Complications
It was scary for my 29 year old patient. Her usual UTI pain became excruciating very quickly. It was “normal” for her to get 2 UTIs a month. Six years bi-montly UTIs and she is still under educated about them. She is suffering. Now, even more. Today, her legs became numb. Her spine ached. Walking seemed impossible.
When I saw her, tears were pouring from her eyes. “Make the pain stop,” was all she could utter.
We called neurosurgery to evaluate her. Something was wrong. Was this “just” a really bad kidney infection? Or something worse. We started to worry about blood infections, bone infections, and other disastrous complications of UTIs.
A simple UTI can become a complicated UTI with a kidney infection. A kidney infection can spread to your bloodstream. And the bacteria in your blood can rarely seed into your bones and cause a bone infection (osteomyelitis).
One really bad UTI could alter her life forever. She would have to have 6 weeks of antibiotics and hope that the pain would resolve at some point. She may have had complications from the bone infection that could cause permanent disability.
She neglected taking preventative measures therefore she was suffering through the worst infection of her young life.
Luckily, we were able to give her powerful IV antibiotics, and with a lot of morphine, make her infection and pain abate. Ladies, do not end up this type of infection. Get those UTIs treated early, and even better, prevent them from occurring in the first place.
