Peeing for science!

July 5, 2009 9:28 AM

PeeChemistryFilter: what the hell is going on here?

When I had my first wee of the day this morning, I noticed something rather bizarre. Some of my pee seems to have formed a grayish-yellow precipitate upon hitting the water in the bowl. I say precipitate rather than sediment, because further experimentation (ok, I peed in a nonsterile plastic cup and stirred it with a nonsterile chopstick) showed neither sediment nor precipitate. This leads me to believe that some combination of substances in my wee and substances with which I clean my toilet have formed a chemical reaction. (I realize this is a pretty lame hypothesis, scientifically speaking, but it's all I've got. CURSES.)

My question is thus twofold:
01. OH GOD AM I DYING? Does this seem like an urgent medical situation in any way? There's no pain or burning sensation before, during, or after urination, I have no fever, there is no blood or pus present in my wee, and I have no tenderness in the kidney, bladder, or urethra areas.

02. What the hell could be causing this? For reference purposes, the medications I'm currently taking are:
-20mg adderall/daily, for the past 2 years
-triam/HCTZ 37.5/25 (1 cap yesterday morning)
-ProAir HFA (1 puff shortly before bedtime last night)

I also drank rather a lot on Friday night - mostly beers, but I think I recall some mysterious fruity pink shots. To my knowledge, I haven't had any kind of recreational drugs, and I have no reason to suspect that any of my friends might have sneakily given me something Friday night.

Lastly, I clean my toilet with Scrubbing Bubbles FreshBrush Flushables, most recently on Wednesday of last week. Also, the water in my building has a slightly elevated lead content, but is within the legal limits for NYC.

In conclusion, WTF?

posted by elizardbits to health & fitness (6 comments total)

In the absence of any change in urinary patterns (volume, freq etc) , pain/discomfort, color, blood discharge or fever I would probable take a wait and see attitude on seeing a medical professional. See if the phenomena occurs again (after ridding toilet of extraneous cleaners/chemicals). If things are normal for 24-48 hours enjoy the experience and perhaps a chemist on askmefi will provide informed speculation. Actually, I would be much more concerned about your statement "I also drank rather a lot on Friday night - mostly beers, but I think I recall some mysterious fruity pink shots." That is a symptom of a potential problem.
posted by rmhsinc at 9:48 AM on July 5

You don't really describe this precipitate, so this could be totally different, but I know that some people's pee forms a bit of whitish yellowish foam on top. From what I can tell, this is normal.
posted by ishotjr at 10:08 AM on July 5

IANYD/IANAD

It sounds as if you had the "cloudy" urine on your first pee of the day, but not on subsequent urination? It's possible that whatever it was had time to build up to visible levels in your urine overnight, and is still there, but not in sufficient amounts to be seen.

I'd suggest some cranberry juice, just in case it's the beginning of an infection, and then just keeping an eye on it. Pain/discomfort/further cloudiness that persists over the entire day would probably warrant a call to the doc.
posted by elfgirl at 10:16 AM on July 5

Do you have swollen ankles too? Any previous problems with blood pressure or blood sugar? Before anyone starts throwing around words like proteinuria or albuminuria, why don't you just increase your fluids for a couple of days, cut the alcohol, and see what happens.

Drinking on top of your prescriptions doesn't seem particularly kind to your liver and kidneys anyway.
posted by aquafortis at 12:31 PM on July 5

That is a symptom of a potential problem.

rmhsinc: I honestly appreciate your concern, but I don't think that getting lamentably pissed on my birthday (and on other extremely rare occasions throughout the year) is indicative of a more serious underlying problem. Anyway, I'm definitely a big fan of the "wait & see" approach to non-painful medical oddities.

ishotjr: it looked like little grains or crystals, not floaty foamy stuff. I'm kind of wondering about kidney stones now, actually.

elfgirl: Yeah, I was thinking maybe incipient UTI, although nothing like this has ever happened with one before. I'm drinking a lot of water with added mannose today, so we'll see how it goes.

aquafortis: I have no swelling of any kind, and no blood pressure/sugar problems. And as I said above, alcohol is rarely a part of my day to day life, but you're right, drinking while taking diuretics is probably a terrible idea in general. (I take it for the fluid imbalance in my left ear, caused by meniere's, and not for high bp, btw.)
posted by elizardbits at 1:39 PM on July 5

are you male? could have been the remnants of a nocturnal emission...
posted by gjc at 2:50 PM on July 5 [2 favorites has favorites]