what is a sub clinical UTI?

[mlch]

Was in bad pain that I knew was different from my regular IC pain, then saw the blood in the urine. Went to family doctor since I could get in right away with her and I have yet to find an IC Dr. She saw excess white and red blood cells in the sample. She put me on pyridium for 3 days and ciproflaxacin for 7 days and sent the urine sample off for a culture.
Nurse calls back saying the culture came back negative but to continue to take the cipro since I most likely have a "sub clinical" UTI.
What does that mean? Is there an infection or not? And will the cipro take care of it?
Thanks for the help!!

[vm]

There is typically a count/number of bacteria they expect you to have before they consider it a true infection. For many ICers an even lower number may cause us a lot of discomfort. That's my guess for what that means: it isn't considered a true infection by the labs numbers, but enough that your doctor would still like to treat you.

[mlch]

that makes sense...why the heck can't Dr.s explain things so simply as you just did. Bravo and thanks!!:)

[vm]

No problem! Another one of those things I didn't know pre-IC or before finding these boards! I had the same question years ago and found the answer here. :)