When You Visit Your Doctor - Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections
Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections
Questions to Discuss with Your Doctor:
- With each of the bladder or urinary tract infections that you have you had, as far back as you can remember:
- What were the dates of each?
- Was a urine culture done to prove you had an infection?
- What treatment was given, and how quickly did you get better?
- Did you have a fever, pain in your back, or nausea and vomiting?
- Have you ever been told that you have abnormalities in the way your kidneys or bladder, or the tubes connecting them, are built?
- Do you frequently develop bladder or urinary tract infections after sexual intercourse?
- Do you have any chronic medical problems (for example, diabetes or neurological disease)?
- Are you on any antibiotics to prevent recurrent bladder or urinary tract infections? If so, which one?
- If you are a woman, what type of contraception do you use (for example, a diaphragm, spermicide)?
Your Doctor Might Examine the Following Body Structures or Functions:
- Abdominal exam
- Genital exam
- Back exam for the presence of tenderness in the area of the kidneys
Your Doctor Might Order the Following Lab Tests or Studies:
- Clean-catch urine specimen for urinalysis and culture
- Ultrasound of the bladder
- Full pelvic/renal ultrasound
- Abdominal CT scan
- Cystourethrogram
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