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Girlfriend has a UTI...
JustinSane07
Really, stupid?Brockton__BANNED USERS regular
Really, stupid?Brockton__BANNED USERS regular
Yup, my girlfriend has a UTI, that I've heard about in way too many details and we need help. Her doctor is a bunch of worthless assholes that can't fit her in today and she simply can not afford the ER. This isn't even up for debate, she can not afford it under any circumstances. So the question is, what can we do for now until she can get a doctor's appointment?
JustinSane07 on
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Edit: Damn you, you spoony bard.
:edit: Urgent care will run you $300-500 without insurance.
edit: so I just looked at the Minute Clinic website and they don't offer treatment for UTIs in MA for some reason. Probably has to do with the MA health care plans or something.
I will tell her to go to the CVS down the street and pick up the AZO to aleve the pain.
And yeah, she couldn't afford a 300-500 trip to an Urgent Care place. She has insurance, but it's really crappy.
Edit: Also drink LOTS and lots and LOTS of fluids. Cranberry juice helps, but what you really want to do is flush the system and bacteria. Every time she needs to use the bathroom, she must go. Holding it in because it burns will just exacerbate the situation, and hold bacteria in the urethra.
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go to a walk-in clinic
they'll get her to pee in a cup and give her a perscription for it
easy peasy.
in the meantime, drink REAL cranberry juice to get rid of the constant nagging feeling that you need to pee.
it can't be cocktail, it has to be real, bitter ass cranberry juice. you can water it down a bit, but for real fast relief, i recommend just wo-manning up and drinking it as is.
edit: oops just read the rest of this
if that's the case, go to the hospital
just tell them she's been having really bad abdominal cramping from the uti
then THEY'll get her to pee in a cup and then you can...
...oh shit wait. the US, you'd have to pay for that.
hmmm... sucks to be you guys i guess, she's going to have to suffer through it till her doctor can see her. cranberry juice it is,
you won't suffer long-term problems from it unless you go for weeks
who in their right mind would let it go for weeks though? they are awful.
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high-fives to utis
i mean... wait...no
fuck i hate these things
i also have a cold sore.
fml.
Have you told them that this isn't exactly some sick kid who needs a prescription this is someone who could lose their kidneys if they don't get seen within a few days and get on an antibiotic stat? They usually required to keep a few appointments empty a day just for this, even if that means staying open past 5:00 PM EST.
But again, ER GO NOW AND DON'T FUCKING WORRY ABOUT $300 IF IT MEANS YOU KEEP THE KIDNEYS ALIVE if you can't convince them to get in and get a prescription.
And I just told her about the pure cranberry juice part too, and warned her of the taste being bitter.
Even if she has really crappy insurance I can't imagine her having to pay more the 50 bucks to get it treated.
Heads up on the AZO it can interfere with the uranalysis results. Also her pee will turn dark orange (scary if you don't know it's going to happen). So it really is worth it if you are going to wait to be seen, but if you can get in soon hold off on the AZO until you've been seen.
Worse comes to worse you can hunt down a free clinic, they'll do it on a sliding scale.
UTI's can wait but you don't want it turning into a kidney infection (back pain etc.) , then you have a lot bigger problems on your hands.
What he said. I've had patients who've held off on treatement for a couple days end up in the hospital getting IV antibiotics. It really is silly to hold off on treatment. Call the clinic up ask to speak with a triage nurse and talk about how bad the abdominal pain/back pain is.
That will get them to move there ass.
I'm really suprised she isn't able to get in today.
But I just got off the phone with her. She told me her doctor is 10 minutes down the street, so I told her to go over there and talk to them in person, since they keep putting her on hold on the phones. It's a lot harder for them to turn a patient away that's at the office than it is to throw one on hold.
THIS!
Really, $500 (worst case) isn't something insurmountable and one hell of a lot cheaper than two busted kidneys. Ask friends, parents, whomever, anyone who cares for you will lend you the money if need be (i prefer my friends with kidneys and healthy, just because I cannot stand whining).
That was a great idea. You might even be able to get them to prescribe without even seeing the doctor if she has a history of it.
Here is the site to use, type in the zip, and you need to know the specific insurance product she has (it will be on the card). Under specialty select urgent care. It will spit out a list of names and distances, all names will be covered by her insurance.
If she doesn't get into her primary care clinic, she can go to any of those. It will list on her insurance card how much the copay is for an urgent care visit. Furthermore don't worry about the cost of antibiotics, they are actually one of the cheaper medications to get.
I just can't picture a nurse or doctor turning away a patient in need because "we're booked." That seems like a really piss poor excuse and one that could be used in a malpractice suit if she does become really sick.
uti's are very common in women
you have to let it go for quite a while before it turns into anything even remotely dangerous for your kidneys
this coming from someone who HAS suffered from kidney problems in the past.
i get utis constantly, they turned you away because it's a simple uti, it's not life threatening, they are booked up for now, she can do stuff to make it stop being irritating but by no means is her life or health being threatened by waiting a couple of days with a uti before starting antibiotics.
As mentioned earlier in the thread, real cranberry juice is effective at preventing these kinds of things. You can get the concentrate in capsules as well.
