Category Archive: Urinary Tract Infection

I called our nephrologist today.  The initial urine FEME test shows that there are no WBC (white blood cells) and no bacteria in the urine.  There are however 2 RBC (red blood cells) in the urine…. which means that there could be an infection in the urinary tract or kidney.  Our doctor said to wait for the urine culture results to see what is actually going on in her urinary tract, which will only be out on Thursday or Friday.  Sigh… 2-3 more days of worrying myself sick. Meanwhile, her antibiotics has been changed from Cephalexin to Bactrim and increased from 1.5ml once a day to 2.5ml twice a day.

Today Baby C’s pee does not smell foul anymore and she appears as active as usual.  She is however still purging.  I’ve stopped feeding her with cranberry juice and barley water.  Yesterday she was really traumatized when the dr. inserted the catheter into her ureter and subsequently gave her a very painful intra-muscular antibiotics jab.  Her long-term memory has already formed and the moment she was put on the bed in the procedures room, she already yelled her lungs out. She could remember the procedures that she had gone through recently and my poor baby was scared.    She was really whiny and craby after the trip to the hospital and she was practically latched on to my teats the whole night!

Baby C’s pee still smells a little foul today… and looks yellowish too on her diaper.  Today I collected her pee in a specimen bottle to have an inspection myself and as I had expected, the pee looks a tad cloudy and there were tiny particles floating inside too 🙁 

I made a call to my nephrologist and she said to bring Baby C in to have her pee collected via catheterization.  Urine collected via catheterization does not get contaminated as it’s directly from the ureter.  Baby C has been purging for the past 3 days and her diaper area is really red and sore.  This could be the cause of the urine infection (if indeed there is any)…. but it’s still a case of the chicken or the egg.  The infection could be caused by the poo or the purging could have been caused by the infection.  The best is to do a urine culture test today to decide the next course of action.  If indeed there’s an infection, my poor baby would have to be given painful intra-muscular antibiotics jabs again for several days 🙁 

Dear God, whatever it is, just remove all the pain, discomforts and torture that are bound to be inflicted on my poor baby….amen!

Today was our second consultation with the pediatric surgeon.  We showed him the urine culture report dated 3rd October, the test of which was done at a hospital nearer to our house.  Looking at the report, which states that there is a scanty growth of E Coli bacteria and a WBC (white blood cells) of 2-4, he told us that the reading is insignificant and thus, is not a UTI.  He is of the opinion that the urine was contaminated, most probably by the bacteria on the labia or the anus.  It is very common for bacteria to be on the outer part of our skin, in fact our skin has bacteria on the surface all the time. Bacteria is everywhere!  He said that urine collected using urine bag or directly from the ureter to the specimen bottle have high chances of being contaminated.  Only ‘clean sample urine’ collected by way of cathether or by way of aspiration from the bladder through a needle (poked on the tummy) give an accurate reading.

We can now cut down the oral antibiotics back to once a day (1.5ml, to be given at night). Yay…. this means one less back-breaking chore for me.  I tell you, feeding Baby C antibiotics and her yucky tasting health supplements ain’t no easy task.  Carrying a near 7kg weight with one hand and feeding her with my other hand whilst walking round the house and garden, sometimes dancing with her is a real back-breaking and hand-numbing chore…. a labor of love, only a mother would do…. and I have to do it 4 times a day, everyday for the next few months or years and only God will know when I can be relieved of doing this back-breaking chore.

On his advise, I have been feeding Baby C antibiotics twice a day for the past 2 weeks. The surgeon told us not to be overly anxious and stress ourselves up by sending Baby C’s urine to be tested once a week. He advised us that the urine only needs to be tested once every fortnight and if the next urine culture test shows a similar reading in 2 weeks’ time, the urine needs to be tested only once a month.

When asked whether Baby C needs surgery, we were told that only time can tell.  Babies with a Grade III Kidney Reflux only has a 50-50 chance of the reflux resolving spontaneously / by itself.  Well, I guess only divine intervention is all I need now.

