Battle of the Bladder

Urinary tract infections are common – and can be terribly uncomfortable. Here’s advice on how to cope with them.

- Thulani Gqirana

YOU constantly feel an urgent need to go, but when you do there isn’t a massive stream like you’d expected – just a trickle. And yet it feels as if you haven’t quite emptied your bladder.

Sound familiar? If it does, you’re not alone. Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are one of the most common infections, affecting an estimated 150 million people worldwide every year.

Women have a 50 % chance of getting a UTI in their lifetime, experts say, and around 30 to 40 % of patients get repeat infections.

UTIs are bacterial infections in the urinary system and can occur anywhere from the bladder to the kidneys.

The vast majority are caused by the E. coli bacterium, says Rosebank-based general practitioner Dr Belinda Ogundipe. They’re usually not serious, but UTIs can be problematic if left untreated.

Here’s what you need to know.

IT’S NOT JUST A ‘WOMAN THING’

While women stand a higher chance of getting a UTI, men are by no means immune. “Men, women and children get it,” Dr Ogundipe says.

UTIs affect women of all ages and the reasons they’re more at risk than men are biological. In women, the urethra (the tube that goes from the bladder to where urine is excreted) is much shorter than in men.