There are a few things in life as alarming as going for a pee and out comes red urine. It can be truly shocking for the individual involved.
Having blood in your urine is called haematuria. We talk about visible and non-visible haematuria - visible haematuria is peeing red urine, non-visible haematuria is clear urine that has blood in it when you test it.
It is actually very common in the general population and for most people does not represent significant disease.
To understand how blood appears in your urine requires little more than a rudimentary knowledge of your anatomy and physiology. Your kidneys make urine by filtering your blood and cleansing it, the spare water and toxins then make up your urine. The amount of urine you make is roughly the same volume as the water you drink minus 500 mills of water that you lose in other ways.
The urine travels through the kidney and then down tubes called ureters to the bladder where it is stored. Then normally, at a socially convenient time, you pee down your water pipe - the urethra.
So where does the blood come from? Well, the answer is really at any stage of the urine’s journey.
The dirty blood arrives at the kidney ready to be cleaned. The filters in the kidney may be damaged and let through blood, this may be just a trace of blood or a little bit more blood which colours the urine red. Like ink, blood is a great dye and easily colours the urine. The urine then travels down the ureter and into the bladder. If unfortunately, you have something nasty like a tumour growing in the urinary tract then you may have blood inside your urine.
There are many other causes like kidney stones, inflammation or water work infections. However one of the greatest mantras of medical teaching is ‘painless bloody urine is a cancer of the urinary tract until proven otherwise’.
IF YOU HAVE RED URINE, GO AND SEE YOUR DOCTOR.
You have a 50% chance of something being picked up and a 20% chance that it will be cancer. If you just have a trace of blood in clear urine then the chance of your doctor finding anything is just 5% and less than 2% have cancer. That means 95% of people with a trace of blood have nothing wrong and it is normal for them. The filters in the kidney let through a few tiny red blood cells and the test is incredibly sensitive! There are some occupations such as rubber, dye or textile workers that increase the risk. However, the greatest risk is the bad boy of health, smoking!
Age is important as the chance of having a cancer increases as you get older. If you have visible haematuria then your doctor will want to see you whatever your age so, I repeat, if you have red urine, go, and see your doctor as soon as possible.
