How to Fight Calcium Oxalate Stones Naturally

Understanding how calcium oxalate stones form is the key to stopping them before they start. In this blog, I break down the exact stages of how these stones develop inside your kidney, the two distinct types to watch out for, and how to use that knowledge to your advantage. I also explain simple steps you can take—from hydration and diet to using potassium citrate—to naturally disrupt stone growth and fight back.

Key Takeaways:

• Urine supersaturation is the root cause of calcium oxalate stone formation.

• There are two types of stones—monohydrate (dense, hard) and dihydrate (softer, spiky).

• Stones start from a dihydrate core and grow in rings of monohydrate.

• Fighting them means addressing oxalate levels, calcium intake, and potassium citrate support.

Let’s talk about how calcium oxalate stones actually form—and how to fight them before they turn into something painful and serious.

I recently came across a fascinating study that challenged the common belief that calcium oxalate stones can't dissolve. Turns out, that's not entirely true. But what’s more important is what this study taught me about how these stones form—and how we can stop them.

In this blog, I’m going to walk you through the six stages of calcium oxalate stone formation. Once you understand how these stones grow inside your body, you'll know exactly how to fight calcium oxalate stones head-on.

Let’s break it down.

Stage 1: It All Starts with Free-Floating Crystals

Inside your kidney, you can have free-floating particles of both calcium oxalate monohydrate and calcium oxalate dihydrate.

Here’s the important part: most people—and even some medical professionals—don’t distinguish between the two. But they are very different.

• Monohydrate stones are dense, hard, and dark. These make up about 80% of stones in the U.S.

• Dihydrate stones are lighter, pale yellow, and spiky, with a much higher chance of dissolving naturally.

No matter what kind of stone you eventually pass, every calcium oxalate stone starts as a dihydrate nidus—a soft core that acts like a magnet for more particles.

But why are these particles even floating around in your urine?

This happens when your urine becomes supersaturated—too much calcium and oxalate in too little fluid. It’s like adding too much salt to water; the extra salt just floats around, unable to dissolve.

And that’s where stones begin. 

How to Combat Supersaturation

This is a key moment for prevention. You can fight this early stage by:

• Reducing high-oxalate foods in your diet

• Increasing calcium intake (counterintuitive but effective)

• Drinking more water

• Avoiding holding in urine, which gives crystals time to bind

These simple habits lower your risk by making it harder for crystals to clump together.

Stage 2: The Crystal Grows

Once the dihydrate crystal starts forming, it acts like a magnet.

More and more particles begin to stick to it, and the core gets bigger. At first, it’s mostly more dihydrate, but that won’t last long. 

Stage 3–4: Monohydrate Takes Over

Eventually, monohydrate crystals begin to show up. And this is where things start to get dangerous.

These dense crystals begin eroding the softer dihydrate core, digging in and forming what looks like a layered ring system.

If you’ve ever seen a geode or a sliced crystal with concentric rings, that’s basically what’s happening inside your kidney.

These layers are made of calcium oxalate monohydrate, and they make the stone harder, bigger, and much more difficult to dissolve or pass.

Why Shape Matters

An interesting thing happens depending on where the stone is forming.

• Stones that form freely in urine, like calcium oxalate monohydrate, tend to be round, teardrop, or oval-shaped.

• Stones that grow against a surface—like in a small pocket of the kidney—take on flat backs with sharp protrusions.

The shape of the stone actually tells us where in the kidney it formed. That alone gives us more insight into how to fight it. 

Stage 5: Hollow Core and Hybrid Stones

As the monohydrate layers build up, they sometimes erode the dihydrate core entirely, leaving a hollow space or just remnants inside.

This is why so many people pass mixed-type stones—a soft center of dihydrate with a hard shell of monohydrate.

At this point, the stone has become much harder to break down. It’s layered, dense, and now growing from the inside out.

Stage 6: The Fully Formed Monohydrate Stone

Eventually, some stones lose their dihydrate core altogether and become pure monohydrate stones. These are the hardest stones to pass or treat.

But again, understanding how they form gives us a strategy to fight back.

So, How Do You Fight Calcium Oxalate Stones?

We now know that the stone starts from urine supersaturation and becomes more dangerous as monohydrate crystals take over.

Here’s how I fight them—and how you can too.

1. Reduce Urine Supersaturation

Start by targeting the very condition that causes the stone to begin forming.

• Eat less oxalate (think spinach, beets, almonds)

• Eat more calcium (yes, really—it binds oxalate in the gut)

• Drink more water

• Urinate frequently to keep particles moving

This stops the early-stage dihydrate crystals from becoming larger.

2. Add Potassium Citrate

This is the next layer of defense.

When stones start forming concentric monohydrate rings, potassium citrate can help. It reduces stone formation by making your urine more alkaline and dissolving the early stages of crystallization.

But here’s the catch.

Most synthetic potassium citrate supplements are hard for your body to use. They’re not well absorbed, and they often go right through you.

That’s why I prefer natural, food-based potassium citrate, like the kind we use in Cleanse, our herbal supplement.

When potassium citrate comes from whole foods and herbs, your body knows exactly what to do with it. It doesn’t need to work overtime to convert it. You get better results with smaller doses.

The Bottom Line

If you’re asking how to fight calcium oxalate stones, the answer lies in understanding their lifecycle.

They start small. They start soft. But once they start layering with monohydrate crystals, they become the enemy we all dread.

You can fight them off by:

• Preventing urine supersaturation

• Reducing oxalate and increasing calcium

• Staying hydrated

• Using natural potassium citrate to halt stone growth

It’s not about doing one big thing. It’s about stacking the small wins that keep your kidneys clean and pain-free.

And trust me—I’ve been through it enough times to know that prevention is way easier than passing one of these things.

Stay hydrated. Stay educated. And keep fighting.