When your doctor asks for a urine sample, you may be wondering: What does she need this for? What does a urine sample show? Is it safe to give my doctor a urine sample? How much should I expect to pay for the test? What if I have to go to another doctor because mine is unavailable? Here are some answers.
Urine samples can help doctors see if there's too much or too little of certain substances.
If you have a bacterial infection, the doctor may check for bacteria in your urine. He might also look at what color it is and whether it has mucus or blood in it. Bacteria show up as cloudy white, yellowish brown, or red-tinged sediment at the bottom of the container when he centrifuges it.
If you have an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism), the doctor will test your urine for levels of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH). He'll check out how much iodine shows up in each sample as well—this helps him figure out what kind of hyperthyroidism you have: Graves' disease (when TSH is high) or toxic multinodular goiter (when iodine levels are low).
If there's not enough glucose (sugar) in your blood because you're diabetic, there won't be much glucose left over to feed into cells that use it for energy production—these cells will start breaking down fat instead, which produces ketones that leave their mark on urinalysis results. A dipstick test can detect whether this is happening by seeing if those ketones are present; if they are, then something else besides diabetes must have caused them! In some cases where someone's been fasting overnight before taking a test on waking up early morning hours when glucose levels aren't quite back up yet; tests may falsely indicate higher than normal levels since ketone bodies build up during fasting periods then dissipate after eating again later on."
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are the most common type of bacterial infection. They can affect any part of the urinary tract, but they occur most often in your bladder or urethra.
Urinary tract infections are caused by a certain kind of bacteria. The urine sample will show whether there's a problem with your kidneys or bladder by looking for these bacteria in your urine.
The doctor may also have you take a swab that samples fluid from your urethra and send it to a lab so they can identify what kind of bacteria is causing the infection.
If there is blood in your urine, it can be a sign of a number of different health concerns. If you have an infection in your urinary tract, the bacteria may be causing irritation that results in bleeding. This could be due to a kidney infection (pyelonephritis) or urinary tract infection (cystitis). It can also happen if you have an enlarged prostate or even if you've developed a urinary tract stone—all of these things can cause pain and inflammation that lead to bleeding.
Urine is a great way to check the health of your kidneys. The ph level of urine tells you how alkaline or acidic your urine is, which is related to what you eat. If you are eating lots of fruits and vegetables, your urine will be more alkaline and healthy looking. If you eat lots of meat and processed foods, however, then your urine will be more acidic and can show signs of disease in your body. A doctor can test for this by looking at the color and cloudiness of someone’s urine sample as well as any crystals that might appear in it (crystals form when chemicals combine). But if you want to do it yourself at home, just add one teaspoon baking soda per liter of water before pouring it into a container marked with its own unique code number so no one else accidentally uses it!
The kidneys are responsible for filtering waste from the blood, and the urine sample will show if you're having problems with your kidneys. If there is too much waste, the kidneys can't keep up and they'll start to fail. This can happen if you have diabetes or high blood pressure (hypertension). Sometimes a person's body doesn't make enough urine because of something called polycystic kidney disease (PKD), which causes cysts to grow in the kidneys and blocks them from working properly. Another kind of problem is when a person gets sick with hepatitis C or HIV/AIDS, which can damage their liver and lead to kidney failure later on in life. And finally, someone may have damaged their kidneys by getting stuck on something sharp that went into one of their ureters — this is called an upper urinary tract obstruction (UUTO).
If a urine sample shows any of these things, this could mean that you have an infection. The doctor may want to do other tests to figure out the cause of your infection and how it's treated.
You might also get an abnormal result if:
Urine is a valuable tool for doctors to use to diagnose their patients. The results from a urine sample can give the doctor a lot of clues about what's going on inside your body.