Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) research

UTI are a pretty common issue for Women and in general older people.

Started this topic to allow news of any treatments that may offer hope to sufferers.

One new bit of news is that some research is hopeful of eventually providing a vaccine for this painful and dangerous issue. Causes can be many fold including

  • weaker immune systems
  • associated medical conditions that cause you to retain urine more such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s disease
  • diabetes
  • prolapsed bladder
  • enlarged prostate
  • incontinence of the bladder or bowel
  • the presence of a urinary catheter
  • a history of recurrent UTIs.
  • lower levels of estrogen (in post-menopausal women).

The research from Duke University School of Medicine is linked below:

https://medschool.duke.edu/about-us/news-and-communications/med-school-blog/goodbye-utis-duke-scientists-develop-vaccine-strategy-urinary-tract-infections-0

Hope springs eternal.

Are there any other effective long term treatment options? With the common cause being E. Coli and some of these bacteria developing antibiotic resistance the common treatment of Antibiotics might be losing ground in that fight.

There are I’m sure many questions. Among one of the questions that may be interesting is do Urinary Alkalinisers help?

I’m sure many people would be interested in research and research backed up answers, please do not post unsubstantiated answers or misinformation.

Also of interest is that it appears recurrent infections can lead to decreased immune system responses to more UTI:

https://scholars.duke.edu/display/pub1441447

If a chronic sufferer is there anything you do to reduce the incidence that might help others?

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It can kill - mother-in-law died 30 years ago of Septicaemia & UTI. I had a couple of UTI and was advised to always have a post coital widdle, and it never recurred.

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My one and only encounter (thankfully because it was very painful) with UTI
was as a teenager.
My doc said it was cystitis, and concluded that girls ‘nowadays’ are wearing bikinis to the beach and get cold.
Still don’t know if he was being serious or not :thinking:

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It’s a recurrent concern for several of our more elderly family members. UTI’s also become more common where there is also need to manage incontinence.

There is a common observation that as we get older some of us try to manage these and issues such as nocturia by cutting back on fluids.

The following link to Continence Victoria offers some good advice on ensuring an adequate daily fluid intake as important in reducing the risks of UTI’s as well as other health needs.

Re Aged Care in particular, the medical staff we see seem to be all too familiar with UTI. Although not all in their care will or can speak up. The availability of good supplies of incontinence products in managed aged care, along side adequate hygiene support is an important control. IE Prevention and risk reduction, to minimise the need for medication. An effective vaccination or long term treatment would help assuming the other care needs were being properly met.

Our mum who is in aged care has had regular infections. No need to say any more. We can relate independently to these observations.

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Great link @mark_m, thank you!

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