Urinary tract infection in a 5 month old...ultrasound and flouroscopy?

Question

I took my 5 month old daughter to the doctor yesterday because she had odorous urine which is unusual for her. They took a urine sample (absolutely devastating as a mother to watch...three tries, 4 nurses in the room, and many many tears from Em).

Anyway, her pediatrician called this morning and said she has a UTI and needs to start antibiotics. He also said that he recommends a kidney ultrasound and a flouroscopy to ensure that nothing else is wrong.

Has anyone experienced these tests before? What were they like? Has your pediatrician recommended the same tests? What were your results?

Thank you for all your stories and answers!

Answer 1

When our son was less than 1 month, he had UTI. Since less than 3 month, he was immediately admitted to the hospital and provided antibiotics through IV (after many grueling and painful tests) for 7 days. They even did a lumbar puncture for meningitis (which was negative). Very painful to watch. It was quite traumatic (for 7 days) to say the least.

On the positive, we were glad that was quickly diagnosed and treated and it wasn't something more dangerous. You are lucky in that sense that your daughter is over 3 months and they can prescribe oral antibiotics (so, don't have to do even more tests or stay in hospital).

We did the ultrasound during the hospital stay and the VCUG/Flouroscopy around 2 months. These are necessary in order to determine if the kidney was infected (damaged) and whether there is reflux (urine flowing back to the kidney from the urinary tract, which can happen something like 50% of the time in babies and thus high risk of infection). Our son had to be on preventative oral antibiotics for a month till the flourscopy (VCUG) was done - this is also standard procedure.

The ultrasound and flouroscopy (VCUG) was quick and painless (over in minutes) and nothing compared to the ordeal before. Baby didn't even cry (actually always had finger with sterile glove in the mouth which is a good trick to make sure he can soothe himself). In hindsight we're glad that we did it. All was clear, thank god.  No recurrent UTI episodes - we are taking a lot of more precaution now (no bubble bath, clean with soap after poopie diaper, etc.)

Good luck with the tests and hope those are negative.