lukocytes in urine no nitrates

[ellienor]

I have not had any problems for over a year, but now I have slight discomfort burning and my testing strips show moderate lukocytes in it.

The nitrites are negative.
What could this be from?
I am in the process of being cultured, as of friday.
In the meantime I am doing d-mannose.
What could this mean?
Should I go on the ic diet now??
I can eat anyting now for over a year.
Thanks, Ellie

[KarenAnne]

Ellie: I am sorry that you may be experiencing a flare right now. If you don't mind me asking, how did you get to the remission stage?

[kadi]

White blood cells in the urine can be from infection and/or from a flare. It's important you're getting a culture to make sure you'll get the right treatment. While you're symptomatic, it's a good idea to go on the IC diet to see if it brings you a little relief & reduces the irritation. If you've been ok with other foods before, you probably will be again. The IC diet can be just for now & then when you feel better, you can introduce the less mild foods again & see how you do...

For now, be very gentle with yourself...
Hang in there, I hope you feel better soon,

[ellienor]

The doc says I have a pretty bad infection.
It needs to be treated with macrodantin or peniccillin, which I am allergic to.
I am thinking that some of my fatigue will go away after I take the macro.
I hope it does not upset my stomach.
Am I supposed to take it away from calcuim?
I take calcuim all day for my osteoperosis!!
Thanks, ellie

[kadi]

Check with the pharmacist or your doctor on the interaction to be sure. How long do you have to take the antibiotic?

Hope you're on the road to recovery soon!

[ellienor]

They gave me enough for 10 days!
Geezzz my stomach cant take that.
I called the doctor and he said to lower the dose to 3
50 mg tabs per day instead of 4.
My stomach feels like a bowling ball is in it and no appetite.
Yikes.

He said it is the nastiest bug out there for the bladder.
Dont know how I got this... I am soooo careful all the time.

[ellienor]

anyone get a killer headache from macrobid?
that is worse than the stomach upset by far.
I am at the end of my 3rd day.
Why cant I just take it for 7 days ?
He cant tell that it is in my kidneys... unless he does a blood test right?
So why 10 days?
I want another culuture tomorrow.
Maybe it is gone now.
There are no nitrites and no luckocytes after 2 minutes , but if I let the stick
sit, there is purple after like 5 minutes.
So I guess I still have it?

[blondie_1147]

I would go to the doc and would always have leukocytes and red blood cells in urine but no nitrites. Nitrites are the byproduct of bacteria in your urine. If there is no nitrites then most likely no bacteria. It's not impossible. I mean you don't know unless they do a culture. It is just most bacteria leave nitrites in urine. It is rare not to. So they would still treat me for UTI even though I didn't have nitrites but luekocytes, which are white blood cells. She said the white blood cells are a sign of infection. When they did a culture there was no bacteria and I kept going back like once a month with this supposed UTI. I went to my gyno and he did a urine test and said if you have no nitrites it is highly unlikely that you have infection. I went back to the primary and she took a test and said there are leukocytes so she gave me antibiotics and said when you are finished with them come in and take another urine test and I want to see if it still shows white cells. I did and the white cells were there. She referred me to a uro. He said with IC you have the white cells a lot of times because of inflammation. Your body is trying to fight off the inflammation. So then I was confirmed by cysto/hydro to have IC. Anyways what I was trying to say was if you don't have nitrites are they sure it is infection? I mean did the culture definitely say there is bacteria? If no bacteria then just a flare and you wouldn't need the antibiotics.
I am just asking cause it is rare to have bacteria w/out nitrites. It's possible but rare I was told. So I would make sure they did get bacteria on the culture.

[Briza]

I had opposite but similar problem a few months before dx (but many months into IC symptoms) problem being UTI-like symptoms all of a sudden out of the blue with nitrates and visible red blood in urine but no leukocytes. Was put on the usual antibiotics while urine was sent for culture and by day three of antibiotics I was feeling 100% better but culture came back negative but I continued w/ the antibiotics as directed by my dr to complete the 7 days as prescribed.

