Urinary tract infection

Resolved question:

Recently I found that I had some bacterial infection in my urine. Since then I tried to keep it not too acidic and had two courses of antibiotics. Today, I used UTI strip and all was shown well. I checked it this afternoon also, after taking some coffee. Then the strip showed everything fine except that of blood. But still I feel not well. Is this due to the antibiotic course I have taken? Is anything wrong with my doing of test?

Submitted: 4 Days
Category: Sexologist

Expert:  Dr. John Monheit replied 4 Days.

Hello. Thanks for writing to us. You have mentioned that you are suffering from Urinary tract infection. But you have not mentioned that whether the diagnosis was made by the physician. Also you have not mentioned your sex, age, sexual activity status, associated disorders like diabetes. I shall try to narrate all the risks for UTI s:

1)Women because of short urethra (only 4cm)

2)Young individuals, newly married because of sexual activity

3)Immunocomprimised states like Diabetes.

4)Associated stones in the kidney or urinary bladder

5)Recent H/O surgery, where there is a use of broad spectrum antibiotics.

Well, coming to your case, the blood in urine as detected with a urine dipstick may be from a menstrual blood, or it might just be an artifact or error. Urine dipstick tests are not very accurate and are limited to diseases associated with kidney, liver, diabetes progression. Moreover the timing of collection of urine sample is most important. The following precautions should be taken while collecting the sample.

1)Early morning, mid stream sample should be collected.

2)The area should not be cleaned with any antiseptics.

3)The urine should be collected in a clean, sterile container.

Antibiotics used for UTI usually dont cause blood in urine. However I would recommend you to consult your physician with complete urine examination report in hand, for further management.

Hope this helps.

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