The report for the urine culture done on Friday was out on Monday.  The  WBC (white blood cells) have come  down from 10-15 to 2-4.  Also, the Klabsiella bacteria is no longer in the urine… praise the Lord!  But there is still a scanty growth of E Coli bacteria in the urine… which both our nephrologist and pediatric surgeon said is nothing to be worried about.  BUT of course I am still worried.   As long as bacteria is still lurking in the urine, I’ll be worried. 

Today, I collected Baby C’s urine to inspect myself.  It looked clear and no foul smell too.  Baby C was fussing, whining and screaming as I carried her and my maid was collecting the pee.  I put on a Baby Bright VCD for her to watch… which could only distract her for a mere 5 minutes, afterwhich she struggled and cried again.   I could no longer hold her when she kept struggling and arching her back.  Guess what I did then?  I let her latch on my left teat and lulled her to sleep with her diaper removed … coz she was actually very sleepy…. whilst my maid collected the urine holding a specimen bottle.  It was really funny!  She managed to pee a wee bit but that was enough for me to see the clarity and color of the pee.   *Wipes away sweat from forehead*  I guess I will have to do this for the next few years until she is diagnosed free from Kidney Reflux.  Tell me how to go on a vacation when my entire day is filled with back-breaking chores that I must do for my beloved baby? 

I shall list down what I do every hour of the day for Baby C in my next post.  Stay tuned…

Ever since Baby C had her first serious attack of Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) when she was just a few days shy of turning 2 months old, I have a phobia of smelling foul smelling pee in her diaper.  Foul smelling pee means that there is most likely an infection in her urinary tract system. Each time I change her diaper, I would instinctively smell her soiled diaper, not just once but many times. I would sniff so hard that my nose would touch the soiled diaper. At times, my nose would be playing tricks on me when I imagined that the pee smelled foul, i.e. like the pee of someone who had eaten petai or stinky beans the day before. On a second sniff, it didn’t smell foul afterall.

I don’t throw the soiled diaper away immediately. I would put it aside first and after putting a fresh diaper on Baby C, I would then carefully inspect the diaper by checking the color of the urine in the diaper and then sniff the diaper, which btw makes me look like a crazy soiled diapers-addicted mum lol! But hey, this can be life-saving yer know. At the onset of an infection in the urine (which can first be detected from the smell of the pee) , she can be treated immediately. If I wait a little longer, the mild infection could accelerate into a full-blown UTI with fever and vomitting and requires hospitalizatin.

Hubby had passed the MCUG film (of Baby C’s kidneys and urinary tract system) to his cousin who went to London last week.  The MCUG film has been passed to hubby’s uncle who is a heart surgeon in London, who will then pass the film to his friends who are pediatric nephrologists.  We will get the opinion on Baby C’s condition from the British nephrologists before we come to a decision.

Yesterday, hubby and I spoke to our friend who is a anesthesiologist in one of the private hospitals here.  He advised us to seek as many opinions as we can get from doctors.  He told us to never ever settle with the advise from just a single doctor.  When asked what the risks are of a baby going through a surgery, he told us that babies have amazing recovery ability and are really resilient.  The major risk and concern would be the loss of blood. 

Whilst waiting for the British nephrologists to revert, I have drawn up a feeding schedule for Baby C.  What prompted me to draw up a schedule is that at times, I had forgotten to feed baby with certain things.  There are just too many things that I have to feed her everyday from her antibiotics to probiotics, different types of nutritional supplements, cranberry juice and barley water and not forgetting my milkie.  I have to space out the feeding so that she will not get too full for the next feeding.  Also the probiotics and antibiotics must be given after an interval of at least 4 hours.  This feeding thingy is really draining me out mentally and physically… but if this can prevent a UTI attack, there will not be a single complaint from me.  I will do anything to save my precious baby.

