Home remedies for kidney stones

---

Ever since my diagnosis with kidney stones, I have been a very good boy.  I drink coffee only until noon each day, and water thereafter.  I have stopped drinking Coca-Cola altogether, as one of the websites I consulted recommended discontinuing “dark beverages.” 

 

 

And then there are the home remedies.

 

 

Here’s one: six cans of Coca-Cola, twenty minutes apart.  Then puree one can of asparagus and drink the result, followed with two large glasses of water.

 

 

One of the cures recommends asparagus all by itself.

 

 

The funniest of all recommends kidney beans.  This is a great example of sympathetic magic: if a plant resembles a body part, it must be good for the health of that body part.  (See “liverwort” and “lungwort” for further examples of this.)

 

 

Here’s the thing: kidney stones hurt.  So I am tempted to try all of the above silly cures (which seem to be at least non-life-threatening), just to see if they’ll work.

 

 

But I know they won’t!  (The kidney-bean one especially.)

 

 

And the simple course recommended by my doctor – hydration, i.e. drinking lots more water than I had in the past – seems to be working, because the pain is considerably less than before.

 

 

But if the pain gets worse again, I may well try the six-Coca-Colas-and-a-can-of-asparagus cure.

 

 

It can’t possibly kill me. And who knows?  It might work.

 

 

(But probably not.)

---