Female urethra external opening hurts when touched

Pain at the external urethral opening is an infection of the urinary system, also known as a urinary tract infection. Failure to pay attention to personal hygiene in daily life allows bacteria to invade the body and cause infection. If this happens, you should take appropriate anti-inflammatory drugs as soon as possible, change your underwear frequently, and keep your private parts clean. Urinary tract infection may also cause nephritis and sepsis. Seeking medical attention early is the most critical solution.

Urinary tract infection, also known as urinary system infection, is an inflammatory response of the urothelium to bacterial invasion, usually accompanied by bacteriuria and pyuria.

Urinary tract infection can be divided into upper urinary tract infection and lower urinary tract infection according to the site of infection; according to the relationship between the two infections, it can be divided into isolated or sporadic infection and recurrent infection, the latter of which can be divided into reinfection and bacterial persistence, which is also called recurrence; according to the state of the urinary tract at the time of infection, it can be divided into simple urinary tract infection, complicated urinary tract infection and urosepsis. Urinary tract infections are common in women, especially those who are sexually active and postmenopausal women.

Causes

More than 95% of urinary tract infections are caused by a single bacteria. Among them, 90% of outpatients and about 50% of inpatients are caused by Escherichia coli, which can be classified into 140 types of serotypes. The urinary infection-causing Escherichia coli is of the same type as the Escherichia coli isolated from the patient's feces, and is often seen in asymptomatic bacteriuria or uncomplicated urinary infection; Proteus, Clostridium difficile, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and fecal Streptococcus are seen in patients with reinfection, indwelling catheters, and complicated urinary tract infections; Candida albicans and Cryptococcus neoformans infections are often seen in patients with diabetes and those using glucocorticoids and immunosuppressants and after kidney transplantation; Staphylococcus aureus is often seen in bacteremia and sepsis caused by skin trauma and drug addicts; although viral and mycoplasma infections are rare, they have tended to increase in recent years. Various bacterial infections are seen in indwelling catheters, neurogenic bladder, stones, congenital malformations, and vaginal, intestinal, and urethral fistulas.

Clinical manifestations

1. Acute simple cystitis

The onset is sudden, and the onset in female patients is often related to sexual activity. The main manifestations are bladder irritation signs, namely frequent urination, urgency, pain when urinating, discomfort in the bladder area or perineum, and a burning sensation in the urethra; the degree of urinary frequency varies, and in severe cases, urge urinary incontinence may occur; the urine is turbid, there are white blood cells in the urine, terminal hematuria is common, and sometimes it is hematuria throughout the process, and even blood clots are discharged. Generally there are no obvious systemic infection symptoms, and the body temperature is normal or there is a low fever.

2. Acute simple pyelonephritis

(1) Urinary system symptoms include bladder irritation signs such as frequent urination, urgency, and pain during urination; hematuria; low back pain on the affected side or both sides; obvious tenderness or percussion pain at the costovertebral angle on the affected side;

(2) Symptoms of systemic infection such as chills, high fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, etc. are often accompanied by increased white blood cell count and increased erythrocyte sedimentation rate.

3. Asymptomatic bacteriuria

Asymptomatic bacteriuria is a hidden urinary tract infection, which is more common in elderly women and pregnant women. Patients do not have any symptoms of urinary tract infection, and the incidence rate increases with age.

4. Complicated urinary tract infection

The clinical manifestations of complicated urinary tract infection vary greatly, and are often accompanied by other diseases that increase the risk of infection or treatment failure, with or without clinical symptoms (such as frequent urination, urgency, dysuria, dysuria, low back pain, costovertia angle tenderness, suprapubic pain and fever, etc.). Complicated urinary tract infections are often accompanied by other diseases, such as diabetes and renal failure; they also cause many sequelae, the most serious and fatal of which include urosepsis and renal failure. Renal failure can be divided into acute and chronic, reversible and irreversible.