Orange Urine: Benign Medication Side Effect, Or Sign Of Serious Disease?

Normal and healthy urine always comes in a shade of yellow — ranging from a very pale straw yellow to a deeper ochre color. The lighter the shade of yellow, the more well-hydrated you are, and the darker, the harder your body is telling you that you really need to start drinking more water. Once you get to a deep amber color, you're already dealing with abnormal urine that signals you are, in fact, dehydrated. 

Urine gets its normal color from a pigment called urochrome. If yours has any other color, whether completely clear like water, bright pink, a blood-stained red and yellow, dark brown, green, or blue, something abnormal is up. The color of your urine can give you a lot of information about the state of your health, actually, but abnormal urine colors do, always, have multiple possible causes. 

What could orange urine mean?

Orange Urine: Is There Something Wrong With Me?

Orange urine has many possible causes — more than, say, green and blue urine. While orange urine can indeed indicate that you have a serious medical problem, that doesn't mean you need to panic if you notice an orange color in the toilet bowl one day, if it doesn't recur. It's persistently orange urine that you will want to see a doctor about. 

Let's take a look at some of the more common causes of orange-colored pee. 

Orange Urine Trigger #1: Dehydration

If you are not drinking enough fluids, your urine will become more concentrated, which means more of that urochrome pigment we mentioned earlier. The darker your urine becomes, the more severe your dehydration is. Once your urine gets to a dark amber color, which some people will interpret as orange, you are firmly on the dehydrated end of the spectrum. 

This can occur if your fluid intake is simply too low, but there are other causes as well. Fever, excessive exercise, heat exposure, diarrhea, damaged skin, and disease like diabetes can all lead to dehydration as well. 

Because severe dehydration can be life-threatening, it is important to recognize the symptoms on time. An orange urine color can be a very important red flag that warns you you are in trouble, but other signs of dehydration you should not ignore are:

• Severe thirst
• A swollen tongue and a dry mouth
• Heart palpitations
• Confusion and dizziness, feeling like fainting, and actually fainting
• A reduction in fluids leaving your body: you're unable to sweat, urinate, or cry

People with severe dehydration may also experience seizures, headaches, breathing difficulties, chest pain, abdominal pain, and fever. Should you ever recognize these symptoms in yourself or someone else, be aware that seeking emergency medical attention is more than warranted. 

Dehydration isn't the only possible cause of an orange urine color. We will discuss other reasons for which your pee has taken on an orange hue on the next page.

Orange Urine: Possible Causes

Orange Urine Trigger #2: Liver Dysfunction

The symptoms of liver disease unfortunately don't tend to make their appearance until the condition is quite advanced. The color of your urine can offer valuable insights that allow you to act in as timely a manner as possible. If you have liver disease, your urine may be orange, but dark urine, brown in color and almost black — like Coca Cola — can also indicate a liver problem. 

Along with orange or dark urine, tell-tale signs of liver disease include a yellow skin hue, yellowish eyes, and pale-colored bowel movements. These symptoms are caused by an excess of bilirubin in the body. Other signs of liver disease to watch out for are fatigue, loss of appetite, disorientation, being prone to bleeding and bruising, nausea, and a a bloated abdomen. 

"Liver dysfunction" covers a wide variety of conditions, and we're talking about:

• Hepatitis
• Bile duct cancer 
• Cirrhosis
• Pancreatic cancer
• Pancreatitis
• Alcoholic liver disease

These terms should be enough to convince anyone who has orange or dark colored urine to get to a doctor fast, especially if the problem has been going on for a while. 

Orange Urine Trigger #3: Medication Side Effects

Before you conclude that your orange pee indicates a serious disease you weren't already aware you had, know that it's also a possible side effect of a surprisingly varied group of medications. If you're taking vitamin B complex, vitamin C, or beta carotene, it is very likely that you have found your totally benign culprit. Laxatives that incorporate the herb Senna, a pretty effective treatment for constipation, can be responsible for orange urine as well. 

If you are currently undergoing chemotherapy, your healthcare team has likely already warned you that your treatment can sometimes induce kidney or bladder damage that can also cause orange urine. Do talk to your doctors if this is your situation — it's important for them to be able to try to minimize the damage. 

Malaria drugs like primaquine and chloroquine can likewise lead to your strange-colored experience, along with certain antibiotics, such as nitrofurantoin. 

In Conclusion...

Besides the causes already discussed, kidney damage, urinary tract infections, and even foods like rhubarb that will usually lead to a pink rather than orange urine color, also sometimes lead to orange pee. (As "the dress" showed us all, color interpretation can be quite subjective on occasion!) 

If your urine is anything other than a pale to slightly darker shade of yellow over a longer period of time and you don't have a reasonable explanation such as taking B vitamins, and especially if you also have other worrying symptoms, it is always wise to consult a doctor. Urine color isn't something we typically give any thought unless it is unusual enough to jump out at us. You've already noticed that your pee isn't the right color. You are also, notably, looking at a website to check what that could mean. Honor the intuition that something could be wrong, and get it checked out.