Usually by the time someone's posted here there's already been a weeks worth of time passed, infection's set in, and the person's running a fever of 105. And they're looking for an over the counter remedy to cure them.
No offense to Justin.
But most doctors make you wait a month or so to get for an apartment. In a months time you could be sitting on dialysis.
While the main danger for a UTI is having the infection spread (especially the kidneys), UTI is extremely common. As in, Common Cold common. Without extenuating circumstances (pregnancy, kidney transplant, etc.), the complication rate is very low. Your primary care doctor has to make triage calls every day when it comes to treating the thousands of patients on his roll, and a UTI is very low on the list of urgency and severity. Would it be the right call? Depends on the type of patients he/she sees every day. But you aren't likely to die from a UTI. Also, antibiotics typically clear it up in about 80% of patients. The other 20% are predisposed to having recurrent UTIs.
Really though, it started last night and my girlfriend does have a bad habit of drama-queening situations that don't need to be. Me, never having dealt with something like this before, took it as serious as she was making it. But apparently I didn't need to.
Anyways, I just got a pair of text messages from her. One telling me that they took a sample and they'll see her at 1:30pm. The other, well the other says this.
"The nurse was like 'Why'd you walk in?' I told her and she was like 'Well, don't do it again. We're not a walk-in clinic.' I just glared at her."
This makes me angry. I want to drive down there and curse that nurse out.
Edit: They aren't a walk in clinic indeed. They aren't for that. Surely you have something near you. Around here we have one that can usually see you within the day if you call in the morning, are also open most evenings, with little wait. Charge about 50-75 bucks for a visit.
Well, actually, sometimes UTIs can get fucked up pretty quick. My first (and last, for now) UTI had me bleeding in a matter of hours, which my doctor said she's never seen before, and if I hadn't come when I did, I could have damaged my kidneys.
Yeah they're common, but sometimes shit happens to common things, so it's always good to get checked out right away. Especially with something that can potentially damage an important part of your body.
Just my 2 cents.
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But yeah, they'll say that but they should've found a way to work you in to the schedule and they can cry and bicker all they want, you don't fuck around with people's health. Especially since they do the procedures and accept the insurance. Pee in a cup and we'll write you a prescription is all that needs to be done.
You are right at onset it shouldn't be a problem to wait, however if it is possible to have a UTI treated immediatly there is no reason to wait. I've seen UTI's go from benign to very very serious in a couple of days, and though this is rare when there is immediate treatment around why the hell take a chance?
To be fair I thought it had been going on for more then a week, which would make if far more likely to get serious.
oh man, if it was a week, i'd feel real bad for the girl.
they are the most awful things.
Cranberry supplements are a good way to avoid having to drink cranberry straight up (unless she likes it). As some people have said, have her keep flushing her system with a lot of water. If she's drinking a ton of it she might want to swap in some sports drinks too so the fluids don't make her feel too sick.
Make sure she goes to the bathroom every time she feels like she has to. The goal is for her to have liquid to pee with whenever she feels like she's got to.
I'm not sure if she could get some over the counter, but sometimes you can get a doctor or a nurse to give you medication that's a local anesthesia for your urinary tract which would hold her over until she can really see a doctor to get the antibiotics.
Some funky ways to provide temporary relief (effectiveness may vary) is to wash the area with hot water and soap, or to numb the area with a vibrator if she's got one. This is pretty much only if it's really bad and I don't know if it'll work for everyone...I just got stuck with one for a prolonged time ("we can't fit you in until next week, oh, now that you're here and your period has started you'll just have to suck it up") and at that point I was willing to try almost anything.
It's really important that if she starts flushing her system with liquids and cranberry and starts to feel a little better that she keeps doing it instead of stopping. As soon as she stops she's going to feel like crap a few hours later, and the relief from flushing takes a few hours to kick in. Before she goes to bed she should be drinking a ton of water/sports drink/cranberry juice so that she wakes up having to go. When she wakes up having to go, she should be drinking a ton of it again before she goes back to sleep, otherwise when she wakes up in the morning it'll suck again.
"My limb is gangrenous, should I go to the hospital or lop it off myself?"
you are comparing something as life threatening as gangrene to something completely common and mild.
it's like saying "this guy in front of me has a severed arm, but for the love of god, see me first, i have a fucking head cold"
i really don't think you understand what a uti is.
the real problem for probably 99% of women is that it's annoying, and sometimes somewhat painful.
mostly just really fucking annoying.
true some women get severe symptoms
but if you start gushing blood like alyce did, you should really go to emergency room anyways
if you just have regular uti symptoms, one day will not kill you.
imagine feeling like you really have to pee, but when you go to pee nothing comes out
i cried i got so frustrated the first time i had one.
awful awful awful.
UTIs are common, and mild, and it won't kill her to wait a day or so to go to the doctors. The severity of the infection I had was quite rare, and if your GF isn't urinating blood, then I wouldn't worry. Once she gets to the doctors, she'll be good in no time.
Also, if you use over the counter things like Uristat, or whatever, her pee will turn BRIGHT orange. I was horrified at first, and then I read the box and it states that that will happen.
It's actually kind of cool.
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