Hello all, I asked on another thread if anyone would like to know how to test your own urine for UTIs. A couple of people have said they would, so here is my notes on that. Don’t forget, I’m not a medical professional, these notes absolutely don’t replace your GP and/or bladder and bowel specialist or MS nurse.
Here is the information I wrote some time ago about how to test for a UTI. Signs of infection are: changes to your usual indicators for needing to empty your bladder (increased frequency or urgency and/or wetting yourself), pain on urination, dark coloured or strong smelling wee, a temperature or pain in your lower back. Or maybe you have new or repeated MS symptoms, including strange cognitive symptoms (aka brain fog or ‘fuzzy head’). In particular, you should make sure you have your wee tested for infection before taking steroids for a relapse (sometimes GPs don’t check this). If you think you have an infection, your should take a sample into your GP surgery. But I can test my own, which I tend to do first because sometimes you can get signs that look like an infection but aren’t. This is how to test your own.
When you take a sample into your GP surgery, they ‘dip’ the urine with a urinalysis test stick. What they are checking for (when looking for a UTI) is the presence of leucocytes, protein and nitrites. Also blood in the urine, though of course there could be other reasons to find blood in urine, especially for a woman of menstruation age. You can buy the same test strips and test your own wee, sometimes it’s useful just to rule out a UTI for yourself.
I tend to buy Siemens (or Bayer which is now the same company as Siemens) urinalysis test strips as I think they are the best, and I buy from Amazon as it’s easy and reliable. (Obviously you can buy other brands and from other places.) The strips come in a plastic cylinder with a grid of results printed on the side. You need to keep the cylinder tightly done up and dry. Moisture will ruin the test strips. So if you keep the strips in a bathroom cupboard, put them in a resealable plastic bag or box - obviously keeping them in their plastic canister with the lid tightly screwed on.
The packs have either 8 or 10 different tests, it doesn’t matter which type you get. Just be aware that the specific tests might be in different places on the test strips. The left side of the results boxes show the negative results and further to the right are the levels of positive reactions. Each type of test has a time that it’ll take to react: from 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
What you do to test your own urine is take a test strip out of the container. First check that the little coloured boxes on the strip are all the same as the ‘negative’ boxes on the left hand side of the results table. If they’re not, then they may have got moisture in and they’ll be no good.
Either wee over the test strip, or wee into a clean container, then dip your strip into the urine. If you self catheterise, try to get a wee sample without using a catheter. I have a small old plastic jug which lives in a bathroom cupboard; it’s used only for catching wee samples.
You ‘read’ the results from bottom to top, noting the time it takes for each type of test result to show. You can generally ignore the things like glucose and ketones (when testing for a UTI). The bottom squares take less time to show results, so you read from the bottom to the top.
What you need to check for for are:
Leucocytes, the presence of these shows inflammation.
Nitrites, the presence shows infection, in particular, e.coli usually shows up as a positive nitrite result. (E.coli is the most common type of UTI.)
Protein also shows infection, sometimes just protein is positive but not nitrites, this will likely be a different infection to e.coli.
Blood can also be present if there is an infection. If there’s blood in the urine, there will also be protein.
If you find that the leucocytes show faintly pink, but nitrites and protein are negative, drink lots of water through the day and retest later. You’ll usually find that sorts out a slight bit of inflammation.
If you have positive nitrites and / or protein, (generally you’d also find leucocytes) then take a sample to your GP surgery. I always check that a positive sample has been sent to the lab for complete testing as the GP surgerys’ first line reaction is usually to give you some basic antibiotics that don’t always work. Many bacteria are only ‘sensitive’ to specific antibiotics.
If blood shows positive but nothing else does, take the sample to your GP. (Assuming there is no reason you’re aware of for the blood - like having a period or having scratched your urethra with a catheter.)
A test that shows raised leukocytes and nitrites but not protein, is often an e.coli bacteria. The most common antibiotics that should work on e.coli are Nitroferantoin, Trimethoprim and Ciprofloxacin. Sometimes your GP will include one of these types on your repeat prescription list if you ask. If you get this type of result, take a sample to your GP before starting the antibiotics, but once you’ve taken the sample, and the surgery have confirmed your test result, start the antibiotics. (Information that comes in handy if you’re on holiday, I always take test strips and antibiotics on holiday, so if I get these test results, I’ll take the antibiotics. If after I get home, and following the course of antibiotics, I’m still symptomatic, I re-test and send a positive sample into the GP surgery, this time waiting for lab results.) If you don’t already have a supply of antibiotics, your GP surgery will prescribe some for you.
A test that shows leukocytes and protein plus possibly blood is likely to be an infection that is not caused by e.coli bacteria, so the antibiotics listed above won’t work on the UTI. So don’t bother taking them (unless you’re on holiday and just want to at least try and damp down the symptoms even if it won’t kill the bacteria), just take the sample to the GP surgery and wait for lab results before taking any antibiotics.
I am not a trained nurse or doctor, I’ve learned all of the above info over time. As far as I know, everything I’ve said is correct, but if you want to check it out, run what I’ve said past your MS nurse (mine originally gave me the information.) If I’ve missed important information or got anything wrong and you are medically trained, feel free to correct me. I’m happy to be told if I’m wrong - this is useful info, so getting it right is better than being right!
Sue