Home Test for Urinary Tract and Bladder Infection
Dr. Lisa: And we get bladder infection questions all the time because women are a lot more prone to bladder infections than men. A lot of times, they’ll get it after intercourse and it’s because the urethra is right around where the vagina is. So, also, vaginal infections will irritate the urethra as well but you want to make sure because you might have—when people speak about urinary tract infections or UTI’s they throw around. This can be anything from the kidneys. I think we have a graphic to show you the whole urinary tract, it starts with the kidneys and the ureters which are the tubes that go into the bladder and bladder itself and then, actually, the opening called the urethra.
And so, any part along that area can really get infected but what we usually talk about is the bladder. A bladder infection can go to a kidney infection which can be extremely serious and caused you to be hospitalized and have days of IV antibiotics. So, that’s why you want to nip a bladder infection in the bud really early. If you’re having symptoms, just talk to your doctor about them. They may start you off with just drinking a lot of water but if you’re getting burning, urgency, you have to go, you have to run to the bathroom really quickly or you’re urinating frequently, then you want to do one of these tests.
These are actually very good. They’re very similar to the dipstick test that we do on our office as well. And they look for nitrates in the urine which can be an indicator of an infection and they look at protein which can also be an indicator of infection. Sometimes, it can just be an indicator of contamination so you want to make sure you wash off really clearly and then speak to your doctor.
So, this has to be followed up with a doctor but it’ll be helpful information for your doctor because you don’t want to have it progress to a kidney infection which needs to be treated with antibiotics.
Dr. Travis: So nitrates, when it’s positive on the urine dipstick, is almost, in most cases indicative of a urinary track infection. However, there are circumstances where you still could be suffering from one and the test comes back negative. So confirmatory testing is really poor and the biggest thing is, you mentioned, this is for literally lower urinary tract infection. If you’ve got bad pain in your, you know, costovertebral angle and fevers, you really need to go to the doctor.
Dr. Lisa: That’s more of a kidney infection but that’s why this test really needs to be used in conjunction with the doctor.
Dr. Travis: Absolutely. Well, thank you, Dr. Lisa.
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