UTI not showing up on dip sticks - Doctors won't take my kidney pain seriously

[PeeAche]

I am 12 weeks pregnant and at my booking appointment, my dipstick was fine but a culture test of the same urine sample, at the labs, came back a few days later with news of a "nasty water infection". 7 days of co-amoxicillin were prescribed (of which I have 2 days left to take)

I've had severe pelvic pain for weeks which I thought was round ligament pain but, in hindsight has probably been hidden UTI the entire time.

I suffer with HG so I believe it was caused by chronic dehydration and I've always been prone to UTIs anyway.

On Saturday, kidney pain started suddenly. I went to our local urgent care centre but they wouldn't even let me in the building because there was no one there that could help me after 4.30pm. They suggested A&E but I went home because it didn't feel safe to drive to A&E (an hour away) at 9pm on my own when I was literally bent double with pain (DH at home with kids in bed).

Next morning it was still very bad so DH dropped me at A&E. At about 14 I had a kidney infection once and I think the pain is the same.

Saw the urgent case nurse, due to my being pregnant, within a few minutes. She did a dip test on my (now very diluted, thanks to 8 pints of water) urine. It was negative. Therefore assumed my kidney pain must be something else and sent me to gynae unit.

Once at gynae unit, staff were lovely but were just focused on my pelvic pain. Poked and prodded for 4 hours and then told that I'm fine, cervix is fine, baby is fine and maybe I just have back ache.

Trust me, it's not back ache!!

They discharge me and during discharge they ask me to lie down so that they can feel my stomach for tenderness. They move to my side and touch my right kidney and I start yelping.

So, they run some blood tests for kidney function. All is well and they proceed with discharging me. I leave still bent double, feeling very silly for wasting everyone's time, and clutching 2 paracetamol.

I asked them if they would send my urine for the same culture testing as before but they said no because it was only done 2 weeks ago and there won't be anything new to learn. Just finish the co-amoxicillin and see how it goes.

I'm home and still in agony.

Has anyone else ever had an experience of UTIs going undetected? Or any health care workers here that might shed some light. I'm at the end of my tether. I know that maybe I should just see how it goes, like the gynae clinic said BUT I really am in agony and I have a house to run and a full time job to do and on top of it all, I have a pregnancy to contend with.

Unsure if I should try again tomorrow with my GP when they open or if I should just try to soldier on for 2 more days until these antibiotics have run out.

Thanks. :)

Telling you to take two more days of antibiotics seems extremely poor advice to me (not a doctor). If your antibiotics haven’t worked (which your pain suggests they haven’t), they need to give you something different. I’d go back to A&E. You are in pain and you’re pregnant, you’re not wasting anyone’s time.

• have you been seen by a urologist?
• have they done an ultrasound to check for kidney stones?
• you need a culture to rule out polynephritis
• dipsticks have a high false negative rate

This abstract shows that patients with UTI symptoms but a negative dipstick should have a culture done:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4408713/

“… symptomatic UTI patients with negative dipstick assay should be subjected to urine culture for a proper management.”

I’m sorry you’re going through this and I hope you get it sorted ASAP.!

Did you ever get to the bottom of this? Currently experiencing the exact same at 30 weeks pregnant and not getting anywhere !

This happened to me, not pregnant though but being dismissed, went on for 6 weeks, I did have a UTI but either it caused a kidney stone or the kidney stone caused the UTI (it can happen either way or a UTI may not manifest at all) but I was eventually dismissed after 3 rounds of anitbiotics with the final GP telling me i have a bad back

I was rushed to hospital that night. Kidney stone.

You can get referred pain as it moves about and tries to make its way out

I’ve been tested for UTI and kidney infection 4 times now and nothing is coming back! They said maybe kidney stones but it’s been nearly 4 weeks now since the pain down my side / kidney started not sure how long they typically last? Baby has been checked and is all fine. They keep trying to tell me it could be bad back pain but it’s not it’s my kidney and had blood in my wee when I first when to hospital but still all clear on the tests!

did your stone eventually pass on its own?

I was in hospital a week, everyday I was scheduled for surgery to put in a stent to ease it out, each day surgery got cancelled, regular scans to see where it was and what was happening, some days they could see it, others they couldnt, had to wee in a sieve to catch the stone, never saw a stone, pain cleared after a week and after a few consecutive days of not seeing it on scans, I was discharged.

Sometimes they are small small gravel and you can barely catch it.

I live in fear of getting another one, the pain was indescribable, morphine only just took the edge off, never known anything like it