Terrified I have bladder cancer

[Notcontent]

Full disclosure - I do have slight health anxiety. However, I do have some concerning symptoms. I maybe they are normal…. So I am late 40s - probably menopausal - and in last 12 months or so I have noticed that no matter little I drink in the evening I wake up in the morning feeling like my bladder is uncomfortably full. It’s almost painful. I never had that when I was younger.

My urine also looks darker to me so I started thinking it could be blood. On the other hand, I recently had to give a urine sample when I had a dizzy spell so I assume they might have tested fir blood - or maybe not?

I have maybe one drink in a evening and nothing after about 830 and my bladder is alway full next morning. It's more annoying if it wakes me in the night! How much do you drink, trying drinking lots of fluids in day and see if urine is lighter. But also nothing wrong with booking in with doctors.

Get some urine test strips from Amazon. My dad had bladder cancer, his symptoms were wetting himself & frequent uti symptoms including passing blood clots. He had the camera & a tumour was discovered, got told he would lose his bladder but when they did the rigid cystoscopy they were able to remove all the tumour, it hadn't grown in to his bladder wall, he had 1 BCG treatment as soon as he came out of theatre. His tumour turned out to be stage 1a & never came back, he lived just over 10 years after.

Sounds more like a uti. I think these are more common in menopause. Your bladder might feel more full/urgent in the morning if it's irritated. You would need to be drinking more not less for this to heal. I'd go back to the GP with a sample. Taking D-mannose is very good for bladder infections.

So you wake up with a full bladder and your wee is a bit darker. You are taking a huge leap to decide that you have bladder cancer ! Even a uti is a huge leap - I get regular uti and they make me wake multiple times, and the wee is cloudy and smelly.

The sensible action in your case would be to see a GP. Though to be honest, your symptoms sound more like middle age, rather than any disease process.

I've known several women with the uncomfortably full bladder issue. Isn't it because the bladder muscles thin out more with the menopause and that's why it feels more uncomfortable? Tbh if you're sleeping through and not waking for a night time pee then it doesn't sound too bad. The darker pee will be because it's more concentrated so try drinking more water during the daytime

Thanks all. I will try drinking more in the day and maybe mention to my GP.

I had exactly these symptoms and it was a prolapse - my womb was pushing on my bladder at night.
Could also be a UTI or many other non-serious things.
By the way, when inv

Meant to say - when investigatingbtgis symptom they did discover I had kidney cancer! My symptoms were unrelated to kidney cancer but I'm forever thankful I had those prolapse symptoms as they found my cancer at an early stage because of it.
Not trying to scare you (I've been fine for years), it's just that I'm a big advocate of getting things checked and having tests.

This.

Why would you leap to cancer?!

See your Gp.

It might be a uti, or lack of oestrogen calling issues. You can get internal oestrogen - Ovestin or Vagifem- which may help.

Even if you have blood in your urine it doesn’t mean cancer. I have constant blood in my urine. Had a kidney biopsy and they found I have thin membrane disorder which is just a structural variation of the kidney, completely harmless.

Late 40s you are also likely to be peri menopause which can have an effect on your bladder/urethra. Take a sample to the gp to get investigations started.

You can buy urine test strips from Amazon. They are not the ones with all the different tests on, there are just three specifically for testing for infection/blood in urine.
They come individually packed so last longer in storage. I use these all the time and they are simple to understand and easy to use.

Also, I find that if I don't eat anything again after dinner, I'm up in the night with a full bladder even though I haven't drank much. If I eat something before bed, it doesn't happen. I'm sorry for your anxiety, I know how debilitating that can be.
🙂

As you get older and hormones start to wane, it's usual to wake more with needing to wee. It's normal. Strong urine in the morning is also normal and being dark is not blood. That looks very obvious as a smoky colour.

Welcome to the dreadful world of menopause, symptoms that appear nothing related to hormones but very much are and the dreaded anxiety which with those new symptoms inevitably lead to health anxiety.

Time to discuss treatment for the menopause.

A routine urinalysis would detect the tiniest most invisible amount of blood.

I wake up like that every day 😂. I'm 49.

I've had a cystoscopy to rule out bladder cancer as I have blood in my wee. You can't see it though, just comes up on the test strips. It's normal for me.

It would be extremely rare and unusual to have bladder cancer without the presence of visible blood in your urine.

Even though it is most likely to be caused by something other than cancer, if infection is ruled out but you are still getting it, the GP would need to look into what it is.

it is right that you should drink more.
Also Vit C can cause problems so take Ester C instead which doesn’t irritate the bladder so much.

Apparently bladder cancer often goes undiagnosed in women, probably because all to often UTI like sensations (but no infection found) are put down to the menopause.

Blood on the urine is a symptom of bladder cancer, but so is a UTI feeling even with no blood. So if every other far more likely cause is ruled out, it is worth checking for cancer.

My mum had bladder cancer and her urine samples always looked completely normal. A minuscule amount of blood that only showed up when they tested her urine. Don't actually know what they were testing it for, it was a general health check.
If your bladder is feeling full and your urine is dark then you need to go to the loo more! Drink more water too.