Medical Questions » Kidneys and Bladder Questions » Question No. 545
| Question: | How is a bladder infection best treated? I keep getting one every few months, and I find them most annoying and painful. |
| Answer: | When a patient arrives at a surgery with symptoms of a bladder infection (cystitis), a urine sample will be checked for infection. A plastic strip covered with spots that are sensitive to different constituents of the urine is used for this purpose. This can give a quite accurate picture of what is happening to cause the patient' s symptoms.
The sample is then sent to a laboratory for further testing to find out which bacteria is causing the infection, and which antibiotics will kill it. These tests may take a few days to complete, so the patient is usually started on an appropriate antibiotic immediately, which can be changed at a later date if the tests results indicate that this is necessary.
Other medications (in the form of a powder that makes a fizzy drink) to alkalinise the urine and remove the unpleasant burning sensation are also prescribed. Drinking extra fluid will help wash the infection out of the kidneys and bladder.
If several infections occur, further investigations such as ultrasound scans or X-rays of the bladder and kidneys are performed, to exclude some of the rarer more serious causes of recurrent cystitis.
In most patients, cystitis is a considerable nuisance, not a serious disease, that can be easily and effectively treated provided the patient presents to a doctor at the first sign of trouble.
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