Last night I passed a little amount of blood with my urine. It happened only once. I am male and 47. What could it be? Any one who had the same problem? Hell I am scared! Please advise.
It might be an early indication of a kidney problem, or it might be the urethra. I had this same problem a few years ago and had it checked out by a doctor. They took some x-rays of my kidneys but found nothing, then they checked out the plumbing with a urethroscopy (which basically means they go up there with a mini-camera). It wasn’t fun, but they ruled out anything serious. The doctor’s explanation was that sometimes things like this just happen for no good reason.
My advice would be not to panic and not to worry. Get it checked out - it might be a very minor thing, or it might be nothing at all…
Let us know how it goes.
Don’t panic.
There are lots of possible causes some are serious and some require no treatment at all. Only your doctor and the tests she orders will solve the mystery.
Good luck.
On preview I see that Bibliovore has covered how testing works - they simply try to eliminate the worst causes. Minor problems include viral infections, some kidney inflammations, some medications and benign prostate enlargement.
This happened to me… I went to the doctor and when i peed in the cup, the nurse asked me if this was really my pee. i said yeah… he said, looks like you poured a pepsi in there…
turned out to be a kidney stone… little one… the pee cleared up, but i actually didn’t pass the stone until 4 months later… had forgotten about it… but luckily it was shaped like an ibuprofen capsule and managed to come out the “comfortable” way… in fact, didn’t even notice any pain or anything until it actually exited… but being someone who gets the occassional rocks in the urine (was out a day of work last week in fact)… go to the doctor, pee in a cup, and they can tell you quickly… cause stones SUCK!
This happened to me when I was nine.
In my case, it was because of a raging strep infection in the kindeys that came close to putting me on dialysis or a transplant list.
I don’t want to scare you, and a few weeks of antibiotics cured me right up. But a trip to the doctor is a really good idea.
(Incidentally, to diagnise the infection, they had to biopsy the kidney, That led to a few days of painkillers as I passed dime-sized blood clots.) :eek:
Like Smootman said, a kidney stone can cause blood in your urine. I know, because I’ve had quite a few. But the pain from the kidney stone will make you forget about the sight of the blood real quick! :eek:
wisernow, don’t panic.
Go and see your doctor.
If you’ve been having some pain on urinating or fever it is REALLY important to tell the doc, likewise if you’ve had any back or groin pain, or suffered any trauma to your back, lower belly or groin.
You’re a little young for prostate trouble, but make sure you get a PSA blood test, just in case.
Most likely you’re looking at kidney stones, which aren’t fun, but aren’t the worst thing in the world.
Finally, just in case, have you been eating large amounts of beetroot recently?
You’d be surprised how often “blood” isn’t actually blood.
Thanks for all the support guys. I didn’t have any pain when passing urine. None at all. Zilch. In fact if I wouldn’t have looked into the w/c I wouldn’t have even known that there was blood. I have booked an appt with my doctor. Just a question though - wouldn’t there be some sort of pain in the kidney region if I had kidney stones, or could this be the first symptom itself and the pain might come later, considering it is a case of stones. I am more concerned that it does not turn out to be a case of bladder cancer. How will they diagnose that if I have one? Keeping my fingers and toes crossed…
I will!
No pain, no fever. Although my lower back (left) hurts if I stand for some time, but that I think is because of being a couch potato.
What is that and what does it establish?
Don’t kidney stones present some other symptoms besides this, like pain or something?
No beetroot. I wish I had. I could have passed the problem on to that.
I had “prostititus” in my late 20’s, inflammation of the prostate, noticed when I saw blood on the inside of a condom I was wearing at the time. Talk about buzzkill.
The shoved a camera up the urethra to check it out, put me on some pills, and all was good.
There seems to be a lot of urinary talk going on here, so may I ask some questions?
My urine is completely normal, excpt that every now and then I have little stones in my urine. I imagine they are like kidney stones but I don’t have any pain or anything. Its just kind of strange.
I’m going to start by saying IANAD, just a med student, and in Ireland, so YMMV as far as standard practice in your area goes, but I spent a rotation on a urology service, so I know a little… emphasis on LITTLE.
Merkwurdigliebe, some kidney stones are so small that they pass without any pain at all. You could have that type, but tell this to your doc, so they can check it out for you.
wisernow kidney stones can present with pain, or without pain, or with bleeding. It’s basically something they’ll look for anyway, because it’s common, it’s easy to diagnose and easy to deal with.
Lower back pain, especially if it’s a dragging, crampy sort of pain that seems to be going through your back towards your groin is characterisitc of kidney stones. But since everyone is built a little differently, YMMV, and your “couch potato” pain could be a stone. Or not.
PSA is prostate specific antigen, the levels are raised in prostate cancer, or in any inflammation of the prostate, it’s nice to know what the levels are, just so they can try to rule out prostatitis or anything else going on with it. Simple blood test, nothing too scary.
Bladder cancer is up there with worst case scenario things, don’t stress too much about it.
A proportion of bladder cancers are actually like little warty growths on the bladder wall, they go in with a camera and snip them off and check up on you every few months to see if there are any more, and then they snip those off too. I’ve seen lots of patients with that particular form of the condition, it’s dealable with, and has a good prognosis.
For any kind of urological thing there are some standard tests they do on almost everyone, these are urine and blood tests which might give a diagnosis by themselves, like a bladder infection, say. So expect to pee into cups and have several test tubes filled with blood as a given.
Usually though, they’ll also decide to to an X-ray and possibly a CT scan (painless, non-invasive) to have a look at the kidneys, ureters and bladder in more detail.
