Ask Dr. H: Flomax prescribed to help patient pass kidney stone

Question:

I'm a 38-year-old woman who recently went to the hospital for left-side pain that turned out to be a 4mm kidney stone. What was surprising was that the doctor in the emergency room sent me home with a prescription for Flomax to help the stone pass.

When I went to fill the prescription, my insurance plan wouldn't pay for it because I'm a woman and Flomax is only FDA-approved for treating a man's prostate. The stone eventually did pass without the Flomax, but have you ever heard of using it for kidney stones?

Answer: Yes. Doctors are now using the male prostate drug Flomax to aid in the passage of kidney stones - even in women. While it's not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for that use, it's a widely used and proven kidney-stone treatment.

At least nine clinical trials in the literature show that beyond the usual advice of increasing fluid intake and straining the urine to capture the stone, Flomax and the calcium-channel blocker blood pressure drug nifedipine (Procardia, Adalat) decrease the spasm of smooth muscle cells lining the junction where the two kidney ureter tubes connect with the bladder, aiding in the passage of kidney stones.

With nothing but extra fluids, pain meds, and time, a 4mm kidney stone like yours has a 60 percent chance of passing on its own. But with the addition of Flomax 0.4 mg per day for up to one month, a kidney stone will pass 2 to 6 days faster. Anyone who has experienced the pain of a kidney stone can appreciate the benefit of adding Flomax (and to a lesser degree, nifedipine).

nolead begins

Q:

I recently saw a video of a man whose skin turned permanently blue from years of ingesting liquid silver. Why would someone do such a stupid thing?

A: I'm sure he had no idea that taking liquid (colloidal) silver could, over time, turn his skin Smurf blue, and that its medicinal properties are nil to limited at best.

The medicinal use of colloidal silver goes back hundreds of years as an antibiotic and disinfectant. Before the era of penicillin, sulfa drugs, and other modern antibiotics, colloidal silver was used for short-term treatment of infections.

As modern antibiotics proved themselves to be safer and more effective, colloidal silver was largely relegated to the unregulated "alternative medicine" category.

For the last 20 years, colloidal silver has made a resurgence as an unproven alternative medical treatment for conditions like cancer, tuberculosis, HIV, and the general prevention of infection.

At present, there are no evidence-based medicinal uses for colloidal silver. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine issued an advisory warning against its use and stated that its marketing claims are unsubstantiated. Nonetheless, some people still believe it does them good.

The condition you saw is called "argyria," and is the result of long-term colloidal silver ingestion or long-term topical application for some sort of skin condition. While the folks who have turned blue from colloidal silver staining do not seem to suffer organ damage, the blue discoloration of argyria is considered irreversible. To see pictures of some blue folks, check out this Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyria.