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Medullary sponge kidney: the signs, the tests, kidney stones and infections, and prevention
For someone who has, or may have, medullary sponge kidney (also called Cacchi-Ricci disease), and the people beside them. It passes on, by name, what the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK, part of the NIH) says: what it is, who gets it, what causes it, the signs, when to call, the imaging tests, treating infections and kidney stones, and the medicines, liquids and food that may help prevent the next one. It builds the questions to ask and prints a wallet card. Nothing is saved.
A word with a dotted line under it, like this, opens its official definition, quoted from a U.S. government glossary.
Right now
- Fever and chills, pain in your back, side or groin, cloudy or bloody urine, or vomiting? NIDDK says to see or call a health care provider as soon as possible. Pain too much to bear, cannot keep liquids down, or cannot reach your provider: go to urgent care or an emergency room today (ours).
- Someone very ill, confused, fainting, or hard to wake? Call 911 (ours).
- Thoughts of suicide, or all too much? Call or text 988, any hour, free (ours).
More help
- On this site: Kidney stones · Bladder infection (UTI) · Kidney infection · Blood in the urine · Back pain · Kidneys, bladder and urine: find the right page.
- Tests and procedures: Urinary tract imaging · Cystoscopy or ureteroscopy. Other kidney pages: When it’s your kidneys · Polycystic kidney disease · Kidney disease in children · My medicines.
- When it is hard to pay: When you need a doctor and can’t pay · Medical bills. Getting ready: Get ready for your appointment.
- In an emergency: Help right now (988, 911). All our free tools.
Kidneys, bladder or urine, and not sure this is the right page? The pages on this site for bladder infections, kidney stones, blood in the urine, bladder pain, bladder leaks, the prostate, kidney disease and bedwetting, on one list.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No doctor or nurse has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 20, 2026 on NIDDK’s (NIH) page Medullary Sponge Kidney (last reviewed August 2015, so some advice may have changed since). The numbers (about 1 person in 5,000; 12 to 20 percent of people with calcium-based kidney stones; about 2 to 2.5 quarts of urine a day; meat limited to 6 to 8 ounces a day; 1,000 or 1,200 milligrams of calcium a day) are NIDDK’s, and we add none. The medicine names are only the ones NIDDK names, and we give no doses. Ours: when to go to urgent care or an emergency room; the 911 line; taking an antibiotic the way it was prescribed; saying so before a test if contrast dye has given you a reaction; 988; the questions to ask; the card; the links to our other pages; and the order of the steps. What we left out: NIDDK’s section on research studies and its references. Nothing you tick or type here is saved or sent.