Simple tips you need to know about Urinary tract infection. Do you keep getting urinary tract infections? Here’s what you need to know.
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) bring a unique misery. If you’ve had one (or more than one!), you know the seemingly constant feeling of having to go to the bathroom and the burning feeling when you do urinate. Do you keep getting urinary tract infections? Here’s what you need to know. Read through and get the simple tips you need to know about urinary tract infections.
If you’ve experienced a UTI, then you know that this burning, painful, uncomfortable condition is nothing to mess around with. That’s why health experts have created a guide to help you protect your health. This guide explains how a UTI begins and ways to help prevent infection. It covers the factors that increase risk at all ages, how UTIs are diagnosed, and how they’re treated. The guide also discusses the growing problem of antibiotic resistance and how this affects treatment for UTIs.
READ MORE… from Harvard Medical School…
Most UTIs get better quickly with a course of antibiotics. But for some people, UTIs keep coming back with frustrating frequency. For example, abnormalities in the urinary tract or trouble completely emptying the bladder may make a person more vulnerable to frequent UTIs. You may be surprised to learn that family history may also play a role. Having a first-degree female relative (parent, sister, or child) with a history of more than five UTIs means you may be at higher risk for recurrent UTIs.
Steps to help you avoid recurrent UTIs
- Talk with your doctor. If infections tend to occur after sexual activity, your doctor may prescribe a single dose of an antibiotic to be taken only after sex. Postmenopausal women might consider vaginal estrogen products to help maintain local tissue health.
- Practice good hygiene. In addition to regularly washing the outer genital area with gentle soap, wiping from front to back after using the toilet helps prevent the spreading of bacteria from the digestive tract to the urethra. Urinating after sex also helps flush out bacteria.
- Drink plenty of water. Drinking plenty of fluids can help flush bacteria from the bladder.
- Consider your birth control method: Spermicide, diaphragm, or spermicide-lubricated condoms can contribute to frequent UTIs. If you get UTIs often and use one of the methods, consider switching.
- Consider probiotics or cranberry juice. While the effectiveness of these products has not been proven, they may help decrease the number of UTI-causing bacteria that live in the vagina.
For more information on recurrent UTIs, check out Urinary Tract Infection, a Special Health Report from Harvard Medical School.
Types of urinary tract infections (UTIs)
- Cystitis is the most common lower urinary tract infection.
- Urethritis – infection of the urethra.
- Pyelonephritis – infection of the kidneys.
Diagnosis of UTI
Tests and procedures used to diagnose urinary tract infections include:
- Analyzing a urine sample.
Your healthcare provider may ask for a urine sample. The urine will be looked at in a lab to check for white blood cells, red blood cells or bacteria. You may be told to first wipe your genital area with an antiseptic pad and to collect the urine midstream. The process helps prevent the sample from being contaminated.
- Growing urinary tract bacteria in a lab.
Lab analysis of the urine is sometimes followed by a urine culture. This test tells your provider what bacteria are causing the infection. It can let your provider know which medications will be most effective.
- Creating images of the urinary tract.
Recurrent UTIs may be caused by a structural problem in the urinary tract. Your healthcare provider may order an ultrasound, a CT scan or MRI to look for this issue. A contrast dye may be used to highlight structures in your urinary tract.
- Using a scope to see inside the bladder.
If you have recurrent UTIs, your healthcare provider may perform a cystoscopy. The test involves using a long, thin tube with a lens, called a cystoscope, to see inside the urethra and bladder. The cystoscope is inserted in the urethra and passed through to the bladder.
Urinary Tract Infections (UTI ) Treatment
Antibiotics usually are the first treatment for urinary tract infections. Your health and the type of bacteria in your urine determine which medicine is used and how long you need to take it.
Simple infection
Medicines commonly used for simple UTIs include:
- Trimethoprim and sulfamethoxazole (Bactrim, Bactrim DS)
- Fosfomycin (Monurol)
- Nitrofurantoin (Macrodantin, Macrobid, Furadantin)
- Cephalexin
- Ceftriaxone
The group of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones isn’t commonly recommended for simple UTIs. These drugs include ciprofloxacin (Cipro), levofloxacin and others. The risks of these drugs generally outweigh the benefits of treating uncomplicated UTIs.
In cases of a complicated UTI or kidney infection, your healthcare provider might prescribe a fluoroquinolone medicine if there are no other treatment options.
