Green Urine Causes: Dyes, Medicines and Infection

Green in the toilet bowl is startling, but Cleveland Clinic says green or yellow-green pee usually comes from something you ate, a medicine you took or a dye used in a medical procedure, not from an underlying health problem.

The usual sources, and how long they last

Source	What Cleveland Clinic names	How long
Food	Anything with a lot of blue or green artificial dye, black licorice included; a very large amount of asparagus or blueberries	Back to yellow within 24 to 48 hours
Dye from a test or surgery	Brightly colored dyes, for example one a urologist uses to check the urinary tract, which can come out fluorescent green	Typically fades within hours
Anesthesia	Propofol, used to put you to sleep for surgery (rare)	A few hours
Medicines	Cimetidine (Tagamet), amitriptyline, promethazine, methocarbamol, methylene blue, triamterene, metoclopramide, indomethacin	Not given
B vitamins	Usually bright yellow urine, which may look light green in the right light or after the right food	Not given

MedlinePlus puts green and blue urine together and lists four causes: artificial colors in foods or medicines, bilirubin, medicines including methylene blue, and urinary tract infections. Cleveland Clinic’s urine changes page adds that Tagamet can turn pee a shade of blue.

Cleveland Clinic says green urine isn’t a typical side effect of the medicines on its list, and a medicine that changes urine color without causing other symptoms is often harmless. Stopping a medicine suddenly can be dangerous, so it advises doing that only under your doctor’s guidance. Contact your healthcare provider if you have concerns.

When green comes with other symptoms

Cleveland Clinic says a medical cause usually shows itself in other, more noticeable ways, and describes two.

Infection. With a UTI, green pee typically points to a particular bacterium, Pseudomonas, and the urine may also look cloudy. A UTI is more likely if you also have burning when you pee, need to go more often or urgently, have trouble peeing, notice foul-smelling urine, have pain in the pelvis, lower back, flank or abdomen, or have fever or chills. Cleveland Clinic’s advice is to get it checked. More on UTI warning signs.

Obstructive jaundice. Rarely, a blockage stops bile from flowing, bilirubin builds up and urine turns dark or, in some cases, green. The skin and whites of the eyes change color, stool may be pale or clay colored, and symptoms include fever, abdominal pain, itching and nausea. Cleveland Clinic calls this serious and says to get immediate medical attention.

A made-up log, read two ways

Day	Urine	Context
Sat	Normal yellow	Party with bright green frosted cupcakes
Sun	Green tint in the morning	Feeling fine
Mon	Pale yellow again
Wed	Green and cloudy	Burning when peeing, going every hour, no dyed food

Saturday to Monday fits the food dye pattern: something heavily dyed, then color gone within the 24 to 48 hours Cleveland Clinic expects. Wednesday is different. There’s no food to explain it, and the urine comes with burning and frequent peeing, which is the combination Cleveland Clinic says to get checked.

When to get checked

• Green urine with no clear cause that isn’t getting better after a couple of days: talk to your doctor, according to Cleveland Clinic. Its urologist says green pee with no other symptoms is never an emergency.
• An abnormal urine color that can’t be explained and doesn’t go away: see a provider, says MedlinePlus.
• Green urine with infection symptoms: get checked.
• Yellow skin or whites of the eyes: the NHS says to ask for an urgent GP appointment or contact NHS 111, and mentions darker pee and paler poo alongside it.

For a suspected UTI, the NHS says to ask for an urgent GP appointment or contact NHS 111 if you have a very high or low temperature or are shivering, pain in the lower tummy or in the back just under the ribs, or blood in your pee, among other reasons. It says to call 999 or go to A&E if someone is confused, drowsy or has difficulty speaking. Outside the UK, see your doctor promptly, and call your local emergency number in that last case. This article is general information, not medical advice.

How bellySignal helps

bellySignal lets you mark an unusual urine color next to the 1 to 8 hydration scale, log water in cups or mL, tag foods such as dyed sweets as triggers, and add notes like “started new medicine” or “burning.” It can’t tell you why urine is green, but the log shows a provider when the color appeared, how long it lasted and what came before it.

Your diary is stored on your device, and you can start logging without signing up. Optional login, health platform sync, and export are available. Some health values, including stool type, symptoms, and manually entered weight, are also sent to PostHog, which is enabled by default. The analytics switch in settings controls PostHog only. Firebase Analytics receives usage events without those health values and remains active. Privacy policy.