Urine smells fishy in women and men, causes of the smell

The human body is constantly exposed to the introduction of various kinds of microbes and bacteria into its nature. When your urine smells fishy, ​​this may indicate a problem. Normally, this liquid should not have a sharp and unpleasant odor, while any deviations and disruptions in health are reflected in its color and smell. As a rule, the fishy smell of urine signals disease and inflammation of the genitourinary system.

Causes of unpleasant odor

Unpleasant odor of urine in women and men after eating fish can occur due to diseases:

• Diseases of the genitourinary system in women.
• Gonorrheal infection.
• Chlamydia.
• Inflammatory processes in the urinary system.
• The appearance of E. coli in the genitourinary system.
• Weak immunity.
• Condition after a serious illness.

The urine may not necessarily smell fishy because there is some kind of disease. This odor can also appear in a healthy person. Many people complain that certain products have an odor.

The appearance of a fishy smell is typical after salty dishes, too peppery, after drinking a large amount of alcoholic beverages.

If the urine smells like fish for these reasons, the smell will disappear after about two days after eating the food. Sometimes the smell of fish appears after antibiotics and B vitamins. However, immediately after the end of treatment, the smell will go away.

Features of trimethylaminuria

An explanation for why urine smells like fish in women is sometimes a disease such as trimethylaminuria. This is a rather problematic pathological condition, since almost all human biological fluid has an unpleasant rancid odor, except urine. This also applies to sweat, due to which the stench spreads throughout the body. It is worth noting that this physiological condition is not life-threatening. However, people suffering from trimethylaminuria find themselves in a delicate and difficult situation, since the stench emanating from them is not felt by them, unlike those who are nearby. This factor significantly reduces the patient’s social activity and also brings psychological and moral discomfort.

What explains the unpleasant odor associated with trimethylaminuria? It's all about a genetic pathology, which is characterized by the lack of excretion of trimethylamine. The synthesis of this compound with a pungent odor occurs in the intestines during the digestion of foods with a significant content of proteins and choline - for this it is enough to eat a dish of seafood, beans or eggs. The intestines of a healthy person contain bacteria that promote the process of digestion and the synthesis of trimethylamine.

In addition, a healthy liver synthesizes flamin, an enzyme based on monooxygenase 3. It stimulates the transformation of trimethylamine into an odorless substance - it leaves the body naturally, with urine. This process is quite complex; it is controlled by the FMO3 gene. If it is missing or poorly functioning, trimethylamine accumulates. This leads to urine with an unpleasant odor, stench of the skin and breath.

If a woman is pregnant, then if she is diagnosed with trimethylaminuria, her urine will smell like rotten fish. This is explained by the increased influence of estrogen and progesterone on the course of the disease.

Odor factors

The urine smells unpleasantly like fish, so the person may suffer from trimethylaminuria. This is the name of a genetic disease that is rarely diagnosed. It can cause men and women to have a fishy odor that comes not only from urine, but also from body and sweat.

When a woman's urine smells like rotten fish while pregnant, this means that the body cannot remove trimethylamine from the body. This is what he smells like.

What could be the reasons if a woman’s urine smells like herring? Scientists suggest that this occurs due to the hormones progesterone and estrogen. The symptoms of the disease only become brighter from them. In order for trimethylaminuria to manifest itself, the amount of intestinal bacteria, protein foods must increase in the body, or a kidney or liver disease will appear.

Therapeutic measures

Diet therapy

The presence of a fishy odor in the urine requires immediate treatment. First of all, the doctor prescribes a special diet for the patient, which prohibits the consumption of the following list of foods:

• peas;
• beans;
• peanut;
• milk;
• chickpeas;
• liver;
• eggs;
• kidneys;
• meat;
• peanut;
• dark green vegetables;
• crayfish and other seafood;
• cabbage;
• soybeans

Diagnosis of pathology

The reasons for the smell of rotten fish can only be determined by a doctor, so if you feel an unpleasant odor, you should immediately consult a doctor. Especially if this continues for a long time.

To diagnose, the doctor will prescribe various tests, for example:

• Blood and urine analysis.
• Vaginal and urethral smear.
• Bacteriological culture.
• Other necessary tests.