The next step, if they feel that there is still something to be diagnosed, or if there is something that needs to be investigated further, is a cystoscopy.
Basically, they’ll either put you under fully, or give you enough valium to knock you out for a little while. Then they put a fibre-optic camera up into the bladder, through the urethra. They can get a good look at the prostate, urethra and bladder, and do any procedure in that area that need to be done. If the trouble is higher up, they put the camera further up into the ureters and have a look there too.
If they see anything odd looking they’ll take a biopsy, if they see any stones, they’ll either try and take them out, break them up with sound waves, or put a tube into the ureter to widen it so the stones can pass by themselves
It sounds a LOT worse than it is, people go home, on their own feet, the same day. It’s not pleasant, and you can expect blood in the urine and stinging afterwards, but you’re not going to be in crippling pain. I’ve seen a lady have it done fully conscious, with a little lidocaine, because she didn’t want anaesthetics or valium (you gotta love the hardcore little old ladies).
As far as prostate tests go, I’m afraid it’s a rectal exam, then, if necessary, a Trans-Rectal Ultrasound of the Prostate (TRUS), where they put a probe (about the size of your index finger) into the back passage to visualise the prostate. If they’re still not happy, they’ll use a slightly larger probe to take a biopsy sample. The biopsy probe shoots a needle through the rectal wall into the prostate, when the needle retracts, it brings back the sample. They take about 6 samples at a time, and the whole thing takes about 5 minutes.
Again, that sounds a lot worse than it is, you don’t need any sedation of anaesthesia, just a couple of painkillers before and after, but you can expect blood in the urine and bowel motions for a couple of days afterwards.
You’re young for prostate stuff, so they’re more likely to focus on stones and infections.
But again, can I just say DON’T PANIC.
All of this is jumping the gun, because your symptoms are minor and we might be talking about a diagnosis of “Meh, it happens sometimes, don’t sweat it” like Bibliovore.
All of those tests I’m talking about are WAY down the line, and just something to keep at the back of your mind just in case. Most likely none of the scarier things will be necessary.
See a doc, but my thoughts are that it’s a LOT more likely to be something minor than something major.
Take care.
Did you take aspirin? Have the same problem when I take aspirin. Takes about 4 to 7 days to go away.
Thanks again guys! I have bee to my family physician this afternoon. He has advised a urine test and has marked off a lot of those line items on the chart. I don’t know what they mean though. Incidentally he has not advised a blood test. Alongwith he has also advised a renal ultrasound and I am scheduled for the two(urine and ultrasound) coming Monday. He has also refrred me to a urologist. When I was at the clinic, he expression was severe and the phrase he used that seems to worry me is “it is of concern”. He also talked about the worst case scenario of bladder cancer. The ultrasound I believe is to detect if there are stones(I don’t know how they got there especially when I have not even watched Flintstones in quite awhile). Will the ultrasound also detect bladder cancer if is exists? What is the prognosis of bladder cancer? Let me put it straight…I realize it can be something minor and I wish to Almighty God it is(though I am an aethist!), what is the prognosis for bladder cancer? Is it treatable? How many years(or months?..days?) do I have just in case it IS diagnosed as a cancer of the bladder? Shit…I am scared man…
Deep breaths.
DON’T PANIC.
Painless haematuria IS a symptom of bladder cancer, but PLEASE don’t put carts before horses, it’s a symptom of other stuff too.
Bladder cancer is responsible for 3% of cancer deaths. 5th most common type of cancer (way below prostate, skin, bowel and lung), but 12th most common cause of cancer deaths. That’s a good discrepancy.
If it is caught early, when there is no muscle involvement, there is an 80-90% 5-year survival rate (which is good), obviously, the more advanced the cancer the worse the prognosis.
You’re young, you’ve gone to the doc the FIRST time you noticed anything wrong and you don’t seem to have any other symptoms, so advanced disease is a HIGHLY UNLIKELY SCENARIO.
Like I said, early tumours, they just go in and snip them off, no muss, no fuss.
If it’s more advanced than that, they consider more radical surgery, radiotherapy and possibly chemo.
But you can cross those bridges IF you come to them.
The urine test will be looking for abnormal cells, the ultrasound will tell if everything is the right size and shape, and if there are any stones irritating the linings of all the various tubes.
If they’re worried for any reason, they’ll do a cystoscope.
And on most cystoscopies they don’t find anything suspicious, I’ve sat through enough normal ones on people with unexplained haematuria to know that.
This must be scary, and I’m worried that I’m giving you a total information overload and scaring you worse.
To be honest, I cannot believe your doctor would even mention cancer at the first meeting, you’re supposed to rule out the more benign things before you terrify your patients, like you obviously have been.
If you smoke, now might be a good time to quit, when you’re motivated. It is a risk factor for cancer of the bladder.
just had my first introduction to kidneys stones lately- started off exactly the same way. one day whilst whizzzing I let loose a cascade of what looked like “Red Zinger” tea, which scared the bejabbers out of me, although it cleared up quickly. A few weeks later came a bout of severe abdominal pain, accompanied by the feeling that I had just been kicked in the testicles.
I’ll spare you the rest, since it’s almost all been said. The only thing I would add regarding stones is that they come in different…flavors, if you will, depending on the etiology, so if you do pass something, you might want to hold on to it and bring it to you doctor for analysis. In my case, it was mainly oxalic acid, which hopefully means I can keep things in check with minor dietary inconveniences, such as avoiding spinach (Yay!!! I gotta excuse not to eat my vegetables!!!)