It may cause lot of anxiety and fear when you see blood in your urine. Blood in urine also known as hematuria, when present certainly needs medical attention. Blood in urine may change the color of the urine to dark brown, brick red or pink. Many times you may find streaks of blood in the urine.
Hematuria is of two types, gross hematuria and microscopic hematuria. In gross hematuria, you can observe blood in urine with your naked eye; the urine is dark red in color. In microscopic hematuria, plenty of red blood cells are visible under the microscope only.
Many times abnormal dark red colored urine is mistaken as blood in urine. Eating foods such as beets, blackberries, or foods containing artificial coloring can change the color of urine to pink or dark red. Many medications are also known to change the color of your urine. Bleeding from the genital area can also be mistaken as blood in urine. Blood in urine can occur in all ages and in both genders.
What Are The Causes Of Blood In The Urine?
Blood in urine may be due to problems in organs of the urinary tract. The problems may arise from kidneys, ureter, bladder, the urethra and the prostate gland. However, if these organs are not involved, your doctor may suspect bleeding disorders.
Causes related to urinary tract:
- Urinary tract infection: It is the commonest cause for blood in urine. UTI is more common in females than in males. This is because women have short urethra (tube that carries urine from the bladder) than males. It occurs when the bacteria enters into the bladder through the urethral opening. Urinary infection is generally caused by E coli bacteria. In most urinary tract infections, blood in urine is detected microscopically.
- Kidney infection: It usually occurs when the organisms invade the kidney through the circulating blood. It also occurs when the organisms move up to the kidney from the ureter.
- Bladder or kidney stone. You may observe gross hematuria, if the stone is in bladder or is passing through the urethra.
- Trauma to the urethra.
- Cancer of bladder and kidney: gross hematuria.
- Urinary tract injury.
- Sexually transmitted disease.
- Polycystic kidney.
- Prostate cancer.
- Tuberculosis of kidney.
Causes associated with other than those of urinary tract.
- Medications.
- Blood disorders such as hemophilia.
- Blood cancer.
- Sickle cell anemia.
- Hemorrhagic viral fever.
- Strenuous exercise and excessive running such as marathon running.
Signs And Symptoms Of Hematuria
Blood in urine may be associated with other symptoms of the underlying disease.
- Burning and painful urination.
- Weight loss.
- Fever with chills.
- Recurrent episodes of urgency and frequency of urination.
- Perineal and vulval pain and itching.
- Pain in abdomen.
- Nausea and vomiting.
- Pain in flanks.
- Clots in urine.
- Slowing of the flow of urine stream, overflow incontinence or complete retention.
- Decreased appetite.
- Pain of kidney stone may be excruciating and radiates from the lower abdomen to the groin area.
- Restlessness in case of kidney stone due to pain.
- Cloudy or brick red, or frank blood in urine.