BLOOD IN THE URINE Greetings, my friends. This topic reminds me of my time at the Regional Hospital in Cape Coast. The Doctors and nurses were rounding on patients one morning when a young man was presented to us. He said he had been seeing blood in his urine for months. After conferring for sometime, we decided that it might be Schistosomiasis, a parasitic infection acquired by bathing or fetching water from contaminated rivers. The patient was started on medication and due to difficulty in getting lab results sent home to follow up in a month. As luck would have it, he followed up with me. When I tracked down his urine examination results, it did not confirm the suspected diagnosis. Confirming diagnosis-- or the suspected disease, is particularly important in diseases that involve blood in urine. Sometimes, blood is obviously visible in the urine and sometimes, it can only be detected by special tests. Whether the blood is visible to the naked eye or not does not correlate with how serious the illness may be. Sometimes medications and other things may render the urine dark brown when there is no blood in the urine. As one of my Professors used to say, two things that get people to a Doctor quickly are pain and blood. When one has blood in the urine, its significance depend on age, quantity, gender and other associated complaints by the patient or findings by the Doctor. For instance, when a woman in her reproductive years has blood in her urine, the first inquiry should be about her period-- blood from the period can accidentally appear in urine. The causes of bloody urine are many and varied. It can be from a bladder infection. In this case, the person would also complain of frequency of urination, painful urination, discomfort in the front or the back and maybe fever. In this case, after the treatment, the urine should be retested to confirm that there is no blood. Another fairly important cause of bloody urine is kidney stones. This is accompanied by pain that is, according to women, as bad as that of childbirth. It can also be due to kidney inflammation that may be non-infectious, like Glomerulonephritis and Nephritic syndrome. In this case, the examination of the urine will show changes that help in the diagnosis. Another group of illnesses that may produce blood in the urine are kidney and bladder cancers. These cancers, in addition to the blood in the urine, may produce other complaints and findings by the Doctor, like backpain and weight loss. Next, there are general diseases that may lead to blood appearing in the urine. Amongst these are Systemic Lupus and Endocarditis. Finally, in men, prostate problems may manifest as blood in the urine-- in which case there may be other problems-- including difficulty in passing urine. From these causes and others not mentioned here, it is obvious that the causes of this condition are very varied. Investigations may involve just looking at the urine with the naked eye or the microscope. It may also involve complex analysis, like the volume and concentration of urine or complex imaging studies and even biopsies, together with blood tests. In many cases, it may require evaluation by specialists, including Urologists, Nephrologists and Gynecologists. The most important point to take from here is that blood in the urine should never be ignored. Depending on the cause, treatment may range from antibiotics to complex surgery and radiation treatment. Do pass on the message to loved ones and friends and stay blessed.
Posted on: Mon, 26 May 2014 03:31:25 +0000
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