Urinary Tract Infection: Symptoms and Treatment
What is a urinary tract infection?
To know about urinary tract infections, you first need to know about kidneys. Imagine Your body has a group of teams, and they divide into four.
① Who filters blood
② Who carries the waste fluid
③ Who stores the waste fluid until full
④ From where waste fluid leaves
▪️The filter team cleans blood from the waste that the body doesn’t require anymore, like urea, extra salts, toxins, extra water, etc., aka the kidney.
▪️ The team that carries the waste fluid consists of two thin tubes, aka ureters.
▪️ These tubes carry the waste fluid to a balloon-like structure that stores waste fluid until full, aka the bladder. The urge you get to urinate is only that.
▪️ The urethra is the tube that carries waste fluid out of the body.
▪️ Altogether, this team makes up the urinary system.
UTI stands for urinary tract infection. Bacteria cause a UTI by attacking the urinary system
Urinary tract infection is of two types:
① Chronic: This is a recurrent urinary tract infection that keeps coming back and is a long-lasting infection.
② Acute: This occurs suddenly but with strong urinary tract infection symptoms like burning while urinating and urgency.
▪️Women are doomed because of the structure of their body; they have a shorter urethra, and because of that, they are 30% more at risk of developing a UTI than men.
What are the causes of urinary tract infections?
E. coli is a tiny little organism that you can only see with the help of a microscope. Mostly, E. coli lives in our intestines, where it is a good friend who helps us digest food, but sometimes it turns into a foe and walks around rooms like a bladder; it should not and causes crimes like infection to our urinary tract. Some of E. coli’s friends, like Klebsiella, Proteus, or Staphylococcus, help in this crime too.
▪️ If someone is sexually active.
▪️Hormonal changes during pregnancy change the body to easily get a UTI.
️▪️When women get old, their bodies stop producing estrogen during menopause, and estrogen was the watchman, but now it isn’t there; bacteria take advantage and infect.
▪️ You are giving invitation letters to bacteria with poor hygiene to come and infect.
▪️ Urinary retention in the bladder is the inability to fully empty the bladder, which can be caused by kidney stones, an enlarged prostate in men, weak bladder muscle, or diabetes.
Read More: Hemogram Test: Complete Guide to the HGM Blood Test (Complete Hemogram/CBC)
Urinary Tract Infections Symptoms
▪️ Unbearable pain and burning sensation during urination is a sign of UTI.
▪️ Persistent need to urinate.
▪️ Cloudy, dark urine.
▪️ Pelvic or lower abdominal pain It might feel crampy and sore.
▪️ Urine that seems red, pink, or coffee-colored means blood is mixed with waste fluid.
▪️ Strong urine odor.
Who is prone to developing a urinary tract infection?
▪️ As I have told you, UTIs in women are more common than in men.
▪️ The anatomy of women consists of a smaller urethra than men, so the bacteria can travel and cause bladder infections.
▪️ Sexually active individuals.
▪️ Use of contraceptives like diaphragms and spermicides.
▪️ Low levels of estrogen during menopause.
▪️ In pregnancy, hormonal and physical changes cause lower urine flow and higher UTI risk, so better hook yourself up with a test.
▪️ Poor hygiene—UTIs in women can be caused by not wiping properly; they should use the front-to-back rule.
▪️ Urinary retention.
▪️ People who can’t urinate on their own and need to use catheters are at a higher risk of bacteria reaching the bladder and causing infections.
UTI Diagnosis and UTI Treatment
UTI Diagnosis :-
The doctor will ask if you ever suffered from a UTI before and about symptoms like burning and pain while urinating.
▪️ A urine test, aka urinalysis, is when you give a urine sample, and they will check how many red blood cells and white blood cells there are and if there is any bacteria.
▪️ A urine culture is done to find which bacteria is the culprit behind causing the infection; according to that, the doctor will choose medicine to fight the bacteria.
▪️Imaging tests are for you if you get UTIs frequently, so the doctor will take some pictures inside your body, like ultrasounds, CTs, and MRIs, to know if there are kidney stones or any structural problems with your urinary tract.
▪️ Doctors may use a really small camera (scope) to see the lower part of the urinary tract, aka cystoscopy.
If you see an ICD-10 code in your bill or record, your doctor uses it as a universal language.
Urinary Tract Infections Treatment
▪️ When bacteria invade the body, doctors send supersoldier medicines like nitrofurantoin, fosfomycin, and others, aka antibiotics, that hunt and destroy the bacteria causing the infection.
▪️ If while urinating it hurts, doctors give medicines that reduce the pain, aka analgesics like phenazopyridine, and medicines that can be bought without a doctor’s prescription, like paracetamol and ibuprofen. You might already have some of these at your home.
▪️ If the bacteria come back again and again, called recurrent UTIs, daily low-dose antibiotics for a duration of 6 to 12 months.
▪️ For older women going through postmenopause, creams are called vaginal estrogen.
▪️ For severe cases, an antibiotic drip.
Home Remedies for urinary tract infections
▪️ Drink a lot of water because it is like a helper for your bladder that washes away the bacteria that are the culprits of the infection. The more you drink, the more bacteria get kicked out when you urinate.
▪️ Avoid caffeinated and alcoholic beverages; these drinks will be rough on our friend's bladder and will make you urinate more.
▪️ Heating pads are like magic wands that help relax muscles—they help in managing the pain and pressure in the lower belly.
▪️ Research shows consuming unsweetened cranberry juice prevents bacteria from sticking to the walls of the bladder due to compounds like proanthocyanidins, but it isn’t that effective, and it needs a total of 12 months too. Medications like warfarin are contraindicated, so ask the physician before practicing.
▪️ Urinate often; do not hold back.
How to Prevent UTIs?
▪️ As I have told you before, drink a lot of water because it is like a river that flushes out the bacteria; it doesn’t let the bacteria settle in and infect.
▪️ Urinate when you feel like you need to because bacteria love to grow in waste fluid that stays too long, so urinate; that is how you will avoid the bacteria growing in the body.
▪️ After using the bathroom, wipe the right way, use the front-to-back rule, and women should pay extra attention to it, as they are at higher risk that bacteria will travel from the anus to the urethra.
▪️ After intimate contact, urinate to kick out the bacteria that may have entered the urinary tract system.
▪️ Avoid using some contraceptives like spermicides and diaphragms because they help bacteria to grow.
▪️ Don’t eat a lot of sugary food. Consume fewer carbohydrates to manage glucose levels in individuals with diabetes, so eating healthy helps you keep your body stronger.
▪️ Add D-Mannose to your routine. It is a natural sugar that doesn’t let the bacteria stick to the bladder, but ask your doctor first.
When to See a Doctor
▪️ When experiencing pain and a burning sensation while urinating, that’s how your body tells you there is something wrong.
▪️ When the bladder presses a false alarm again and again, then the frequency of the urge to urinate increases; it means bacteria are causing trouble.
▪️ The appearance of urine changes into pink, red, or coffee-colored.
▪️ If you get a UTI more than two times in a year.
▪️ When home remedies are not working even after 1–2 days.
▪️ If having a fever because the body is fighting with bacteria, chills, back pain, especially on the side that means bacteria is traveling up to the kidneys, and nausea.
Conclusion
Urinary tract infections can happen to anyone, but females are more troubled by UTIs. This starts when bacteria enters the urinary tract system and causes infection, then pain, burning, and an increase in the urge to urinate. Things like poor hygiene, use of a catheter, or other health issues can be the cause. UTIs are treatable by medicine, water, and good habits. So knowing the signs and telling the doctor will help and is the best choice.
Written by- Dr. Gaurav Chandra
