Various microbes such as viruses, fungi, and bacteria can cause a urinary tract infection. Bacteria are the most common perpetrators even though your body has a natural defense system to throw these bacteria out of your body when they enter your urinary tract. However, sometimes, your natural defense fails, providing bacteria the possibility to cause an infection in the urethra (urethritis), bladder (cystitis), or kidneys (pyelonephritis). To confirm your symptoms are due to a urinary tract infection, your doctor will request a urine test where they will search for E. coli in urine culture. Keep checking out to read more about what it actually means when there are bacteria discovered in your urine.
E. Coli in Urine Culture: What Does It Mean?
When your laboratory assistant tells you that they have found E. coli in urine culture, it typically implies you have a urinary tract infection and your doctor might ask for other tests to validate what type of infection it is. Under normal circumstances, your urine in the bladder includes no bacteria or other organisms, however that’s not the case when bacteria enter your urine through the urethra. Escherichia coli or E. Coli is among the most typical causative agents of UTIs. Your doctor will validate the presence of these bacteria in your urine through a urine culture test, but they will also look for the existence of any red cell, while blood cells, or bacteria.
Your laboratory assistant may ask you to wipe clean your genital area prior to the test to prevent any contamination. They will then examine your urine and if they discover something particular, they will proceed with a urine culture test to confirm an infection. This test will help validate the types of bacteria triggering infection in your case– this will also assist recognize the best medicine for the infection.
How to Understand the Urine Culture Test Results
As mentioned already, a urine culture is a test that assists discover and recognize the kind of organism that’s causing a UTI. It generally takes a few days to get your urine culture results, but some organisms don’t grow that rapidly in the culture, so you will have to wait longer for your outcome.
| Normal | Abnormal |
| No bacteria or other organisms grow in the urine culture. The test will be NEGATIVE. | Bacteria grow in the urine culture within the screening time. The test will be POSITIVE.
|
Also, if various types of bacteria grow in a culture, it generally occurs due to contamination. It implies your doctor may request a repeat culture on a sample for confirmation. Added testing is generally required when substantially greater count of bacteria exists. Your doctor might likewise request a sensitivity test to determine the best antimicrobial treatment.
E Coli in urine culture – greater than 100 000
Typically, the existence of a single kind of bacteria growing at high colony counts is thought about a favorable urine culture. For clean catch samples that have been properly gathered, cultures with greater than 100,000 colony forming devices (CFU)/ mL of one type of bacteria generally show infection. In some cases, nevertheless, there might not be a considerably high number of bacteria although an infection exists. Often lower numbers (1,000 approximately 100,000 CFU/mL) may indicate infection, specifically if symptoms are present. Similarly, for samples gathered utilizing a technique that lessens contamination, such as a sample collected with a catheter, results of 1,000 to 100,000 CFU/mL might be considered significant.
More about UTI
The existence of E. coli in urine culture generally suggests a urinary tract infection, but it might not always cause visible symptoms. When symptoms appear, they might consist of a burning experience while urinating, a strong desire to urinate, passing small amounts of urine, passing strong-smelling urine, and urine that appears cloudy or red. Women might also experience pelvic pain around the area of the pubic bone.
Taking Antibiotics
When there is E. coli in urine culture, it is very important to identify the best treatment alternative. Antibiotics usually work well to treat urinary tract infections. If you have an easy infection, your doctor might prescribe Trimethoprim, Nitrofurantoin, Fosfomycin, Levofloxacin, Ciprofloxacin, Doxycycline, and Ceftriaxone. Your symptoms will disappear after taking these drugs for some time, however you might have to continue taking these for another week approximately to finish the entire course. It is normally sufficient to take antibiotics for a couple of days just to treat an uncomplicated UTI.
Your doctor may also give you a pain medication to numb your bladder and urethra. This will assist relieve the burning experience while urinating. You will notice your urine turn red or orange when utilizing urinary tract analgesics.
For Recurrent UTIs
Your doctor may adjust a various technique when you have frequent UTIs. They may prescribe low dosage antibiotics that you have to take for six months or longer. They may recommend particular antibiotics that you have to take after a sexual encounter– this is normally the case when your UTI is connected to sex. Vaginal estrogen therapy may likewise help if you’re postmenopausal. A severe UTI usually requires a healthcare facility stay with treatment including intravenous antibiotics.
Lifestyle and Home Remedies
You may benefit a bit if the variety of E. coli in urine culture is on the lower side. It is generally a great idea to take antibiotics and follow your doctor’s guidelines while taking the following actions too.
- Drink as much water as you can because this will assist weaken your urine and ease burning experience too.
- Don’t drink beverages that may aggravate your bladder. You should quit drinking alcohol, coffee, and soft drinks which contain citrus juices.
- Using a heating pad directly on your abdomen will likewise eliminate bladder pressure and pain.
Alternative Medicine – Cranberry Juice
You likewise consider utilizing natural medicines to alleviate your UTI after you’ve found E. coli in urine culture. Consuming cranberry juice is among many things you can do for pain relief. The juice has infection-fighting buildings. There are possibilities that cranberry juice will not work for you, however if it does, there’s no harm in drinking lots of it. You should prevent drinking cranberry juice though if you’re already taking blood-thinning medication such as aspirin or warfarin.
E-coli is among the most typical organisms discovered in urine and it usually clears up with oral antibiotics. It’s not triggered by anything you eat however mostly by wiping yourself from back to front rather front to back. Speak with your GP and request for a description. It could be due to your auto-immune disease.
Has anybody had their urine sample come back with traces of e-coli? My doctor asked if I had any symptoms of a bladder infection, which I do not.
He stated I would require antibiotics if I have symptoms, but so far none and that was at 11 weeks( now 15).
Has anybody else had this and if so did they take the antibiotics without the symptoms? I just don’t want to take antibiotics without requiring them.
I will call him tomorrow morning to check but simply desired your opinions?
this happens to me more often than I can count and I can guarantee I haven’t ‘wiped from back to front’ since I was a pre-schooler. I use no less that a 100 pack of baby wipes p/week as I use them after every bowel movement….and lots of them. I want to know how in the world this is showing up in my culture. the only thing I can think of is that no matter how hard I try to get a ‘clean catch’, it proves very difficult. I am old, I do not urinate in a ‘stream’ with high pressure. I do my best to get it from as high up as possible (when working blind in a public toilet at the doctors office) but I think it has to do with it running downwards. Frustrated. Tired of this.