How to check for urinary tract infection?

If you experience burning, stinging, or even difficulty urinating when you urinate, you should be careful about whether you have a urinary tract infection. Urinary tract infection is a type of urinary system infection. It can be divided into different types according to different locations and causes. The most important thing about urinary tract infection is early detection and early treatment. So how do you detect a urinary tract infection?

1: Clinically, patients with urethritis experience itching, burning, and stinging in the urethra, and sometimes urgency and difficulty in urinating. The urethral opening is congested or swollen, with serous, mucopurulent, or thin white secretions, or there is a "sweating" phenomenon in the morning.

2: Urinary tract irritation, i.e. frequent urination, urgent urination, painful urination, and discomfort during urination. These symptoms vary in severity in different patients. Acute inflammation patients often have obvious urinary tract irritation signs; however, in the elderly, children, and patients with chronic urinary tract infection, urinary tract irritation symptoms are usually mild, such as mild frequent urination, urgent urination, or discomfort during urination.

3: Systemic poisoning symptoms, such as fever, chills, headache, etc. Mainly seen in patients with upper urinary tract infection, especially acute urinary tract infection and patients with urinary tract obstruction.

1: Urine routine examination shows leukocytosis or purulent urine, accompanied by erythrocytosis, and a few cases of macroscopic hematuria. The three-cup urine test shows a large number of pus cells and erythrocytes in the first cup, while the second and third cups are basically normal. The number of bacteria in the first-stream urine cell culture is significantly higher than that in the midstream urine.

1: Chronic urethritis requires urethrocystoscopy to clarify the cause of the disease. Sometimes a metal urethral probe can be used to test whether there is stricture in the urethra, and urethrography can be performed if necessary. In the acute stage, it is forbidden to use instruments to examine the urethra.

1: Smear examination of urethral or vaginal secretions can reveal intracellular or extracellular gonococci in gonococcal urethritis. For non-specific urethritis, secretions or anterior urethral swabs can be cultured to show a large number of bacterial growth. If no bacteria are found in secretion smears or cultures, there is a possibility of mycoplasma or chlamydia infection, and special methods of culture or PCR examination can be performed.

Urinary tract infection can be divided into pyelonephritis, cystitis, and urethritis according to the different sites of infection; it can be divided into complicated and uncomplicated urinary tract infection according to the presence or absence of urinary tract functional or organic abnormalities; it can be divided into acute and chronic urinary tract infection according to the nature of the inflammation.