Blood in urine? Know the causes and treatment

Is there blood in your urine? Find out why!

Our kidney makes urine by filtration of blood. This passes through to the ureters and then to the bladder where it is stored till the bladder gets full. When a person gets the urge to urinate, the urine passes through to the urethra and is excreted.

It is rather alarming to spot blood in your urine. It is usually a symptom of an underlying illness which may be serious or not. When there is blood in urine, the condition is called hematuria. Though there is no treatment for hematuria by itself, the condition causing it can be detected, diagnosed and treated.

Causes of hematuria

Sometimes the cause of blood in the urine can be something non-alarming like:-

• Menstruation
• Vigorous exercise
• Intercourse
• Viral infection
• Injury to the kidneys
• UTI

But, sometimes, it could be the symptom of a much larger problem. Some common causes for concern include:-

• Kidney stones
• Kidney infections
• Bladder infections
• Kidney disease
• Enlarged prostate
• Certain medications
• Tumour in one of the urinary tract structures

Symptoms of hematuria

Hematuria is pretty easy to detect as urine that should be a pale yellow may have a pinkish or reddish hue. If it is noticeable to the naked eye, it is called gross hematuria. Sometimes, the signs of hematuria may be detected in the laboratory when a urine sample is given for testing. You may be completely unaware that you have blood in the urine. This is called microscopic hematuria.

There may be other symptoms that accompany hematuria depending on what the underlying cause is.

• If the underlying cause is a bladder infection, there may be burning or pain when urinating.
• If the cause is a kidney infection, symptoms may include high fever, pain in the lower back and chills.
• Kidney stones could cause pelvic pain or abdominal pain. There may be water retention, swelling and puffy eyes.

How is hematuria diagnosed?

Your doctor will assess your medical history, followed by urinalysis and urine cytology. Blood tests could alert your doctor to signs of kidney disease. Additional imaging tests that will be done could include:-

• A CT scan
• Ultrasound of the kidneys
• Intravenous pyelogram (X-ray using a dye)
• Cystoscopy (A small tube with a camera is inserted through the urethra to get tissue samples from the bladder to test for malignancy)
• Renal biopsy (Small tissue sample from the kidney is removed through a laproscopic procedure to test for cancer cells)

Treatment of hematuria

The patient will be treated for the underlying cause of hematuria. Once the underlying condition has been treated, a urinalysis will be redone to check for blood cells in the urine. If you still have blood in the urine, you may be referred to a urologist. If there is no underlying cause, you may be asked to do a follow up urine test to check if blood is still present in the urine.

Kauvery Hospital is globally known for its multidisciplinary services at all its Centers of Excellence, and for its comprehensive, Avant-Grade technology, especially in diagnostics and remedial care in heart diseases, transplantation, vascular and neurosciences medicine. Located in the heart of Trichy (Tennur, Royal Road and Alexandria Road (Cantonment), Chennai, Hosur, Salem, Tirunelveli and Bengaluru, the hospital also renders adult and pediatric trauma care.

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