Don't Skip a Urine Test
Don't skip a urine test if you are having symptoms of a bladder infection.
But realize there are other causes of the pain. Can pain with urination be a chlamydia infection? Where do you least expect a chlamydia infection? Your elbow, yep, it can be there, your eye, it can be there too. (Actually in the joint of your elbow, but you get the point!) But it's usually in the private parts that you expect. But what you don't expect is not to expect it. In other words, you just have to get tested as often there really are no symptoms at all. For instance with chlamydia infections of the urethra, or the tube coming from the bladder, the symptoms can be painful urination, but it may be no urine pain at all! And actually blood in the urine, called hematuria, usually means a regular bacterial type urinary tract infection. Hematuria, or blood in the urine usually excludes most urinary infections by the chlamydia organism. In fact asymptomatic urethral infections with chlamydia are so common gynos often use pee tests just to test for the infection in you and your partner. And for regular bacterial infections the quickest test we do is called a dip stick test, it is a simple test on urine which is quite accurate. But if you think you have a bladder infection and your dip stick tests are coming up negative, those dip stick tests are not as accurate as spinning the urine and looking a a drop under the microscope, or sending some urine off for a culture. So ask for that microscopic test as well, as it is a rapid office test. Unlike cultures that can take about 48 hours to come back with an answer for you. If it's not infection of the bladder, what else is the blood or pain meaning? Could it be interstitial cystitis, bladder cancer, endometriosis? There are other problems that cause bladder symptoms. One thing Gyno Gab Gal doesn't recommend, as a routine, over the phone treatments, that leads to errors, and over use of antibiotics that may be unnecessary. Testing with your gyno is important, and getting follow up tests of cure is important as well. http://www.womenshealthpractice.com