Signs of a Urinary Tract Infection and Why Prompt Treatment Is So Important

When a condition affects 50% to 80% of your demographic, it’s worth understanding it. And this definitely applies to urinary tract infections (UTIs), which affect millions of women each year.

As experts in women’s health, the team of board-certified practitioners at North Atlanta OB/GYN routinely helps women navigate the uncomfortable world of urinary tract infections. 

Below, we explain UTI basics, possible signs of infection, and next steps to protect yourself from potentially larger problems.

Women and UTIs

UTIs occur when harmful bacteria access your urethra and bladder, where they linger and multiply, creating an infection. Women are far more prone to UTIs than men for a couple of reasons.

Anatomy plays a substantial role — a woman’s urethral opening is very close to the anus, which encourages cross-contamination, meaning bacteria from your digestive tract, namely E. coli, can get into your urinary tract. 

Another reason behind the gender disparity is that a women’s urethra is much shorter than a man’s, which means bacteria don’t have to travel as far to get to the bladder.

Finally, hormonal fluctuations also heighten a woman's risk for UTIs.

Signs of a urinary tract infection in women

If you’ve already had a UTI, you know that it’s hard to ignore given that symptoms come on quickly and often include:

• Pain when you urinate, especially when you initiate urination
• A strong urge to urinate, even if you’ve just gone
• Cloudy and smelly urine
• Blood in your urine
• Low back pain

While these are the main hallmarks of a UTI, we want to touch on UTIs in older women, which can present differently. As you get older and your reproductive hormone levels fall, the environment around your genitals changes and your body doesn’t protect as well against harmful bacteria.

So, not only are older women more vulnerable to UTIs, but they might not develop classic symptoms of burning pain during urination. Instead, some older women become confused and delirious, making it look more like dementia than a UTI.

The importance of seeking treatment for a UTI

As soon as you develop UTI symptoms, visit us right away. Granted, the discomfort alone often drives women to seek help quickly.

We want you to seek prompt treatment to reduce your symptoms and prevent the infection from spreading to your kidneys, which is more serious. We also want to help you avoid recurrence — more than a quarter of women develop a second UTI within six months of the first.

The good news is that testing and treating a UTI is quick and easy. You come in, and we take a urine sample to check for infection. If we find that you have a UTI, we start you on a course of antibiotics to clear it as quickly as possible.

Given the high recurrence rates, we want you to take the entire course of antibiotics and then practice some solid UTI prevention practices afterward, which include:

• Wiping from front to back to prevent cross-contamination
• Drinking plenty of fluids to flush out your urinary tract
• Urinating immediately after intercourse (sex can spread bacteria around)

If you suspect that you're dealing with a UTI, the most important step right now is to schedule an appointment by phone or online today at one of our offices in Atlanta, Alpharetta, or Marietta, Georgia.