Raw milk and kidney stones

I know that raw milk has enzymes that processed milk doesn’t so I’m wondering if it causes kidney stones like processed milk does? My father always loved milk and had to give it up years ago because of stones, quite possibly around the same time milk started being strictly (for us) a heavily processed CAFO product.

I dont have any experience though I thought kidney stones were caused by other foods, ect.

Has your dad tried taking Magnesium citrate for preventing kidney stones?

Here is a thread with suggestions:

https://permies.com/t/151731/Natural-remedies-kidney-stones

It was my understanding that milk is thought to help prevent kidney stones. I have no personal experience, though. A friend who used to live in my area had problems with oxalate crystals/stones. Milk consumption was suggested. His incidence of oxalate problems was greatly reduced with generous milk consumption.

Perhaps it depends upon what type of crystals your father’s body was producing. Oxalate is just one type.

many years ago my father had kidney stones and was told to avoid anything with calcium, but that advice has mostly been turned on its head, as now it's understood (as Su Ba notes) that in many cases it's the oxalates that cause the problems, and milk binds with them. I also had kidney stones for some years when I was not consuming dairy, but once I resumed, they never returned (knock on every piece of wood around me, because that was no fun). I assume our class of stones was calcium oxalate, since I ate a lot of greens at that time... never managed to "catch" a stone for analysis.
But it all depends on what kind of stones he has....
The University of Chicago used to have a fabulous kidney stone resource center; it's fallen into disrepair and a lot of the links are dead, but some still work and there is some good information. Anyone who deals with kidney stones may find it useful. https://kidneystones.uchicago.edu/2018/06/10/fluids-diet-and-meds-for-common-stones/  also general explanations https://kidneystones.uchicago.edu/by-topic/

I am a kidney stone veteran.  I have had somewhere north of 30 kidney stones!  They are absolutely horrible--among the worst possible pain one can imagine.

What I have been told is to avoid calcium and to try to acidify liquids.  The calcium part is obvious as most kidney stones are made of calcium.  The acidification part is to help dissolve and break up kidney stones that have already formed inside kidneys.  Fun fact:  pretty much everyone has what I will call "Kidney Dust"--absolutely tiny, sand sized or smaller kidney stones that form on a regular basis.  Those are so small that they pass without any problems and we are all blissfully unaware of their presence.  The real troublemakers are the stones that get to about 4mm-10mm in size (account for a little variance here).  These stones are small enough that they start to pass out of the kidney through the ureter and head towards the bladder, but the ureter is somewhat funnel shaped, starting at about 10mm in size up at the kidney and necking down to about 4mm as it empties into the bladder.  These medium sized stones start to move but get stuck somewhere in the ureter.  When pressure builds up and they try to move, their grinding against the ureter is what causes the unimaginable pain.  If they sit still, the pain goes away.  Larger that about 10mm and one generally does not feel the tremendous pain of a kidney stone, but they are big enough that they still cause problems.  Even though they are generally too big to even start fitting into the ureter, they can block the ureter and there can be serious kidney problems, but these generally manifest differently than what we typically refer to as a kidney stone.

Alright, after that bit, a bit back to earth.  My wife has recommended that I drink more water to flush through all the "Kidney Dust" and keep it from accumulating.  This is somewhat convenient for her to recommend as she can pick when she needs to go the bathroom and just go.  I can't easily do that as I have to wait for my prep period or lunch which means that I have to strategically pick just how much water I drink.  On the other hand, she has also recommended that I juice up a lemon and add the lemon juice to my water bottle every morning which I enthusiastically do.  This acidifies the water.  Acidification reacts with the kidney stones which are basic in nature and helps to break them down, or even better, helps to prevent them from forming in the first place.

I don't know what this says about milk.  Milk has a lot of calcium and it is basic--the exact opposite of what one wants in terms of Ph.

I wish I had better news or more information, but at the moment I can't exactly recommend milk as a way of preventing kidney stones.  I am NOT saying don't drink milk by any means.  I just don't know how it would reduce kidney stones.

I have no idea if this helps or just complicates, but these are my two cents.  Please take from them what you want or ignore altogether if feel appropriate.


Eric