How often have we felt concerned about the colour of our urine, as you get on in age you become more and more apprehensive when the colour of your urine changes.

Cloudy urine can be a signal of something amiss with your health. It could be due to dehydration, urinary tract infection or a real kidney problem. All these causes of cloudy urine can show up additional symptoms, which a doctor will easily recognise.

The main causes

Dehydration

If the urine is cloudy and dark, it could indicate that the person is not consuming enough liquids. Usually very young and older people have high risk of getting dehydration. Those who have recently suffered diarrhoea, vomiting or fever will need to drink more fluids.

Symptom of dehydration

There is any number of symptoms to indicate dehydration. Starting with dark yellow or orange urine, to fatigue, difficulty in concentrating, dizziness, dry mouth, dry eyes and less frequent urination. Severe dehydration causes disorientation, loss of consciousness and bloody stools.

Urinary tract infection

Urinary tract infection or UTI is another main cause of cloudy urine. If in addition the urine has a very foul smell, then the person is suffering from urinary infection. The cloudiness comes from the discharge of pus into the urinary tract. It could also be white blood cells that are discharged in to the blood to clear the infection.

Symptoms of UTI

Symptoms include constant need to urinate, trouble emptying the bladder, brining pain while urinating, foul smelling urine, pain in the lower abdomen or lower back etc.

Kidney infection

Usually a majority of kidney infections start as UTI, which then spreads due to lack of relevant treatment and later get worse. Kidney infection symptoms include fever, chills, cramps, fatigue, nausea and vomiting, pain in the back and dark, smelly urine.

Kidney infections need immediate medical care to prevent long term damage.

Other reasons

The other reasons may be sexually transmitted diseases, prostates, vulvovaginitis, kidney stones and diet where a person consumes huge amount of vitamin D or phosphorus.

Diabetes

Uncontrolled diabetes is what causes chronic kidney disease. In diabetes patients the body may try to expel the excess sugar secreted in the body and cause cloudy urine.

Treatment for cloudy urine

The treatment for cloudy urine problem may differ according to the prime cause of the condition. Dehydration is treated by asking the patient to drink more liquids and eating fruits and vegetables which contain more fluids. UTI’s are usually treated with a round of antibiotics, STDs are also treated with antibiotics, pain medications and even surgery can correct kidney stones, management of sugar levels and testing urine frequently are the treatments for dark urine.