My father has blood in urine and now i'm anxious of the results..advice?

[Dynamito]

Hi guys,

basically, since wednesday morning my dad has been urinating blood. he went to the doctors later wednesday morning as an emergency appointment. he was given two sample bottles for his urine and took them back the following morning. The samples were sent off to the hospital yesterday afternoon and now he's just waiting on the results.

I am concerned for him as from the symptom checkers i have seen online, it leads to either kidney stones, urinary tract infection or bladder cancer (!) and i'm really hoping it isn't the latter. All this that is happening is not helping my anxiety levels at all and i'm finding myself getting an upset stomach, headaches and just generally worried about his health.

I am just wondering if anyone has been through a similar situation before with themselves, a family member or a friend, and what did you do to keep your anxiety levels normal?

I know there is no good in worrying before the results are back, but it just runs through my mind constantly that there's a possibility he has something sinister lurking in his body :unsure:

[snowflake293]

Hi Dynamito

I understand how worried you are. Recently my dad had a problem and I was worried it was going to be due to something nasty but I managed to resist Googling. Turns out he was fine. My best advice to you is to try not to Google if you can help it. The problem with Google is it brings up the worst case scenarios - we Google because we hope to be reassured, but all it does is feed our anxiety.

What helped me was to acknowledge my fears by writing them down, then trying to do something else - even if it was just reading a book or ringing a friend or something. It is hard to do at first when the worry is still in your head, but the more you do it the easier it becomes.

I know you are worrying over your Dad, I have terrible HA over loved ones - especially my poor boyfriend who has been 'diagnosed' with every cancer under the sun by Dr Google and his assistant (me) at some stage...

Fingers crossed it'll be nothing serious. I do know that all manner or things can cause blood in the urine and it doesn't necessarily mean anything terrible :) I have had it myself in the past due to a UTI.

[johnburns232]

The thing with blood in the Urine is that it's so 'obvious', it looks so scary. But most of the time it looks scarier than it actually is, most causes are benign.

I've read so much during the time when I had such symptoms, although for me it was 1 or 2 little drops at the end of urination. It can be caused by over-strenuous activity, running can be a huge cause - as if you think, you're constantly moving your bladder around when you run, so it may sometimes get a bit irritated and blood is the result. Some people are more prone than others.

Also a little stone can do it, and sometimes you get an odd inflinmation of the tubes between the bladder and that can cause a bit of bleeding.

The usual worse case scenario is an infection, which is just treated with anti-biotics - or just goes away in time through drinking lots of water. Most of the time the cause for blood in the urine, especially gross hematurua (which is visible blood) is not often found. Some of the reasons as to why is that you've passed a kidney stone, small enough not to really make you notice it, or it broke up on the way down..but the edges are still jagged so it can cause some abrasions as it works it's way through.

When I presented with the same symptoms my test results were 110% clear, nothing found - so was refereed to a urologist as per procedure, but even after an ultrasound there was still no cause found. They do mention the C word, but it's unlikely to be that in most situations. There are so many more benign causes for blood in the urine, they're just not ''pushed'' at us as much as the C warnings are.