Symptoms of acute urinary tract infection in women

The symptoms of acute urinary tract infection are quite obvious. After it occurs, you will intuitively feel itching and stinging at your urethral opening, especially when urinating. The stinging sensation will become more intense. As the infection deepens, you will find that your urethral opening is red and swollen. These are all symptoms of acute urinary tract infection. Especially for female friends, it will also induce vaginal diseases after suffering from it.

It is generally believed that there are four ways of urinary tract infection: ascending infection, blood infection, lymphatic infection and direct infection.

(1) Ascending infection: Most urinary sensations are caused by ascending infection. Under normal circumstances, there are bacteria parasitic in the urethral opening and its surroundings, but they generally do not cause infection. When the body's resistance is reduced or the urethral mucosa is slightly damaged, or when the bacteria are highly virulent and have a strong ability to adhere to the urethral mucosa and ascend, they can easily invade the bladder and kidneys and cause infection. Because the female urethra is close to the anus and the female urethra is much shorter and wider than the male urethra, the urethra of baby girls is often contaminated by feces, making it more susceptible to disease.

(2) Hematogenous infection: Bacteria invade the bloodstream from infection sites in the body (such as tonsillitis, sinusitis, dental caries or skin infection) and reach the kidneys, first causing multiple small abscesses in the renal cortex, and then spreading downward along the renal tubules to the renal papillae, calyces and renal pelvic mucosa. However, inflammation can also start from the papillary collecting ducts with slight damage to the renal papilla (such as crystal damage in the urine) and then spread upward and downward. Blood-borne infection is relatively rare, less than 10%. Hematogenous infection is more common in neonates or hematogenous renal infection in patients with Staphylococcus aureus sepsis.

(3) Lymphatic infection: The lymphatic vessels of the lower abdomen and pelvic organs have many communicating branches with the lymphatic vessels around the kidneys. There are also lymphatic vessels connecting the ascending colon and the right kidney. Bacteria can also infect the kidneys through the lymphatic vessels during pelvic organ inflammation, appendicitis, and colitis. This route of infection is even rarer, and there is currently debate about whether it even exists.

(4) Direct infection: When there is trauma or infection in organs adjacent to the kidney, bacteria can directly invade the kidney and cause infection. However, this situation is very rare clinically.