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.