Scaring myself – micro hematuria

[Dlt]

I am an 65 year old female, in fairly good health and I exercise regularly.

About a year ago I had large visible painful blood clots in my urine.  Was referred to urologist and had a cystoscopy which was negative.
Last week during routine checkup, micro hematuria as well as inflammatory cells were found. I just read the report posted on the provincial health site and have not yet talked to my doctor.
as well, I have difficulty fully emptying my bladder.  Sometimes,  I have difficulty starting the urine stream
I’m probably overreacting but I am pretty scared.

[Nightingale]

Hi Dlt,

Sorry to hear about your predicament.  Will you be going in for another Cystoscopy?  I would request that of your doctor to ensure you don’t have a tumor in your bladder.  Depending on the initial procedure from a year ago, it is possible for tumors to be missed.  I had that experience.  Thankfully we caught it on the following checkup.  I am now 13 yrs cancer free.

I hope, I am understanding your definition of a routine checkup.

I hope this helps.

My Best.

 

[Dlt]

Thank you for the good advice and your good news story. I will definitely follow up with my dr and ask for the referral
Thanks again

[marysue]

Hi Dit:

I second what Nightingale has said.  Blood in the urine is never normal but sometimes it takes a while to discover the source of the bleeding.

I suggest not only have bug your doctor for another cystoscopy but maybe x-rays/ultrasound and/or CT Scan of your urinary tract and feminine parts (if you still have them)  as well.  There are many reasons for blood in the urine.  Unfortunately as you already know, bladder cancer is one of them.  Cancer is the first thing that you want to rule out.  If it is ruled out for sure, that takes the weight off and gives you space and hopefully time to figure out what else it could be.

The concerning part now is not only the microhematuria but the difficulty in emptying your bladder.  Again there could be an innocent explanation for that.  I sometimes have difficulty emptying my bladder but it is from a prolapsed urethra that happened after a kazillion scopes, 3 TURBTs and lots of BCG immunotherapy treatments.  All that plus aging, plus having given birth to 4 kids, plus other abdominal surgeries has taken its toll on the lower regions of my body.  In my case I don’t need to act on it (surgery) unless it becomes more troublesome. The other not so great reason for not being able to empty your bladder could be the presence of bladder tumours or stones but again that will take another examination by a urologist to figure that out.

I don’t think you are overreacting.  It is normal to be scared when we suspect we may have cancer of some type.  We are human and our minds tend to go to dark places at times like this.  I know that we are all tempted to bury our heads in the sand at times like these wishing it would go away, but it sounds like you do have a definite urology issue going on and the sooner you get back to your urologist the better in this case.  Best of luck.  ((((HUGS))))

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