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“I suffer from frequent bouts of urinary tract infections. I have used medication time and again but it still recurs: what could be the problem?”
Last week I was confronted by this question in my inbox. This reader clearly values her health and trusts our pages to offer the elusive panacea she has been looking for.
First, it is good to know that UTIs are generally common. Nearly every adult will suffer from it at some point in life.
However, a recurrent UTI infection is not normal per se. There are several reasons why a UTI could exhibit persistent recurrence. NB: To put this into perspective today we are addressing UTI in women though even men can suffer from the infection
“Bad hygiene is often a likely culprit,” Dr John Wachira a urologist at Amref Africa points out. Unlike men, women’s anatomy is such that it is easy to move bacteria from the anus to the urethra. Women who put importance on hygiene will wipe in the right direction to avoid moving bacteria in this manner.The right direction is from the front to the back. The material used should always be clean.
On the other hand, ladies who have little time to groom after visiting the bathroom easily infect their urethras with bacteria from the alimentary canal, provoking a bout of UTI.
It all boils down to the direction of the wipe and the care employed to avoid transfer of germs. In some cases though, Wachira says, UTIs will recur if there is a morphological problem that blocks complete emptying of the urinary bladder.
“When some urine remains in the bladder it tends to create a conducive environment for germs to flourish,” Wachira says. In such cases, the only solution would be to find out what blocks some urine from expulsion.
Men too can be blamed: if your spouse is the sort with grabby hands but does not seem to care about washing them before getting down to business he could be the source of your infection.
According to Wachira though, it is highly unlikely that it is the man with dirty hands causing recurrent UTIs. Which woman allows dirty hands to come close to her anyway? You can blame him for recurrent vaginal thrash though. Don’t be too quick to place the blame on any of the above if you suffer from diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes provides bacteria with perfect ecological conditions to thrive. The body of a type 2 diabetes sufferer provides sufficient substrate for bacteria to multiply. It is therefore easy to provoke recurrent UTI that seems to defy even the most efficient of antibiotics available in the market.
But there could be something else putting you at risk of recurrent UTIs: oral sex. Now, even the most ardent dental hygiene fanatics have at least a million bacteria in their mouths at any given moment. “You can never rid the mouth of bacteria,” Wachira says, adding, “Which can easily be inoculated into the urethra through oral sex.”
There you have it. Do you think you fall in any of the mentioned categories? Then you know how to stop your suffering. The best step however is visiting a urologist to unearth the real problem.
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