What is the likelihood that exercise is causing blood in my urine?
I’ve had exercise-induced hematuria (from jogging). I remember the doc (at the university medical practice) saying that he saw quite a lot of it in young men. Of course, he did a urine test anyway. I think he described it as being a bit like a nosebleed, like the exercise had just broken a blood vessel somewhere in the urinary system. Probably not relevant, but I’ve also twice experienced quite copious bleeding after sex in a position which I will not specify here but needless to say will not be trying again. I don’t know what this means except that I guess it is quite easy to bust blood vessels down there.
Hematuria can occur after exercise that involves vigorous shaking and jarring of the body; think of racecar drivers and people who ride motorcycles with no shocks, like sourwookie. On the other hand, you could have myoglobinuria. This results from overuse of muscles causing them to break downand release their contents into the blood. This can be serious, even leading to kidney failure if untreated, but the treatment (good hydration as seawallrunner mentioned and maybe something to alkalinize the urine) is simple and effective. A description with some links to more info is here; definitely worth a visit to the doc, as you are planning.
I had that after running my first 50km run. Now, because I trained for some months for this ultramarathon, and was a member of the ULTRA discussion group on a listserv, the possibility of this was not unknown to me. Previous AskMe posters explained how this pinkness happens. Still it’s a bit unnerving to see dark yellow/pink urine staring back at me from the bowl. But my advice to you, Fat Guy, is to DRINK WATER! Lots and lots of water – esp now that you have a personal trainer (good news – have one too, this is an excellent way to get in shape) Try this – one litre before exercise, one litre after, one litre while you exercise. Then two more litres the rest of the day. Your urine should have little colour if at all – except when you first go in the morning.
It’s never happened to me personally, but it’s not uncommon. Definitely get it checked out though, as it’s what we call a ‘diagnosis of exclusion.’ That’s a fancy way of saying we like to feel sure that there’s no nasty reasons for it to have happened, before we ascribe it to this benign thing called exercise induced hematuria. Exercise induced hematuria is thought to be caused by a floppy bladder posterior wall banging against the anterior, muscular trigone repeatedly, causing a sort of bruising. Bruised mucous membrane like bladder wall leaks blood as part of the bruising process. Support for this theory is found in the observed fact that exercising with a half-full (half-empty?) bladder tends to decrease or eliminate the bleeding. Don’t worry, just let the doctors do their thing.
