"I've been urinating a lot lately, and I have to get up three or four times every night, is there a kidney problem?"
"I always have a lot of foam in my urine, and the Internet says it's a kidney problem, doctor, you have to take a good look at it!"
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I am often asked similar questions by patients who are nervous after seeing changes in their urine. This attention is actually necessary because changes in urine do reflect the health of the kidneys to a certain extent.
The incidence of chronic kidney disease in mainland China is 11%, which is very high, and the pre-kidney symptoms are very hidden, which leads to many people often being in the end-stage renal disease as soon as they are discovered. Therefore, being able to correctly identify abnormal urine is undoubtedly an additional guarantee for the health of the kidneys and health.
What does normal urine look like?
First of all, look at the color, the color should be relatively clear, or pale yellow. When you drink less water or when the weather is hot, your urine may also be dark yellow.
Then there is the smell, the normal urine smell should be mild, there may be a faint odor or urine smell, but the taste is generally not very pungent.
The last is the urine output, the daily urine output of a normal person should be around 1000-2000ml, but this is not fixed. Because urine output can also be affected by factors such as age, gender, weight, and water intake, there are slight differences.
There are 4 conditions in the urine, it is likely that the kidneys have been "injured"!
(1) Foam often appears in the urine
In fact, most people will have foam in their urine, and there are many reasons for this physiological foamy urine, such as too little water intake, too much protein, too much urgency to urinate, standing when urinating, etc., which will cause foam in urine.
After discovering that the urine often foams, the first thing we need to do is to determine whether it is a physiological or pathological cause.
If you find that the foam in the urine is very fine when urinating, and the amount of foam is relatively large, and the foam cannot dissipate for a long time, you need to pay attention. This can be caused by a decrease in the kidneys' filtration function, resulting in too much protein in the urine.
(2) Urine is always yellow
Urine should normally be yellowish, but it is not set in stone, it will change depending on how we sweat, what we drink, and what we eat.
For example, the first bubble of urine in the morning is often darker, for example, if you sweat more and drink less water, the urine will also turn yellow, and when you eat a lot of carrots and drink drinks with yellow pigments, the urine will also be yellowish. Taking certain medications can also cause yellowing in the urine, such as dysentery, B vitamins and traditional Chinese medicine rhubarb.
It is important to note that this yellowing of urine naturally recovers in a short period of time and does not last long.
If you find that the urine is yellow for a long time, even like strong tea, and there are other symptoms, such as inexplicable tiredness, yellowing of the face and upper abdominal discomfort, etc., you need to pay attention, which may be a problem with the liver or gallbladder.
In addition, the following colors of urine also need to be paid attention to.
Pale red: it may be a signal of urinary tract stones, various nephritis, urinary tumors, etc.
Milky white: This is medically called "chyluria" and is generally associated with renal tuberculosis, pyometraphyophera or urinary tract infections caused by obstruction, foreign bodies, etc.
Dark red: Some patients with acute myocardial infarction, rhabdomyolysis, etc., have this color in their urine.
Rice soup color: The urine is rice soup color, and there are oil flowers, which may be related to filariasis, tuberculosis, tumors, etc.
(3) Blood in the urine
Blood in the urine, also known as hematuria. There are two types of hematuria, one is microscopic hematuria and the other is gross hematuria.
Microscopic hematuria refers to the appearance of normal urine color and needs to be determined by microscopic examination, while gross hematuria refers to the appearance of flesh-washed or blood-colored urine that can be seen with the naked eye.
In the presence of hematuria, non-disease factors should first be suspected, such as taking rifampicin drugs, sudden increase in exercise in people with little exercise, and so on.
If non-disease factors are excluded, suspicion of disease is warranted. For example, inflammation of the urinary system, tuberculosis, stones, tumors, sepsis, leukemia, aplastic anemia, systemic lupus erythematosus, acute and chronic prostatitis, cervical cancer, rectal and colon cancer, etc., can cause urethral bleeding.
In particular, if there is hematuria, but there is no pain in the body or the pain is not obvious, especially for people who smoke for a long time, drink heavily, and are over 40 years old, we must pay attention to it.
(4) Abnormal urine odor
Here is a clear indication that fresh urine is not noisy, and generally only has a faint smell of ammonia. Of course, urine smell is also affected by the food consumed many times, but this effect is short-term and will lessen with changes in eating habits.
If the following odor appears in the urine, it is necessary to pay attention.
Rotten apple smell: may be a sign of diabetic ketoacidosis;
Rancid odor: often associated with bacterial infection;
Apple sweetness: If this smell persists for a long time, beware of the possibility of diabetic ketosis;
Pungent ammonia odor: generally related to cystitis, urinary retention, etc.
To a certain extent, urine is indeed a "barometer" of human health, and it is not wrong for us to pay more attention to it. But this is not absolute, we can only take these conditions of urine as a reference, do not miss the early signs of the disease, but we can not fall into the extreme, make it absolute, not to say that there is any abnormality in urine, it must mean that some kind of disease has occurred.