When a patient complains that his urine smells like fish, then at a doctor’s appointment, a specialist collects the patient’s medical history. Then he clarifies the presence of chronic and acute diseases of the genitourinary system. Attention is also paid to genetic abnormalities and all metabolic processes in the body. Women are examined by a gynecologist. Then the patient is sent for examination:

• Ultrasound examination of the pelvic organs, bladder, kidneys, urethra.
• Cystography.

If the urine is pink, this may indicate the presence of blood or pus in it, and this is already a rather serious pathology.

Treatment and prevention

To get rid of an unpleasant odor, you need to undergo a specific course of treatment. If infectious diseases or inflammatory processes affecting the reproductive system are to blame, then the following medications are prescribed:

To ensure that the intestinal microflora does not suffer from taking antibiotics, it is recommended to take Acylact, Bifiform, Ecofemin, Laktonorm, Linex and vitamins for a month. Antibiotics are taken for 7-10 days, immunomodulators - from 2 to 4 weeks. Trimethylaminuria, in which urine smells like fish in women, has not yet been treated. To reduce the intensity of the odor, you need to:

You can avoid the smell of urine by adjusting your diet.

• exclude legumes, seafood, as well as liver, eggs, meat, dark green vegetables and cabbage from the diet;
• drink activated carbon;
• use antibiotics “Metronidazole” or “Neomycin”;
• drink "Chlorophyllin", "Riboflavin" and "Chlorophyll"

If the cause is not trimethylaminuria, then with proper treatment and proper hygiene, the fishy smell and associated inconveniences will disappear without a trace. The main thing is to start treatment on time under the supervision of a specialist. In order to prevent the unpleasant smell of rotten fish, doctors advise wearing only natural underwear, carefully maintaining hygiene, and using soap and shower gels with a high pH level. It is also recommended to avoid hypothermia, and if unpleasant symptoms occur, immediately consult a doctor.

Treatment of the disease

Remember that for any abnormalities occurring in your body, you must urgently seek help from a medical specialist.

Based on the test results, he will prescribe effective treatment.

If the diagnosis has established that the urine stinks due to various infections and inflammations that have appeared in the genitourinary system, then the person is prescribed the following drugs: Dalatsin, Dazolic, Flagyl, Zerkalin, Domifen and others.

These drugs are classified as antibiotics. The course of therapy should last one and a half weeks, although the duration depends on the severity of the disease. But during treatment, it is necessary to remember that each drug has its own side effects, which can appear if these medications are taken incorrectly.

In addition to antibiotics, the doctor prescribes immunomodulators: Adaptovit, Neovir, Feron and others.

To prevent diarrhea from occurring when taking these and the drugs described above, doctors recommend taking: bifiform, acylact, linex and others. The duration of treatment varies, taking these medications should last from two weeks to one month.

If the causes are established, and one of them is trimethylaminuria, then treatment with drugs is not relevant. Because medicine has not yet developed a remedy to help with this pathology. In this case, a special diet will help reduce the symptoms.

With this disease, using soap with a pH of 5.5 will help improve your life. You should not overwork yourself when doing physical exercises, and you should also not be exposed to stress and shock. As preventive measures, you can take activated carbon and copper preparations.

Remember the rules of personal hygiene, wash your genitals twice a day, and then change your underwear.

Speaking about children, we can say that a child’s urine has no odor; it can appear if something is eaten, but only one-time manifestations in this case.

Do not forget that these may be infectious and inflammatory processes of the bladder.

In a normal state of the body, human urine does not have a pronounced odor. If your urine smells like fish, you need to pay attention to your health. Fish odor syndrome (trimethylaminuria) occurs when the gene responsible for encoding monooxygenase has mutations. The reason for the formation of trimethylamine in humans is intestinal bacterial fermentation, as a result of which foul-smelling compounds are excreted by the body in the urine.

Diagnostics

If a person suffers from a strong fishy urine odor, he should go through the following diagnostic procedures to determine the real cause of the phenomenon:

• submit urine for analysis;
• perform a smear from the urine-conducting ducts to determine the nature of the microflora;
• do a bacterial culture;
• conduct an ultrasound of the reproductive and urinary system.

