A PSA on UTIs

A month ago, I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and fainted. Because the Spousal Unit had trouble getting me to revive and also because I just didn’t feel right (my heart rate was low–in the mid-50s–and I had trouble breathing), he called 911 to have me taken to the emergency room.

They took X-rays and an EKG, and ran blood tests, and couldn’t find anything wrong with me. In fact, the emergency responders didn’t seem too concerned after measuring my pulse and blood pressure and gave us the option of taking me to the hospital or not.

At the hospital, almost as an aside since I had to go to the bathroom, they tested my urine, too, and found that I had a UTI. Because of that, they prescribed an antibiotic.

Thanks to the antibiotic, the UTI has been wiped out. Despite my thinking/hoping I would bounce back once the antibiotic does its magic (or, really, its science), I’ve been recovering very slowly. This is not surprising given that I had allowed an infection to wreak havoc on my body for at least a month, if not bordering on three.

One of the things I noticed when I checked my Fitbit stats after getting home from the hospital stay was that my resting heart rate had plunged from the normal range of around the mid 60s to the mid 50s within the span of a month. Here’s a look at the one year average data:

And a close-up of the 3 month period.

I kept telling medical professionals that I am not an athlete and that my resting pulse should not be in the 50s, but that didn’t set off any alarms for them. Because my blood pressure and EKG readings seemed normal, and I wasn’t running a fever, they assumed there was nothing really wrong with me. But, let me tell you, those readings don’t tell the whole story. I also had lowered body temperature and couldn’t get warm. For the next couple of weeks, even though the weather was borderline hot and it was in the high 70s F in the house, I wore sweaters and was swaddled in blankets.

Since the hospitalization, I’ve spoken with many friends who have horror stories about UTIs. Joana first alerted me to how UTIs can have truly bizarre symptoms in older people. Then Carol and David told me a bunch of helpful info and anecdotes from their own brushes with UTIs. Our aunt told me that she once had a UTI that put her in the hospital for 4 weeks during which time she felt so bad, she didn’t care if she lived or died.

WHAT IN THE HECK???

How is it that something so prevalent and dangerous can be shrugged off by the ER staff? If we hadn’t insisted to the emergency workers that I should go to the hospital for a check-up, and hadn’t off-handedly had my urine tested, who knows if I would have ended up with kidney damage (or, worse) at this point?

So, my PSA is that you should keep an eye out for the possibility of having a UTI, especially if you’re biologically female and older. The Mayo Clinic has a page of info on it but I can tell you from first hand experience that those aren’t the only symptoms. I first noticed a strange odor a couple of months back. It wasn’t from the urine, and I completely ignored the smell even when it became really strong (BIG MISTAKE) because I never had the classic symptoms of trouble urinating or abdominal pain/blood.

A few things to keep in mind:
1) Never ignore any symptoms, even if they don’t conform to an official list of things to look for.
2) Go to the doctor and insist on getting tested for a UTI just to rule it out if nothing else.
3) Don’t let medical professionals downplay the urgency of the situation if you feel deep down that something is just not right.
4) Talk to friends! I swear I learned way more from my friends’ experiences than I did from any medical professional on the topic. I’m not suggesting randomly taking advice from people, but you’re going to be so much better informed about the problem from having an aggregate data set. I understand wanting to be private about one’s life; I certainly don’t share as much publicly as some of my friends do. But as the Beetles sang, “I get by with a little help from my friends.” I certainly do!

Bottom line: UTIs are serious. Ignore them to your detriment.