Spot Jaundice Before Symptoms Arrive

(Newswire.net — August 17, 2018) Cheyenne, Wyoming — It’s known that every night during sleep old skin falls off and new skin emerges and that every day we lose and re-grow strands of hair. Similarly, our red blood cells have to be discarded when old as new ones are created. Life is all about a never-ending cycle of regeneration and for red blood cycles, this involves a chemical by-product known as bilirubin. 

“Bilirubin is formed by the breakdown of red blood cells in the body,” explains Medical News Today. “The liver helps to excrete it. The levels of bilirubin in the blood can indicate the health of the liver. High levels of bilirubin can lead to jaundice. This disorder is easily recognizable due to a yellowing of the skin or eyes. The medical term jaundice comes from the French word for yellow, jaune. High bilirubin levels can occur in adults, but the disorder is more common in newborns. This is because a baby has fewer bacteria in the gut to help break down and dispose of bilirubin.” 

As mentioned above, jaundice is most often seen among infants but adults are susceptible to developing it as well and should be alert to. Jaundice is known for discoloring the skin, mucous membrane and eyes, all of which change to a yellow tint as something interferes with hemoglobin molecules splitting and chemically converting to bilirubin. 

“Your liver takes the bilirubin from your blood and changes its chemical make-up so that most of it is passed through your poop as bile,” explains WebMD.com. “If your bilirubin levels are higher than normal, it’s a sign that either your red blood cells are breaking down at an unusual rate or that your liver isn’t breaking down waste properly and clearing the bilirubin from your blood.” 

Because urine is naturally yellow and bilirubin is also naturally yellow, it’s hard to tell just by looking if excessive amounts of bilirubin are being expelled via urine. It’s obvious that a urinalysis is the best way to go about investigating the matter and the HealthyWiser™ Complete 10 Parameter Urinalysis Reagent Strips make it super easy to find out and in the comfort of one’s home.

“I kept having problems with my urine and kidney-area pain but every time I went to urgent care, tests came back clear,” shares a verified HealthyWiser™ Complete 10 Parameter Urinalysis Reagent Strips customer on Amazon. “This helped me confirm something has been wrong and showing a doctor the result helped them pay attention to me. Finally, a culture came back for a rare, antibiotic resistant type of strep and I am finally able to get treated after several months. It might have taken several more months or my situation to have gotten worse to get the sneaky bacteria or blood/bilirubin I was seeing to show up when I went to the clinic.” 

The HealthyWiser™ Complete 10 Parameter Urinalysis Reagent Strips kit is an incredible tool to have around as it accurately tests for glucose, protein, pH, leukocytes, nitrites, ketones, blood, urobilinogen and specific gravity in addition to bilirubin.