24 hour urine, what are they looking for?

MrsNnr · June 2009

I was given the container at my last appointment and told to do the 24 hour urine. I asked if something was wrong and they said it's protocol since I'm high risk. Since I'm a little absent minded these days I forgot to ask what they're looking for. TIA!

sunandsand · June 2009

With me, it was Protein...a sign of pre-eclampisa.

Kadyra · June 2009

We order a variety of things on a 24 hour urine. We're mostly interested in the total protein and the creatinine clearance. But we also look at the random creatinine and the total creatinine in 24 hours. Of course, the accuracy of these values are dependent on the total urine volume in 24 hours. If someone only pees 600mL, it's not going to be very accurate. We need more than that.

Anyway, the protein can tell us if pre-eclampsia is present and whether it's mild or severe or if kidney disease is present. Also, we get a baseline 24hr urine on all chronic HTN and pregestational diabetics because they can spill protein due to kidney damage from their disease and make it look like they have pre-e. We then look at a change in their 24hr urine protein in those cases. 0-299mg means no pre-e. 300mg-4.999g mild pre-e. 5g or more is severe pre-e. Your doctor may also put you on "alert" for a rising protein. It depends on the practitioner.

The creatinine clearance tells us how well the kidney is functioning and filtering out gunk. It should ideally be more than 160. When you're pregnant, you expand your blood volume by 50% (which is why you may get a little anemic) and all this gets filtered by the kidneys (a reason you may pee a lot). This should mean your kidneys are working like mad. If you have impaired function, the creatinine clearance will be low. The lowest I have seen is 13. Sometimes this is seen with lupus, severe CHTN, class F diabetes or severe pre-e.

The urine creatinine and 24hr creatinine also can show kidney function. Normally, they "come with" the others in a panel, but we don't use them. So I am not familiar with the normal values.

Hope this helps.