What treatment is used for trimethylaminuria?

The consequences of fish odor syndrome cannot be eliminated with medication, based on the genetic nature of the problem. In this case, the only more or less effective way to eliminate the problem is to prescribe a special dietary program to the patient. All foods that are a source of oversaturation of the body with trimethylamine are gradually excluded from the diet. As practice shows, even such actions produce a positive effect only to a small extent. Doctors have not yet developed an effective method for a complete cure for trimethylaminuria. Therefore, people susceptible to the syndrome have to struggle with eliminating the unpleasant odor throughout their lives.

Trimethylaminuria as one of the rare causes of the disease

If a person does not have any sexually transmitted or other diseases, then the answer to the question: “Why does urine smell like fish in women and men?” may become trimethylaminuria - an extremely rare genetic pathology. People suffering from this disease have an unpleasant fishy odor of the body and all its secretions. This disease was first described more than 40 years ago, and doctors have not yet invented a remedy for its treatment.

The reason that urine smells like rotten fish during pregnancy is the inability to remove trimethylamine, which has a very pungent chemical odor, from the body. If in the body of an ordinary person this substance interacts with flavin, a protein that is produced in the liver, then patients with trimethylaminuria do not have this enzyme.

Most often, signs of trimethylaminuria can be noticed in childhood, when the mother weans the child from the breast, but there are frequent cases of the disease manifesting itself in adulthood. The intensity of an unpleasant odor may change over the course of a person's life. This faulty gene for the non-working enzyme FMO3 is recessive, meaning that a future child is only more likely to develop the disease if both parents are carriers of the gene. The disease, in turn, can manifest itself in parents quite mildly - most often the symptoms inherent in the disease manifest themselves in women.

Why do women smell like urine after eating fish? Doctors believe this is due to the hormones estrogen and progesterone, which are thought to increase symptoms of the disease. Among the causes of symptoms of trimethylaminuria are:

• a sharp increase in the number of intestinal bacteria (they produce trimethylamine);
• excess protein foods;
• kidney or liver disease (in rare cases).

What measures to take?

If your urine smells like rotten fish, you should definitely consult a urologist or venereologist. For treatment to be successful, you need to do tests for the presence of viruses. In addition, a smear examination, bacterial culture and ultrasound examination of the genitourinary system are carried out. Only after studying the results of the tests obtained, the doctor can prescribe treatment using antibiotics, immunomodulators, vitamins, lactobacilli and other medications.

Both adults and children often encounter the problem of fishy urine odor. Its occurrence is a deviation from the physiological norm, so you need to get rid of it with the help of a qualified specialist. Moreover, treatment must be started in a timely manner so as not to aggravate the situation and not lead to undesirable consequences.

Why does urine smell like fish? This question is asked by many patients. The answer to this question is simple: bacteria have appeared in the bladder or urethra and multiply quickly.

Speaking about the norms of urine, it is necessary to clarify that it also has a specific smell, but does not change its color. If a person is in excellent health, then his urine can be used in urine therapy.

When the urine stinks and lasts for a long time, this is a reason to consult a doctor. He will refer the patient for testing.

If you smell a fishy smell in your urine, then you need to check for infectious pathologies in your urine.

Treatment for fish odor syndrome

Trimethylaminuria is a disease in which an organic substance (trimethylamine) accumulates in the human body. The main sign of the disease is the strong smell of fish that comes from the skin, urine, sweat and exhaled air of the patient. However, the patient himself often does not feel it.

Under such conditions, a person experiences a social conflict. Friends and acquaintances avoid him, there is no sex life, and difficulties arise when getting a job. Stress gradually develops, turning into prolonged depression. Over time, the psyche is disturbed, the person becomes aggressive, and is isolated from society.

The disease is caused by a defect in a certain gene, its mutation. As a result, the liver cannot break down organic substances.

To treat pathology and eliminate odor in urine, emphasis is placed on a special diet. Exclude from the diet foods that contain fat-like substances (phospholipids, lecithin), B vitamins and related substances (L-carnitine), choline (an organic compound that is present in egg yolk, fermented milk cottage cheese, liver, kidneys, mushrooms).

