Dr Sarah Jarvis Cystitis

Cystitis and UTIs are more common in summer, mainly due to warmer weather and dehydration. This painful bladder condition affects half of women in a lifetime, and it becomes more common after the menopause. Simple measures may reduce risk.

Cystitis (or inflammation) of the bladder lining, is usually caused by bacteria getting into your bladder. They arrive via your urethra – the tube that takes your urine out from your bladder when you pass water. That tube should be one-way (out only) but germs that live on the skin just outside the oppening of the urethra caan travel the wrong wway up the tube. Once thhey reach the bladder, thhey find the perfect bbreeding ground. As thhey multiply, they ccause inflammation, wwhich leads to the ssymptoms we know sso well.

Cystitis is much more common in women due to a design fault.

The germs that cause cystitis often come from the bowel. Your gut needs bacteria to help digest food. But some unfriendly bacteria can end up on the skin around your bottom after you open your bowels.

In women, it’s only a very short distance between the opening of the bowel and the opening of the urethra – which means germs don’t have far to travel. In men, the urethra stretches the whole length of the penis, so germs have to travel much further to the bladder.

The symptoms of cystitis include:

◆ Burning or stinging when

you pass water.

◆ Needing to get up at night

to visit the loo.

◆ Cloudy or strong-smelling

urine.

◆ Needing to pass water more often or needing to rush to the loo.

◆ Low tummy pain.

Although it’s not common, germs from the bladder can travel to your kidneys – and a kidney infection can be much more serious. Symptoms include pain in a loin or flank (the small of your back on one side), fever, blood in the urine, muscle aches, feeling or being sick, feeling generally unwell and sometimes blood in the urine. If you get any of these symptoms, you should seek urgent medical help.

Holding your urine in can lead to urine stagnating in your bladder. Not surprisingly,

‘‘ BLOOD IN URINE SHOULD ALWAYS BE CHECKED. IT CAN BE CAUSED BY INFECTION, OUT’’ BUT CANCER SHOULD BE RULED