Burns while peeing, can't pee when he needs to, orange pee, 2 days after antibiotic. Need Ans. Fast

In My Humble Opinion
1

Not me, 25-year old cousin in from Israel for a conference in Philadelphia, staying with us for a few days. Got him an emergency appt. with my GP: diagnosis, who knows, it’s not clap, maybe UTI, kidney stone (huh?), he gave him Amoxycilin and the kid bought Azo over the counter, which turned his pee orange and freaked us both out until we checked the Net. Also his tears, apparently, and will stain his contacts.

Anyway, that was two days ago. Today it burns worse, and he said he went home and took a warm shower, which for some reason let his body pee.

Should I read him the Riot Act and haul him to an emergency room if it’s the same tomorrow? He’s supposed to leave today, Sat. night for Philly. It’s a big deal, but I can pull family rank if necessary.

::Mods tense up…::

I am not seeking medical advice.

::Mods relax, open another beer.::

2

If it were me, I’d be drinking cranberry juice. Lots and lots of cranberry juice. Maybe interspersed with water.

It is possible to OD on water but it takes a lot.

3

It’s more than likely not life threatening, so I wouldn’t rush him to the ER or anything just because it burns. The stop-the-burning-when-I-pee meds always turn your pee a certain color, so throw that out of the equation.
Unless the medical assistance he gets here is better than in his own country (or less expensive) then I’d just let him wait out the antibiotics. It’s probably a UTI - especially if you’re sure that it’s not an STI - and it may take more than a couple of days to see relief.

People lie about their sexual experiences though - especially when they’re speaking to family - so unless a full STD panel had ruled out the possibility of such, I’d suggest he gets tested. I wouldn’t worry about him keeling over before landing in Israel though.

4

Thanks guys.

Well, I’m sitting here in the ER while he gets looked at, which might stink if they say you just gotta wait, and we’ve killed his last day in NY. But he really can’t pee now, so we decided to go.

About the cranberry juice, I’ve heard that too, from various girlfriends in the past. But on a quick, thoroughly unthorough web search, one health site said:

  1. It doesn’t work for men UTI (major huh?)
  2. It is only prophylactic, meaning once you’ve got it it doesn’t help (huh?)
  3. It might be counterproductive when you’ve got the UTI because it is slightly acidic, and the burning will get worse (huh?)

That makes three huh?'s if anyone has any comments.

Also, what I noticed in real life with him, a kind of self-treatment Catch-22: he should drink a lot of water (why exactly), but in fact he’s been drinking less water because it makes him pee, which hurts so much and is now extremely difficult when possible.

I think that’s an interesting predicament.

5

He also said he did do the deed back in the Holy Land a week ago, but with a condom.

Although I doubt it, since condoms do fail, rarely, and sperm gets out, shouldn’t that mean that it is possible in a rare failure that STDs could come in?

I don’t know condom failure modes, if they get pinholes or have complete capsule rupture, if that makes a difference.

6

Azo will turn your pee orange.

Lots of water make urination less painful since your bladder is full. Trying to urinate on an empty bladder is more painful. UTIs cause bladder spasms that make want to pee, so if your bladder is empty it hurts more.

Cran juice helps prevents bacteria from adhering to the bladder, leading to an infection. Once an infection is in place, it won’t help, since you’re past that point where the juice acts.

7

Yep. Sounds like he’s passing a kidney stone. Clues:

Pee burns. Could have a minor infection if the stone’s been blocking urine in his ureter.

Can’t pee when he wants to. Kidneys are producing urine, but depending on where the stone is, it could be blocking a lot if drainage into the bladder. This can create a profound, if not constant sensation that you need to take a major horse-piss.

Shower allowed him to go. Hot water relaxes you, things loosen way up, especially for urination.

Orange pee could be due to build up of uric acid, not drinking enough water, side effect of medication/antibiotics, etc.

X-rays don’t always catch them and usually an MRI is called for to confirm. Renal colic (the full, agonizing pain in the lower back isn’t always present when passing a stone).

Anyhow, that’s my WAG. I’ve passed 9 if you count the one (6 mm) I had to have removed.

8

Has he got travel health insurance for while he is vising the USA? If not, even quite minor treatment from U.S. doctors might wind up costing him (or you) a serious amount of money. If not, even if it is not the best thing for him medically, he might be better off toughing it out until he gets back to Israel (I assume he is planning to go back after the conference). Alternatively, a quick trip to Canada to see a doctor might be in order. Standard advice for Europeans taken ill without insurance in the USA, is to head for Canada with all possible speed. (Most likely the Israeli UHC system has some sort of reciprocal agreement with the Canadian one to treat each other’s citizens, just as European systems do. There will not be any such thing with the USA.)

9

Ok, so what happened. After four hours in the ER, on IV and drinking huge amounts of water and taking a riverine piss, and receiving different antibiotics, the kid left for Philly, where his symptoms are going away nicely.

What the Doctor Said:

  1. Uterine tract infection extremely unlikely in males under 50 with no chronic kidney, prostate, or immuno-deficiency issues.
  2. Kidney stones extremely unlikely without pain in flank/kidney.
  3. Original antibiotic from two days before hadn’t done squat. (It wasn’t Amoxycilin, as I wrote above, but something else I forgot.)

Awaiting blood and urine results (probably coming tomorrow), pending diagnosis: clap or chlamydia. Gave him painful (kid said) intramuscular injection of antibiotic directly aimed at gonorrhea and chlamydia. Read a little on CDC site about new therapy.

Ok, questions for the TM after fruitless brief Googling.

Kid never had a drip, and wore rubber, says he always does.

A) Sixty-day latency period for the STDs? Needs to know to whom to spread the good news.

B) Condoms break (not sure which failure modes), but anything big enough to let sperm out can let bugs in. The Doctor said oral sex most likely.

Ok, I’ve now learned that there’s regular old gonorrhea, anal gonorrhea, and pharyngeal gonorrhea, the latter two having obvious symptoms including painful swellings, etc. (Must’ve missed those films.) Clap and chlamydia, the latter especially so, are often asymptomatic until things get really bad.

So, for health knowledge, truly, and to tease my cousin, I tried to consider the permutations. Who went down on whom, including rimming? Can a woman with pharyngeal gonorrhea infect a male with genito-urinary gonnorhea? Similar questions can be asked for other sexual encounters.

The loop where you don’t drink because you don’t want the pain, which gets you dehydrated which causes more pain was definitely implicated.

Also, I was expecting some sort of tinge, but his urine I saw in the sample was the most amazing electric Kool-Aid red-orange.

On payment, one phone call to his Israeli insurance and everything was covered. Hospital–NY Presbyterian–had forms for international patients. 1-2-3.

10

Typo: Urinary

11

Orange pee is totally the Azo. It makes your urine (and other bodily fluids, to a lesser extent) a rather impressive fluorescent orange.

If it’s a UTI/kidney infection, drinking lots of fluids is absolutely required. I know it fucking hurts to pee with one of those (from frequent past experience) but yes, restricting fluids at that point is a very bad idea.

Here’s hoping he recovers quickly from whatever the hell it is he picked up.

12

Chlamydia and the clap can be transmitted in different ways. Through unprotected oral is unlikely unless there was ‘deepthroathing’ (you can contract it from the throath, not the mouth; I just don’t know the English terms of how the docs call this)… but you can be infected by hands, fingers. So being clumsy with a condom could have caused it.

Both of these are cured with a single day of antiabiotic; and effects should disappear in a few days. No nookie for a week though.

13

Pharyngeal.

Shit, hands and fingers too?

And I already started a permutations thread in GQ.