This is the 5th time in 4 months that bacteria has been detected in Baby C’s urine.  So far, she has had 1 full-blown Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) and 1 ‘semi full-blown’ UTI about 3 weeks ago.  Last week, bacteria (E Coli and Klebsiella) were detected in her urine again.  The reading of the white blood cells (WBC) in her urine were 2-5, then went up to 8-10 and later shot up to 10-15.  However, our pediatric nephrologist as well as the pediatric surgeon were not too concerned and they told me not to get panicky as the readings are not too alarming. So I asked him what reading should cause a red flag and he told me a WBC reading of a few hundreds.

Our pediatric nephrologist does not want to treat Baby C this time as she’s very concerned that too much antibiotics jabs would render the bacteria resistant to the antibiotics.  So she told me to monitor Baby C  and to do the gross urine checking every other day.  If there’s fever and vomitting and should the urine be cloudy, we should bring her to the hospital immediately for treatment.

Our pediatric surgeon was really blase with Baby C’s situation and thinks it is nothing serious.  He asked us to reduce the urine culture test to once every 2 weeks instead of once a week.  He told me that at times, the urine may be contaminated and cause a false positive.  I am really uncomfortable with both these doctors’ blase attitude towards Baby C’s condition.  Perhaps they had seen many other kids with a much more serious condition but hey, as long as there’re bacteria in the urine and urinary tract, the bacteria could go up to the kidneys and scar/damage the kidney.  There’s no way I am going to risk my precious baby’s kidneys from being damaged.  What am I to do?  There are not many pediatric nephrologists (PN) in private practice.  In fact, the doctor whom I am seeing is the most senior PN in our country and she’s the one who trains other PN in our government hospitals. 

Meanwhile, my PN has recommended a nutritional health supplement to us for Baby C.  She heard about this herbal yeast supplement called Bio-Strath from a conference.  It is suitable for people on long-term antibiotics.  I have bought a bottle and have started to feed Baby C.  Shall blog about this in my next post.

but I can take home leave so that we don’t have to stay in the hospital. Baby C is attacked by the E Coli bacteria (again) and Klebsiella bacteria (which is a strong bug) this time and she needs to have an IV line on her hand for antibiotics to be jabbed through the line. As expected, the dr. could not locate the vein on baby’s chubby hands and feet and she was poked 5 times!!! This time, I requested to be with Baby C in the Procedures Room and my request was acceded as I am considered a ‘regular’ at the hospital.

It was REALLY traumatic for Baby C this time as she was poked 5 times (thrice on her hands and once on each of her foot) as the dr. and nurses searched in vain for a vein. She was screaming with all her might in pain and even her favorite frozen water-filled teething ring or my embrace could not subdue her. The sight of the dr. poking the needle into Baby C’s hands and feet and injecting the antibiotics, in the hope that he had injected it into the vein, only to be rejected when blood oozed out through the needle was just too much for me to bear. Whenever this happened, it meant that the antibiotics wasn’t injected into the vein (well, I think that’s how it works. That’s why finding a vein is very important). The procedure looked as if Baby C’s skin was being skewered as the dr. pushed and pulled the needle back and forth through her skin, like a piece of chicken meat being skewered for bbq and it takes a strong heart to see the entire procedure.

After half an hour of torture and screaming for Baby C, the dr. gave up and said he could not find the vein and said that he will administer the jab via intra-muscular, which was very painful. That was the 6th time Baby C was poked within an hour.

It was another very stressful day for both Baby C and me and we have 4 more days to go as she needs 5 doses of antibiotics jab.

Back home, Baby C was all smiles again when she saw her 2 sisters. Luckily babies have short-term memory and Baby C will not remember any of these when she grows up. See the bandage on both her feet? There were 2 more bandages on her hands but I removed them coz Baby C was chewing on them.

Baby C’s UTI attacks are so frequent that I have my drawer stocked up with urine bags and sterile bottles!