When you see small red blood cells in your urine, it can be alarming. The amount of RBCs in a person's urine depends on several factors and is typically less than 10 RBCs per high power field (HPF). In some cases, the amount may be higher than this.
To count the number of RBCs in urine, a high-power field (HPF) is used. A HPF has a grid printed on it to help you count the number of RBCs. For example, if there are zero to three RBCs per HPF that would indicate that the concentration is normal.
In men, bleeding can be caused by an enlarged prostate, or cancer of the bladder, kidney, or urethra. In women it can be caused by infection of the urinary tract or kidney stones. Upper urinary tract bleeding refers to blood in urine that has passed through the kidneys.
If you're a woman and have this issue, your doctor may want to check for any of the following:
Sometimes, bleeding in the kidneys or bladder can happen for other reasons. For example, stones made of calcium or other minerals can grow in these organs and exert pressure on blood vessels and nerves. These types of stones are called ureteral calculi (kidney stones) or bladder stones.
Bladder stones may cause blood to appear in your urine if they block the flow of urine out of your body. If you have a stone blocking your urethra (the tube through which urine passes out of the body), then you may also experience pain when you pee due to irritation around this area.
If you think that you have a bladder stone but it's not causing any pain or discomfort yet, it's best not to worry too much about it right away until symptoms arise—but if they do occur at any point down the line then see your doctor quickly because they could get worse over time!
If blood is seen in the urine after 2 clean catch samples are obtained, then medical attention is recommended. A urine sample should be collected in a sterile container and refrigerated until it can be sent to the lab for analysis. This can also help determine if there are any other underlying conditions contributing to an individual’s hematuria, especially if the person has not been tested previously for them.
You may have noticed these little critters in your urine. What do they mean?
The first thing to know is that 1-3 HPF RBC in urine is considered normal as long as there are no other signs of an infection or disease. The number refers to the number of red blood cells (RBCs) present per milliliter of urine. A higher number than this could indicate a problem, but it’s still pretty common for healthy people to have around one RBC for every three drops of urine.
If your doctor tells you that this is what he saw when he tested your pee, don't worry: it's not necessarily anything serious—it could just be a fluke from the previous day or even something like food poisoning affecting how much blood washes out into your stool and then makes its way into your bladder via ureters (ducts).
Hematuria is the presence of blood in your urine. RBC (red blood cells) are what give blood its red color and they can also be found in urine when there's an abnormally large amount of them present.
The number 1 means "out of 10," so if you have 1-3 hpf rbc in urine, then it means that out of 10 drops collected from your sample, there was one drop with at least one or more RBCs (depending on how many drops you collected). If you're using a dipstick test to determine whether or not this value falls within the normal range for HPF RBCs (hemoglobin per high power field), then it would mean that between 0 and 3 out of every 100 fields on your dipstick test were positive for at least one or more red blood cells. In other words: 1/10th as much as a standard dipstick test would show if all tested fields were negative for hemoglobin/red blood cells.*
A few red blood cells in the urine is called hematuria. Hematuria is a sign that there is bleeding somewhere in the urinary tract and it’s usually caused by injury, infection, or abnormalities of the kidneys or ureters (the tubes that carry urine from the kidneys to your bladder).
Your doctor may ask for additional tests if he suspects hematuria is due to a kidney condition such as kidney stones or cancer.
1-3 HPF RBC in urine is normal
When you see this number, it means that there are one to three red blood cells per high power field (HPF) of your urine. This is a normal amount of RBCs in urine and it does not indicate any disease or abnormality.
RBCs are usually not a cause for concern, but if the number of RBCs increases over time or you have any other signs of infection, it’s important to let your doctor know.