Hi tklivestock, good to hear from you. Sorry you haven't been well. Last month I had what I thought was flu (despite having had the flu jab and the rest of the family being fine). I then developed kidney and severe abdominal pain, saw the GP, had urine and blood tests and was put on antibiotics for a UTI. There was blood and protein in my urine (unusual for me) but the culture came back clear. My bloods indicated a severe infection and my kidney function dipped. I recovered but still don't really know what it was.

There are a number of possibilites in your case:
You still have a UTI; you never had a UTI and it's something else; you had a UTI and something else. Could you have a stone?

I hope you get to the bottom of this soon.

Chewitt

Hi Chewitt, I'm sorry to hear you were so sick and I hope you're feeling much better now. Does your doctor have any guess what caused all the symptoms? Could it have been a ruptured cyst? Take good care of yourself. tklivestock, Hi, I just wanted to tell you what happens to me. I sometimes get the feeling that I have a uti with pressure and urgency but no pain. It usually turns out I have a vaginal yeast infection and when I treat that all the other symptoms go away. I have been plagued with yeast infections and get them several times a year with the uti symptoms but no other discomfort. I don't know if this will help you or not but I hope you're doing much better by now.

Hi Kendie,
I haven't seen my GP again. I just know that I had a severe infection of some sort. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a cyst rupture as none of the symptoms weere typical. I had terrible chiils for days, then some days of fever and chills, nausea, then diarrhoea and days later vomiting. Half way through all of this the kidney and abdominal pain started. It was horrible. It took some time to regain my energy levels (such as they are anyway!) but I'm feeling much better now thank you.

Take care,

Chewitt

Hi Everyone. ..feeling better this week and went in for an ultrasound. ..Kidneys are 16cm....Several cysts as usual so I guess I'll wait and see if there's anything different going on.Hope you feeling better Chewitt...and thanks for the replies and advice :)

I went through something similar.I'm had no sign of infection,but took an OTC UTI test a few days later and it shows up positive. Going back for a urine test at the doctor today.

tklivestock,
Glad you're feeling better now. I've recovered from the infection I had (GP has no idea what it was) but am feeling generally very tired these days and my liver is givng me trouble as it continures to expand.

Live2Tell,
Welcome to the group. I think many people have a UTI without knowing it. It's possible that it would progress, though, and start to cause symptoms, so it's important to treat it. My GP did a dip stick test which indicated a UTI, but the urine culture showed nothing. I certainly had symptoms, so I don't know what was going on. The symptoms cleared up with a course of antibiotics, so what can I say? I was just pleased to feel better!

Chewitt, Thanks for the welcome. I went to my general practitioners office and they confirmed I do have a UTI. I also learned something new. My gp noticed a deep bruise that I have and asked if I had it when I had my last labs drawn. He said an injury of any kind could make labs come back abnormal. I had never heard this before.

Chewitt, was that infection you have related to your pkd?

Enigmatic,

In short, I don't know, since my GP was unable to tell me what I'd had. I certainly had a lot of kidney pain after the first few days, but although the initial dipstick test indicated infection, the urine culture showed nothing. I thought it might be flu, but I had the flu vaccine which should at least have made any infection milder than the one I had. I would also have expected others in my family to be infected, but everyone else was fine. I'm inclined to think it might have been a kidney infection or something else which developed into a kidney infection.

Live2tell,

That's interesting. I just learned that illness (infections) and dehydration can skew Hb blood test results, making Hb seem higher than it actually is. For two weeks I thought my anaemia was gone, then another test revealed it was actually worse than ever 95.5/95 vs, 11.5/115).

Enigmatic, having seen my consultant today I can give you a better answer. Yes! He thinks I had a cyst infection. Mystery solved.

Wow, I 've actually had this several times. I have the burning urination and a low fever too. I think it's related to cysts popping. I feel like I have the flu along with a UTI but don't have one.

When I have cyst ruptures I have pain but don't feel ill. I felt very ill with the infection, so I know it wasn't just ruptures. A cyst infection may not show up in a urine culture if the cysts are cut off from the urinary system.

Chewitt,

You mention " skew Hb blood " in an earlier post regarding infection and dehydration. What is "Hb"?

I have some infection and dehydration things I've been trying to figure out.

Thanks!

Larry

Sorry Larry, too many abbreviations! Hb is Haemaglobin and I had a false high result during my infection. Hb gives an indication of whether you might have anaemia. Having been anaemic for a while, I thought I had improved. Unfortunately it had actually become worse and I'm now taking iron.