Day 8 my IC symptoms (but not UTI-like symptoms) came back with a vengeance, but never again have I had visible or microscopic blood in urine, never again had high nitrates, and never leukocytes.:loco:

I don't get UTIs and don't really have a history of UTIs (just two a good 15 years or more before I got IC symptoms, and those were quickly cleared up with Bactrim). Just sharing my one and only experience since I've had IC symptoms where UTI was suspected and symptoms were very much like a UTI and I was treated for such but culture was negative. My usual IC symptoms do not feel like a UTI!

[ABliske]

I am in a similar situation. No nitrites in the urine or possibly a minimal amount, but I :confused:do have luekocytes. I started macrobid 2 days ago. My Dr. is closed today. I hope I am fighting off this infection (if that's what it is). I am in an increased amount of pain. I typically have pain every day but not this bad.

[cmclien]

This has happened to me alot too, leukocytes in the urine but no nitrates and I feel much worse when they are there, and I feel inflamed too like the stream just stops by itself when I'm not done going, urine gets "hot" (tmi?). I usually go ahead and take a macrobid for a few days and it does seem to clear it up but it doesn't feel like an all out UTI like when there is blood in my urine which hurts SO bad. My UG doesn't really attribute much to them other then it might be an infection devloping slowly, my primary always treats when they are there. I didn't know IC by itself could give you leukocytes during a flare. I never thought I had flares before but now I feel like I'm on the tail end of a 2 month one started by antibiotics for a sinus infection.

[ABliske]

cmclien, thanks for the info. Never tmi. haha This is one of the only places I can talk about this. It's good to know other people can relate, although I'm sorry you go through this.
Do you know what specific gravity is? It's the only color that's way off on my test strips now. The leukocytes are normal. I'm still having a lot of pain. Maybe slightly more than what I normally go through. It's tough though. It makes it hard to enjoy anything. So, I'm wondering what this means with the specific gravity. I stopped the antibiotics a couple days ago.

[amy09]

I'm having a similar issue right now. I have been in increased pain and slightly more frequency for several days and tested positive for moderate white and red blood cells at the doc. She isn't treating me until the culture comes back. I've been told several times before that you can get leukocytes in your urine simply from inflammation because they respond to that as well as foreign things (like bacteria). So who knows. And specific gravity is how concentrated your urine is. Mine has been pretty low the last several times because I was very hydrated (causing the urine to be more diluted). If you google it you'll find a lot of information. Hope you feel better soon.

[Christine222]

You sound like me. I've never had a bladder infection, then about a month ago bam, I just had to pee constantly and had a burning sensation in my bladder. The strips said pos for lukeloytes neg for nitrate. I had Cipro in my house left over from my husbands sinus infection so I took it but the symptoms never left. Went to ER for the pain and exaustion, test came back neg. Went to the gyno, he doesn't hink it's IC but he did a vag. ultrasound to rule out problems and all was fine. Now I am waiting on a apt. with a uro but it's not til the middle of April!!! I am dying here. I am on the diet and trying to control yeast too since I had yeast in my swab. I am just finding nothing is really helping now. I have periods of lower back pain and bladder pain that feels like someone is poking it. I was wondering what your complication was from the hydo/cysto was since I think my Dr. will want this done. But first I want a cat scan because I feel like this could be stone in my bladder. Has anyone heard of that being the cause of these IC symptoms.

[cmclien]

Its been a few months but I was feeling bad again, (should've taken that macrobid after sex like my dr told me too!). Anyways got up in the middle of the night extremely feeling like I had to go and then didn't go alot. I thought oh no. I did the test strips which both are usually neg and the leukocytes were positive. I took a macrobid and will take them for 3 days and feel MUCH better. So in my case anyways, there is definitely something going on there. I should've known because the last few days I noticed my pee was hot again and thats usually a sign that I've got some kind of infection brewing again. :(

[earthlady]

I've had that come up also with the leukocytes showing but no nitrates and my urogyno dismissed it as coming from vaginal secretions. She was not in the least concerned, but I still believe it's from the IC inflammation in those of us with IC.

[cmclien]

So over the last two weeks while I've been feeling fine I have tested every few days just because I wanted to know and each time it just showed a trace, never negative. I'm not sure what that means. When I feel bad it usually registers very positive.