What color is urine when your kidneys are failing?

Urine color is an indicative significator of a healthy kidney function. If your kidneys are not working properly, the urine color and frequency may change drastically. But this statement does not work in every case, as kidney diseases are silent killers and do not show any visible sign.

Sometimes the urine looks okay, but protein hiding in the urine can indicate severe renal impairment. So, all you need is to get yourself diagnosed and tested.

What color urine should be?

Healthy color urine is pale yellow but it can be amber-colored urine as well. The color of your urine is also dependent on your hydration level. Pale yellow urine usually comes when you drink enough water while dark is a sign of dehydration. It also means the urine is concentrated. There is a pigment called urochrome or urobilin which makes the urine appear yellow in color. The kidneys remove this byproduct from your blood and it exits your body along with the urine. The more water you intake, the lighter will be the color of the pigment while on the contrary, with less fluid, the stronger is the reaction of this pigment making urine color dark.

This is why pregnant ladies may have pale yellow urine because the blood volume gets increased and so the urine tends to have more urochrome.

What color is your urine when the kidneys are damaged?

The color of the urine at the time of kidney disease is dark-colored or red-colored because the kidneys are not working healthily at that time. The urine may have waste and some drops of blood which makes the urine also brown in color. So, if your urine color has changed there could be a possibility of damage to the filters.

However, the different urine color may have different causes for sure and they may include:

Blue or green urine

It is caused by:

  • Dyes: Some types of dyes in the food can make the urine dark green or blue in color. Also, when a person undergoes kidney function tests, the dye in the tests can turn urine blue.
  • Medications: A number of medications including amitriptyline, indomethacin, Diprivan, can cause blue or green urine.
  • Medical conditions: Hypercalcemia is a condition in which the calcium level in the blood rises. It is a rare innate condition that causes the children to have blue urine. Green urine also occurs in those who have urinary tract infections caused by pseudomonas bacteria.

Ayurvedic Medicine and Treatment for Protein Loss in the Urine

Red or pink color urine

Red urine is not always alarming and may be caused by:

  • Blood: Hematuria is a condition in which the urinary tract infections may allow red blood cells to appear in the urine. It is also caused by tumors, kidney cysts, running, kidney or bladder stones or an enlarged prostate.
  • Foods: Blackberries, beets, etc can turn urine red or pink colored.
  • Medications: Antibiotics like Rifampin which are used to cure tuberculosis may turn the urine to reddish or orange. The drugs in the medicine numb the urinary tract membrane and cause discomfort.

Orange color urine

It may result from

  • Medicines: Anti-inflammatory drugs such as sulfasalazine, phenazopyridine, laxatives, and chemotherapy drugs can also make urine orange.
  • Medical conditions: In some cases, orange urine can show up symptoms related to the conditions with your liver or bile duct, mainly when you pass light-colored stools. Dehydration can also make your urine concentrated and darker in color or maybe orange.

Dark-colored or cola colored urine

This may result from

  • Food: Eating too much of aloe, fava beans, can make your dark color.
  • Medicines: A number of drugs such as antimalarial, chloroquine, primaquine, antibiotics, metronidazole, nitrofurantoin, can cause dark or brown color urine. Such medicines are not harmful though and mostly used for treating conditions related to bladder or urinary tract infections.
  • Medical conditions: Liver and kidney-related disorders, urinary tract infections, can also urinate dark color urine.
  • Extreme exercise: Muscle injuries from exercise can rigger pink or cola-colored urine and cause kidney damage.

Cloudy urine

Cloudy urine is caused by urinary tract infections, stones, kidney-related issues, and make the urine appear cloudy.

For more information related to the kidneys, visit us at Karma Ayurveda Hospital in Delhi.

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