UTI at booking appointment

[plwcm]

Hello, I had my booking appointment (at 10 weeks 5 days) and midwife said there were nitrates/nitrites(?) in my urine and to contact my GP. I couldn't get an appointment yesterday, but today they offered a phone call from another practice at 6pm as no appointments at my GP again.

I don't really know what this phone call will achieve, and really don't want to just be told to go to the walk in centre as I've got work early tomorrow and have limited public transport options home after I finish work.

Is there anything I can do other than drinking plenty of water to help get rid of this in case I can't be seen until Monday to sort out antibiotics etc. Obviously I will go to the walk in centre if I can, but just awkward around work at the weekend. I currently don't have any symptoms (had a UTI before and had the pain/stinging, needing to wee a lot, as in I'd go wee, a little would come out, then I'd need to wee again straight after). but this time there's nothing.

Any help would be appreciated, thank you!

@plwcm isn't cranberry juice supposed to help? Why don't you try contact your midwife again and just say you can't get an appointment. I've know midwives get prescriptions before straight from the doctor so don't understand why this couldn't be done in the first place.

They might just prescribe you antibiotics over the phone based on the dip test your midwife did.

Thanks for the replies.

I'll wait and see what they say in the phone appointment, I'm hoping they do prescribe something for me to collect, as I don't want it to progress into something bad.

If not I'll contact my midwife again, and see what she says as results from the lab might be back soon with more info.

Is this from the urine dipstick test? Mine showed this at around 35 weeks. My midwife said if I didn’t have any symptoms then I probably don’t have a uti, the dipstick isn’t conclusive. She just said to see the dr if I did get symptoms. I never did get any. I live abroad though so the advice is probably different. I don’t want to say not to follow up with the gp in case you do have something. It’s more reassurance that it’s not necessarily the case!

@Betsyboo87

Is this from the urine dipstick test? Mine showed this at around 35 weeks. My midwife said if I didn’t have any symptoms then I probably don’t have a uti, the dipstick isn’t conclusive. She just said to see the dr if I did get symptoms. I never did get any. I live abroad though so the advice is probably different. I don’t want to say not to follow up with the gp in case you do have something. It’s more reassurance that it’s not necessarily the case!

Wow @Betsyboo87 this is really dangerous advice! Asymptomatic UTIs are really common in pregnancy and are actually more dangerous than symptomatic ones because they can travel to your kidneys and cause pyelonephritis (kidney infection) which in turn can be really dangerous and lead to premature birth. It’s precisely because of this risk that they test pregnant women’s urine regularly, in order to pick up infections even where there are no symptoms. Hopefully you’ve been ok, but for anyone else reading this it’s really important to know this.

@Indecision2020 that’s exactly why I said to follow up with her gp....

@Lollol86 Cranberry juice won’t help if you already have the UTI, in fact it can actually make it worse because of its acidity! So definitely avoid.

The presence of nitrites in your urine is common when an infection is present! Symptoms don’t always show straight away, so I would definitely say to go to a walk in centre to get some antibiotics. Take a urine sample with you too as this will help speed up the process.

Your midwife should have referred you to a GP instead of getting you to contact them! Quite surprised at that!

@Betsyboo87 to be fair you said “it’s not necessarily the case”, when in fact it’s really important that she does follow up.

I wasn’t getting at you - it’s not your fault you got terrible advice. I’m glad you didn’t suffer any bad effects from it. Untreated UTIs lead to kidney infections in c.30% of women so you were lucky.