PKD can Cause Blood in Urine

More than 90% PKD patients will have blood in urine or cyst bleeding. If not treated well or timely, it can cause many serious consequences such as back pain, fever, infection and long term blood in urine will cause anemia and weakness in the patients.

Therefore it is important to have timely and effective treatments. To have more effective and targeted treatments, we need first know what the undergoing cause of cyst bleeding and blood in urine is or at least some extra-renal causes need to be ruled out.

Patients usually will have blood in urine after strenuous exercises or traumas and in some cases there can be no reason at all.

The common causes of blood in urine:

1. Rupture of blood vessels on the cysts. This is due to the continuous enlarged cysts which will stretch the renal capsule and oppress surrounding renal tissues.

2. Kidney stone. There are about 20% ADPKD patients will have the complication of kidney stones and when the stones move in the urethra, it might cut the blood vessels and cause blood in urine.

3. Infections. Urinary tract infections and cystic infections are the common complications of PKD and they can cause cystic bleeding and blood in urine if not treated properly or timely.

Treatments for blood in urine:

1. Control infections. The first step is to prevent and control infections because most patients are easy to catch renal infections after hematuria and the infections will in turn aggravate the bleeding and renal damages.

2. Promote blood circulation. The symptoms and complications of PKD are due to the ischemia and hypoxia in the kidneys caused by the oppression of these multiple growing cysts. Therefore expanding blood vessels and promoting blood circulation can help increase blood flow in the kidneys and promote the re-absorption of cystic fluid to the blood vessels.