Next time you’re feeling extra thirsty, you might want to get it checked out by a doctor. A 20-year-old woman from Taiwan needed surgery to remove over 300 small stones from her right kidney.
The woman, identified as Xiao Yu, was taken to a hospital in Tainan, Taiwan, in December 2023, after she continued to complain about severe pain in her lower back and a fever. A blood test also showed an unusually high white blood cell count.
Doctors ordered a CT scan to try to determine the problem and it showed that Yu’s right kidney was full of fluid and kidney stones. The woman was placed on antibiotics, had the fluid drained from her kidney and later underwent surgery to remove the hundreds of stones.
After the surgery, it was determined that doctors ended up removing over 300 stones, all between 5 millimeters and two centimeters in size. The majority of the stones had an appearance similar to “little steamed buns.”
While a number of factors can lead to the formation of kidney stones, in this instance, the patient didn’t enjoy drinking water. She would rely on teas and juices to get her water intake, which caused chronic dehydration, a condition in which the urine becomes more concentrated and the minerals in it crystalize to form stones.