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Saturday, July 3, 2010
UTI after UTI, What to do When the Bladder Infection Will Not Clear UP
Bladder infections aren't usually a hard diagnosis to make. Lower pain, especially above the bladder, pain with trying to pee, and having to pee all the time. If you see blood it's even a more obvious diagnosis. So most women will know if they ave had a an issue of recurrent bladder infections. Bladder infections called Urinary Tract Infections or UTIs are quite common. In fact 1/10 women have one physician diagnosed infection per year. The area of the vaginal, the urethra, the vulva, has bacteria, and if we run around culturing the pee of women without symptoms many will have growth of some sort of bugs, and usually those cultures will be positive for of the microorganism E. coli. It's a bowel bacteria that can glom on to the wall of the bladder. And some women have E. coli with the ability to glom on even more effectively. And modern life seems to just put more road blocks in our way. For instance our gynos excessive insistance on us protecting oourselves from new partners with condoms. Using condoms and spermacide seems to improve the ability for our bladder and E. coli to glom on to each other. What's the worse kind of infection to get is that of E. Coli with P-fimbria. Other bacteria are commonly found in the the area: the vagina, the bowel, the skin of the region, but about 80 to 90% wind up being E. coli. In fact virtually all infections are bacterial, but very rare fungal infections can occur, and virus infections can occur, but don't seem to bring on the symptoms of UTIs as you know them. The fungal infections that do occur usually are in very sick hospitalized patients and they typically will have a blood infection too. Although lots of factors have effects, one is trying to get the bacterial count of the bladder down after sex. Peeing after you have sex actually can eliminate some bacteria that may just have been sitting around and help have fewer infections. If you have had multiple infections going on antibiotics for a long stretch or using antibiotics after intercourse are possible solutions. So don't give u, UTIs can have serious health consequences if left unchecked, so try to get them under control!
Labels:
Bladder Infections,
UTI,
Vaginal health
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