What should you know about really dark urine causes?

Fluid loss makes urine more concentrated and may occur with sweating, heat, vomiting or diarrhoea. Dark urine can also follow a new medicine, supplement or food pigment. Tea-coloured or brown urine with yellow eyes, pale stools, itching or nausea can point to bile pigments and warrants medical review; Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B are examples of liver conditions that may include dark urine, but dark urine alone does not identify either condition. After strenuous exercise, dark urine with muscle tenderness or weakness needs prompt assessment.

Write down when the change started and whether it followed heat, illness, exercise, a new prescription or a supplement. Drink normally if you can, without forcing fluids, and observe urine amount and subsequent colour. Do not stop a prescribed medicine without advice. A clinician may combine your history with an examination, urine testing and blood tests to distinguish concentration, pigment, liver-related changes and muscle injury.

Get urgent help for confusion, fainting, severe weakness, severe pain, repeated vomiting, fever with serious illness, or very little or no urine. Seek prompt review for yellowing, pale stools, swelling, bruising, ongoing dark urine or symptoms after heavy exertion. If heat and sweating were involved, read about Heat Exhaustion while arranging care when symptoms are substantial.

Ask which causes fit your timing and associated symptoms. Ask whether your medicines need review, whether urine and blood tests are appropriate, and which changes in urine colour or output should prompt urgent help.