Kidney stones passing through is said to be to be one of the most painful things a person could go through and these photos of one of them under the microscope of a scanning electron let us see what they look like when examined in detail.
The photos are taken by the lab of Eastfield College in Dallas. The lab’s coordinator, Murry Gans, took the photographs in 2012 when an acquaintance took him to a renal stone for him to look at, as all colleagues would.
Kidney stones are formed because urine doesn’t dissolve all the components within it, including calcium and the acid uric. The two substances bond and cause these terrifying spikey crystals. If a stone is pushed from the kidney and then into the ducts which transport urine into the bladder, it may cause a large degree of pain till it’s removed from the body via the process of urination.
There’s no single reason for this accumulation. Certain metabolic diseases such as genetic disorders, diet choices can cause their growth. The size of stones can vary as well, from a stone which is small enough to pass on to those that require breaking into pieces using the help of a therapy using shock waves.
