Everyone one of us has a specific odour of our urine. But sometimes, this smell becomes foul and very strong. Strong and foul-smelling urine is not always something to be concerned about.
However, sometimes it can be the expressing symptoms of some severe underlying medical condition.
In such cases, the urine can show odours like a sulphurous smell, the smell of ammonia, a sweet and sugary smell or a musty and foul smell.
If bad drinks or food caused a pungent odour, the scent resolves quickly. If it is due to an infection, it lasts for a few days, and if the cause behind the smell is liver failure diabetes, the scent lasts longer if not treated.
What Causes Foul Smelling Urine
There can be many reasons that are the cause of foul-smelling urine. Some might be simple causes, while others might be critical medical conditions that require urgent treatment. These probable causes are –
Dehydration: Symptoms of dehydration are pungent smelling urine and yellow coloured urine. Drinking lots of water and other fluids can help in case of dehydration.
Mental confusion, fatigue are some other symptoms that state that we require immediate medical help. However, dehydration is mostly not very severe and can be cured by only consuming more fluids.
Infection in Urinary Tract: Urinary tract infection is a prevalent disease. It results in strong-smelling urine in the patient. Some other symptoms of infection in the urinary tract are a burning sensation while urination and a strong urge to urinate. The doctors might prescribe you antibiotics that will kill the bacteria responsible.
Diabetes: If you have diabetes, your urine is most likely to smell sweet. Untreated increase the blood sugar level and is hazardous. It can be life-threatening if you don’t visit the doctor and undergo treatment.
Liver Disease: Any liver disease can also cause pungent smelling urine. The other symptoms that accompany bad-smelling urine when liver diseases cause it are weight loss, pain in the abdomen, turning yellow of the eyes, jaundice, bloating, nausea and vomiting.
Liver diseases can turn life-threatening, and you should get them treated as soon as you can.
Bladder Fistula: Bladder fistula is a disease that occurs when bacteria enters your bladder. This happens when you have a surgical injury; the bacteria can travel into your bladder from your intestines.
These can also occur due to bowel diseases like Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, inflammatory bowel disease, et cetera. This also causes your urine to smell bad. You should consult a doctor as soon as you can if you are suffering from this disease.
Maple Sugar Urine Disease: This is a genetic disease and can be seen in people very rarely. People who suffer from this disease find it very difficult to break down the amino acids named valine, isoleucine and leucine.
This disease results in the urine of the patient smelling like maple syrup. This condition is incurable. However, if the patient does not receive proper treatment, they can die an early death.
Phenylketonuria: This is also a fatal disease. Phenylketonuria is also an incurable disease that has been present since birth. The body of the patient fails to break down the amino acid named phenylalanine.
The symptoms of this disease are foul-smelling urine, poor development of social skills, a decrease in skin pigmentation, and several mental defects. If not treated properly, the patient may have ADHD and other serious mental issues.
Atrophic Vaginitis: This is a condition where inflammation of the vagina occurs. This happens when the oestrogen level in the body decreases—the pH in the vagina increases in this case which results in the burning and itching sensation.
The symptoms are vaginal discharge, bleeding in the vagina and infection in the urinary tract, along with pungent smelling urine.
Some other causes: Pregnancy is one of the many reasons behind bad urine odour. This is because pregnancy increases the chances of urinary tract infection. The capacity of the bladder during this period changes.
When urine gets accumulated for a very long period in the bladder, bacteria grows there and causes it to smell bad. The bad smell in the urine can also result from a sexually transmitted disease called sexually transmitted infection.
Diagnosis
Bad smelling urine can be the result of some significant underlying medical conditions. The tests that your doctor might suggest you take to find out the cause behind it are as follows –
- Cystoscopy: In this test, there is a camera attached at the end of a thin tube, and then the tube is inserted into your bladder. It is used to determine if you are suffering from any urinary disease.
- Urine Analysis: Urine analysis is when they take a sample of your urine, and tests are done on it to find signs of bacteria other elements.
- Scans or Imaging: This test is not one that doctors suggest very often. However, if the urine smell remains longer than twelve hours, and urine analysis fails to find any bacteria, this test is the next step. They take X-Rays of your bladder to find out the problem.
Home Remedies
The putrid smell of the urine is not always due to some severe disease. Some remedies that you can try while at home to get rid of pungent-smelling urine are –
- Drinking a lot of water also benefits to deal with the pungent smell. This keeps your body dehydrated and allows your kidneys, liver and bladder to work better. This often helps to get rid of the bad odour of urine. Other than water, you can also drink other fluids like green tea and others to serve this purpose.
- Taking Vitamin C tablets is also something that you can do to stop the odour of your urine.
- Often kidney problems or medication to make your blood thin results in bad smelling urine. To take care of this matter, you can drink unsweetened cranberry juice or other cranberry concentrated tablets. This helps in maintaining the thickness of the blood and also helps in case you have a kidney stone or some other kidney problem.
Precaution
Some steps that you can follow so that your bladder stays healthy are as follows:
- You should urinate a minimum of five to seven times every day. Drink more water and keep yourself hydrated.
- Get a good night sleep. Waking up more than once at night is not healthy and can cause several problems.
- Forced urination affects the capacity of your bladders. So urinate only when you need to. Try to avoid urinating just because you’re going to sleep as that is also a form of forced urination.
- Sit down on the toilet seat instead of hovering over it. Also, take your time and don’t try to push it out faster.
