Urinary Tract Infection Health Video

Video Transcript

DR. LISA GIBBONS: Hi. My name is Lisa Gibbons and I'm an obstetrician/gynecologist with Cascadia Women's Clinic in Vancouver, Washington. I'd like to talk wit you today about urinary tract infections. This is an infection of the bladder or the kidneys, most commonly the bladder, however, and a third of ladies will have experience a bladder infection in their lifetime so we see these quite common in the office. Symptoms present typically with pain with urination, frequency, so having to go to the bathroom more often than is typical, or urgency, feeling where you can't get to the bathroom in a timely fashion. Other atypical presentations are, in the elderly, confusion or in little girls that have been potty trained, they may be having accidents or bedwetting so this would also be an indication for taking your daughters in. Diagnosis is simply made by giving a urinary sample; we typically do this by a midstream clean catch urine specimen, we have to go to the bathroom, wipe the external genitalia off and urinate a little bit to clean up the urethra and then catch that midportion of the urine stream. This is sent to the lab and evaluated for bacteria and white blood cells. They also will let us know what antibiotic is best to treat with, that the bacteria is sensitive too. Treatment is quite simple; it's usually just a short course of antibiotics. If you're pregnant, however, it can be a little bit longer course, and in moderate and severe pain will also potentially give you a prescription or some of them are over-the-counter, prescription for an antispasmodic medication to help with the pain of the spasms and irritation of the urinary tract. Prevention is largely due to good bathroom hygiene so teaching our daughters when we're potty training them to wipe front to back and also doing that ourselves and as well as going to the bathroom after intercourse. A fair amount of ladies have noted the correlation between intercourse and urinary tract infections and these ladies were urinating afterward just not seem to treat that, then giving a short course of just one dose of an antibiotic after intercourse called postcoital prophylaxis is quite effective. And recurrence of three or more urinary tract infections in the year's time period or if the urinary tract infection does not clear with antibiotics or if you get a quick relapse within two weeks, these can all be red flags for needing to further evaluate the urinary tract for potential masses or other structural defects and you would be sent to a specialist, a urologist for further evaluation. So in closing, if you are experiencing symptoms of pain frequency or urgency, I would encourage you to see your primary care physician for evaluation.