids. If you have kidney, heart, or liver disease and have fluid restrictions, talk with your doctor before increasing how much you drink.
• Change your diet. This may be helpful, but it depends on what is causing your kidney stones. Your doctor may do more tests before deciding whether changing your diet will help reduce your risk for getting another stone.

For more information on diet and kidney stones, see:

Kidney Stones: Preventing Kidney Stones Through Diet.

Medicine

If you get more kidney stones despite drinking more fluids and making changes to your diet, your doctor may give you medicine to help dissolve your stones or to prevent new ones from forming. For more information, see Medications.

Home Treatment

Home treatment—drinking more fluids and taking pain medicine—is often the only thing you need to do when passing a kidney stone.

Drink fluids

When you are passing a kidney stone, you need to drink enough water to keep your urine light yellow or clear like water, about 8 to 10 glasses of water a day. If you have kidney, heart, or liver disease and are on fluid restrictions, talk with your doctor before drinking more fluids.

Use pain medicine

Medicine you can buy without a prescription, such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), may relieve your pain. NSAIDs include aspirin and ibuprofen (such as Motrin and Advil). Your doctor can prescribe stronger pain medicine if needed.