If your urine looks foamy, it could be because it hits the toilet fast enough to stir up the water. It may also occur due to toilet chemicals or health conditions, such as those affecting the bladder or kidneys.

Urine is normally pale yellow to dark amber in color and flat. However, various factors, from diet to drugs to disease, can cause changes in the color and foaminess of urine.

If your urine looks foamy, it could be because your bladder is full and the urine is hitting the toilet fast enough to stir up the water. But conditions that could also cause foamy urine are causes to see your doctor about.

Find out what makes your urine foam up and what you should do about it if it happens.

Urine can foam up briefly every once in a while. This is usually due to the speed of urine flow.

Foamy urine is more likely to be a sign of disease if it happens often or worsens over time.

If your urine is foamy, look for other symptoms as well. These symptoms could be clues that a medical condition is causing the problem:

  • swelling in your hands, feet, face, and abdomen, which could be a sign of fluid buildup from damaged kidneys
  • fatigue
  • a loss of appetite
  • nausea
  • vomiting
  • trouble sleeping
  • changes in the amount of urine you produce
  • cloudy urine
  • darker colored urine
  • if you’re a male, dry orgasms or releasing little to no semen during orgasm
  • if you’re a male, infertility or having difficulty getting a female partner pregnant

The most obvious cause of foamy urine is the speed of urination. Just as water foams up when it comes out of the tap quickly, urine foams if it hits the toilet quickly. This kind of foam should also clear up quickly.

Other possible causes include:

  • Concentrated urine: Sometimes, urine can also foam up when it’s concentrated. Your urine is more concentrated if you haven’t had much water and are dehydrated. Urine can also be more concentrated during pregnancy.
  • Protein in urine: Foamy urine can indicate too much protein, such as albumin, in your urine. This can result from your kidneys not filtering properly, signaling kidney disease. It can also be caused by diabetes. Drinking more water can help dilute urine, but it doesn’t treat the underlying cause.
  • Retrograde ejaculation: Also known as dry orgasm, this is a less common cause, which happens in men when semen backs up into the bladder instead of being released from the penis.
  • Amyloidosis: This is a rare condition caused by the buildup of a specific protein. It can also cause foamy urine, along with fluid buildup, kidney problems, and other health issues.
  • Medications: taking the medication phenazopyridine (Pyridium, AZO Standard, Uristat, AZO) to treat pain from urinary tract infections may lead to foamy urine.

Other times, the problem may be just your toilet itself. Some toilet cleaning chemicals can make your urine look foamy. If this is the cause, the foam should stop when you flush the cleaner out of the toilet.

Many of the causes of foamy urine are also risk factors. For example, if you have a full bladder, you might be more likely to have foamy urine, making your urine stream more forceful and faster.

If the urine is more concentrated, it can also become foamy, which can occur due to dehydration or pregnancy.

You’re more likely to get kidney disease if you have:

The causes of retrograde ejaculation include:

Contact your doctor if you suspect you have kidney disease or retrograde ejaculation or if your urine continues to look foamy.

Your doctor will likely take a urine sample to test your protein levels. One 24-hour urine test compares albumin levels to levels of creatinine, a substance produced when muscles break down. Note that creatinine is different from creatine, which is a protein the body needs for muscle function and structure.

If retrograde ejaculation is a suspected cause for your foamy urine, your doctor will check for sperm in your urine.

How much foam in urine is normal?

This urine test is called the urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR). It shows how well your kidneys are filtering your blood.

If your UACR is higher than 30 milligrams per gram (mg/g), you might have kidney disease. Your doctor will do other tests to check how well your kidneys work.

Treatment for foamy urine depends on its cause. Drinking more water and other fluids will relieve dehydration and stop the foaming if your urine is concentrated.

Treatment for diabetes and high blood pressure

When foamy urine is caused by kidney damage, your doctor will need to identify the cause to treat it. Often, diabetes and high blood pressure cause kidney disease. By managing these conditions well, you can slow down the progression of kidney damage.

Your doctor will recommend that you eat a balanced diet and get plenty of exercise to help treat either diabetes or high blood pressure. You’ll also have to test your blood sugar often to ensure it stays within a healthy range. You might also need to take medication that lowers your blood sugar.

In addition, limiting salt and protein in your diet can lower blood pressure and prevent your kidneys from having to work so hard.

Your doctor can prescribe different drugs to lower your blood pressure. Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) are two such drugs that lower blood sugar and protect the kidneys from additional damage.

Learn more about treatments related to kidney disease and high blood pressure, and diabetic nephropathy.

Treatment for retrograde ejaculation

Retrograde ejaculation doesn’t need to be treated unless you want to father a child or the dry orgasms bother you. Your doctor can treat this condition with drugs that are approved for use for other conditions, but that also close the bladder neck so that semen can’t get inside your bladder.

Off-label drugs that may help treat this condition include:

  • brompheniramine (Ala-Hist, J-Tan, Veltane, and more)
  • ephedrine
  • imipramine (Tofranil)
  • pseudoephedrine (Afrinol, Allegra-D, Suphedrin, and more )

What stage of kidney disease is foamy urine?

Excess albumin in your urine (albuminuria) can develop starting from stage 1 of kidney disease, although, at this stage, there may not yet be evident kidney damage. Foamy urine doesn’t automatically indicate kidney disease, but if you experience it, it’s a good idea to get checked out by a doctor.

What causes foamy urine in the morning?

This may be caused by simply expelling a lot of urine simultaneously, which is common in the morning. If you also expel it too forcefully, it can make it froth upon hitting the toilet.

Foamy urine may not be a problem if it happens every once in a while. If it continues, it could be a sign that you have kidney damage. Usually, this symptom appears late in kidney disease, so immediate treatment is important.

Less often, it could be a sign of retrograde ejaculation if you’re a male, or it could be an effect of a drug you’re taking. Treating the condition or stopping the drug that’s causing it should stop the foaming.

Most of the time, foamy urine is nothing to worry about. Often, you can relieve foamy urine simply by drinking more water.

But see your doctor if:

  • the foamy urine doesn’t go away within a few days
  • you also have symptoms like swelling, nausea, vomiting, appetite loss, and fatigue
  • your urine is also cloudy or bloody
  • If you’re a male, your orgasms produce little to no fluid, or you’ve been trying to get your female partner pregnant for a year or longer without success