I am sure this question is going to be one of the more peculiar ones ever asked here, so please forgive the strange atmosphere of the question! Being that I own my own laboratory and I wanted to learn more about urine (and it's components), I let curiosity get the better of me and decided to test whether or not i could separate urine from any of its components by gravity just for fun. Long story short, I collected my urine in a 50ml centrifuge tube and centrifuged it at various paramaters. Nothing happened during this time, however I was called suddenly away from the lab, and in a hurry, I mistakenly forgot to dispose of the urine in the tube before leaving! After returning about two and a half weeks later, I removed the centrifuge tube containing my urine from the rotor to find that there is a red crystal like growth on the wall of the tube.
As I said, I do not know much about urine and I wanted to know if this was normal or not. What could the red crystal-like substance be? The centrifuge tube was sealed by the way and was never opened foe the entire time that it contained urine. The growth is quite visible and has the appearance almost identical to a naturally growing quarts or Amethyst crystal(but it is dark red). Any ideas what this is? Is is normal? Thanks!
Do they look like that in the attached pictures? I searched 'uric acid crystals', and the legend of the picture says "These spiked rods are uric acid crystals photographed under polarized light. Increased uric acid blood levels and formation of uric acid crystals in the joints are associated with gout (a disease)." Haveyou eaten a lot of meat?
Whilst crystals in fresh urine could be a sign of gout, I wouldn't take it as a sign of you having gout. The urine was sitting there for two weeks. Some of the liquid likely evaporated (centrifuge tubes are not completely air-tight) and that's what probably caused the crystals to precipitate.
I hope you're right Nick! And no Yuan, they thankfully do not look like that.
Sedimentum lateritium- characteristically red color – amorph urate crystals which absorbed uroerythrin (tripyrol). These crystals dissolve upon heating or alkalization of urine. Can occur physiologocally.
I would have also thought of urate that occur naturally in many urine stored in the refrigerator. Your urine has reached room temperature, so it is certainly alkalized.
Think of ammonium urate and also to phosphate crystals
To reassure you, ask a specialist to quickly carry out a review on a morning urine sample given in the shortest possible time in the laboratory!
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