Often, UTI symptoms clear up within a few days of starting treatment. But you may need to continue antibiotics for a week or more. Take all of the medicine as prescribed.
For an uncomplicated UTI that occurs when you’re otherwise healthy, your healthcare provider may recommend a shorter course of treatment. That may mean taking an antibiotic for 1 to 3 days. Whether a short course of treatment is enough to treat your infection depends on your symptoms and medical history.
Your health care provider also may give you a pain reliever to take that can ease burning while urinating. But pain usually goes away soon after starting an antibiotic.
Lifestyle and home remedies
Urinary tract infections can be painful, but you can take steps to ease discomfort until antibiotics treat the infection. Follow these tips:
- Drink plenty of water. Water helps to dilute your urine and flush out bacteria.
- Avoid drinks that may irritate your bladder. Avoid coffee, alcohol, and soft drinks containing citrus juices or caffeine until the infection has cleared. They can irritate your bladder and tend to increase the need to urinate.
- Use a heating pad. Apply a warm, but not hot, heating pad to your belly to help with bladder pressure or discomfort.
Also, read more treatment options
Bladder infection
Bladder infections are the most common type of urinary tract infection (UTI), but any part of your urinary tract can become infected—the urethra, bladder, ureters, and kidneys. Your age, habits, or health conditions can make a UTI more likely.
Symptoms & Causes
Symptoms of a bladder infection may include a burning feeling when you urinate. Most women’s infections are caused by bowel bacteria that reach the urethra and bladder. Most infections in men are the result of problems that restrict normal urine flow, such as an enlarged prostate.
Urine Infection
How do u know if you have a urine infection?
Check if it’s a urinary tract infection (UTI)
Pain or a burning sensation when peeing (dysuria) needing to pee more often than usual during the night (nocturia) pee that looks cloudy, dark or has a strong smell. needing to pee suddenly or more urgently than usual.
Bacteria in Urine
What strains of bacteria cause UTIs?
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are a severe public health problem and are caused by a range of pathogens, but most commonly by Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus mirabilis, Enterococcus faecalis and Staphylococcus saprophyticus.
Urinary Tract (UTI) in men
Males can get urinary tract infections, and they are typically classified as complicated infections. Symptoms may include urgency, frequency, and burning when you urinate
What are the signs of a UTI in a woman?
Symptoms
- A strong urge to urinate that doesn’t go away.
- A burning feeling when urinating.
- Urinating often, and passing small amounts of urine.
- Urine that looks cloudy.
- Urine that appears red, bright pink or cola-coloured — signs of blood in the urine.
- Strong-smelling urine.
Recurrent UTI
Recurrent UTIs (RUTI) is mainly caused by reinfection by the same pathogen. Having frequent sexual intercourse is one of the greatest risk factors for RUTIs. In a subgroup of individuals with coexisting morbid conditions, complicated RUTIs can lead to upper tract infections or urosepsis.
Recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs) are defined as two episodes of acute bacterial cystitis, along with associated symptoms within the last six months or three episodes within the last year.[1] Recurrent UTIs are much more common in the female population. The cost of treating urinary tract infections in the United States alone is about 3.5 billion dollars annually.
Risk Factors for Recurrent Infections include
- Any spermicide use within the previous year, especially if used with a diaphragm
- Atrophic vaginitis
- Chronic diarrhoea
- Cystocele
- First UTI when young (before 16 years of age)
- Genetic predisposition (usually through bacterial/vaginal mucosal adherence factors)
- Higher frequency of sexual intercourse
- Increased post-void residual urine (incomplete bladder emptying)
- Inadequate fluid intake (low urinary volumes)
- New or multiple sexual partners
- Mother with a history of frequent or multiple UTIs
- Urinary incontinence
- Use of spermicide-coated condoms.
Treatment of Recurrent UTI
Overall, long-term, low-dose antibiotic prophylaxis for recurrent UTIs substantially decreases recurrent urinary tract infections.
Preferred Agents for Recurrent UTI Prophylaxis
- Nitrofurantoin at 50 to 100 mg daily.
- SMX-TMP at 40/200 mg daily.
- Trimethoprim at 100 mg daily.
Second-Line Agents That Are Less Preferred for Prophylaxis
- Cephalexin at 125 mg or 250 mg daily
- Cefaclor at 250 mg daily
- Fosfomycin at 3 gm every 10 days
- Norfloxacin at 400 mg daily
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