To improve the condition, patients are prescribed antibacterial drugs in small doses - Metronidazole, Neomycin, as well as adsorbents. Activated or white carbon, Polysorb, Enterosgel are good at cleansing the body of toxic compounds.

The article provides basic information that every owner of pet cats, cats and kittens should know in order to understand what they have to deal with in a given situation and how to help their pet cope with this trouble.

Do not forget that such information is for informational purposes only and nothing can replace a trip to the veterinarian, who can make a more accurate diagnosis and give a qualified assessment of the situation, prescribing the necessary treatment for the animal.

An important point when caring for a cat is that you need to brush its teeth. But still, if a cat has a characteristic smell of rot, then it must be taken to a veterinarian to determine the disease that caused the smell. And he will have to prescribe treatment.

Another reason for a rotten smell from a cat’s mouth may be cheap dry food, which is why cats develop diseases of the stomach, esophagus and intestines. Natural food in this case may be the way out of your situation.

The most common cause of this odor is diseases of the oral cavity and teeth. So the best treatment would be to get rid of plaque on the teeth, remove tartar, and, if necessary, treat the oral cavity.

And for preventive purposes, it is necessary to teach your pet to brush their teeth regularly from childhood, since they also get food stuck between their teeth and then rot accordingly.

Source

Urine is a waste product of humans and animals that is excreted by the kidneys.

As a result of secretion, reabsorption and filtration of blood, urine is formed, which subsequently flows into the bladder through the ureters, and then exits through the urethra.

This waste product normally has a slightly yellowish tint, is transparent, and has a slight specific odor. However, in some cases the liquid acquires a much more pungent odor. Why? This is what we have to find out right now.

By the way, doctors have long believed that this is a kind of hereditary trait that is passed on from generation to generation, but recent research proves that this is not so.

In order to avoid an unpleasant odor, add a little sea salt to the asparagus dish - this helps.

With this disease, urine acquires a characteristic sweetish odor, which is associated with an increase in ketone bodies in it. After the number of these bodies exceeds a critical dose, the urine begins to smell like ammonia.

This suggests that there was a shift in the acid-base balance in the body towards an increase and diabetes simply went away

Source

I have a cat at home. They gave it to me almost a year ago. I didn’t know any problems with it right away, but then it started, as if you didn’t come home, there was a constant strange smell... clean it up, don’t clean it up, and then the fun started, I started marking everything in a row, corners and chairs and carpets, and started tearing it up.

I also talked to the veterinarian and didn’t achieve a strong result... they suggested taking biochemistry tests. Then they started telling me about some kind of hydrolyzed protein (destroyed), I couldn’t find such food...

Kidney problems

Lower back pain may indicate kidney problems

The kidneys filter urine and help remove toxins from the body. When urine has a foul odor, it may indicate that the kidneys are not working properly. Often the cause of kidney problems is infection or stones.

Symptoms of a kidney infection include the following:

• difficulty urinating or painful urination;
• urinary tract infections that get worse over time;
• lower back pain;
• high body temperature.

Kidney infections usually require hospitalization, although some can be managed at home with antibiotics. Anyone experiencing symptoms of a kidney infection should see their healthcare provider immediately.

Kidney stones are mineral deposits that collect in the kidneys. They can be small, like a grain of rice, or reach 15 millimeters or more in size.

The passage of stones may be accompanied by pain, and sometimes they may become stuck. If a person encounters the symptoms of kidney stones for the first time or notices bleeding when they pass, then he should go to the doctor. Drinking significant amounts of water usually helps the stones pass faster.

Prostatitis

Prostatitis is a condition characterized by swelling and inflammation of the prostate. It is often the result of an infection. People with prostatitis may notice that their urine changes. Sometimes these changes are manifested by the smell of fish.

Symptoms of prostatitis are similar to those of urinary tract infections. Men with prostatitis may also experience the following:

• pain in the rectum, perineum and scrotum;
• lower back pain;
• chills;
• aching joints;
• headache;
• weak urine flow.