Symptoms

• Dark urine
• Fatigue
• Pale skin color
• Rapid heart rate
• Shortness of breath
• Yellow skin color (jaundice)

Dark urine

Blood in your urine, or hematuria, can be classified as microscopic or gross.

• Microscopic hematuria is when there is very little blood in the urine and it can only be seen with a microscope.
• Gross hematuria is when there is enough blood in the urine that you can see it with the naked eye. Uusually it turns toilet water pale pink or bright red, or you may just see spots of blood in the water after urinating.

Yellow skin color

If you’ve ever had a bruise, you may have noticed that the skin went through a series of color changes as it healed. When you saw yellow in the bruise, you were seeing bilirubin.

Normally, about 1% of our red blood cells retire every day, to be replaced by fresh red blood cells. The old ones are processed in the liver and disposed of. Much of the resulting bilirubin leaves the body in the stool.

If there are too many red blood cells retiring for the liver to handle, yellow pigment builds up in the body. When there is enough to be visible, jaundice results.

Jaundice can be caused by too many red blood cells retiring, by the liver being overloaded or damaged, or by the inability to move processed bilirubin from the liver through the biliary tract to the gut.

Most babies have some jaundice during the first week of life. The ordeal of birth can send many red blood cells to an early retirement (especially if a vacuum is used!), and babies’ livers are often unprepared for the load. Before mom’s milk comes in and stooling begins in earnest, bilirubin accumulates more easily. Jaundice is even more common in premature babies.