Being one of the most common infectious diseases, urinary tract infection is very familiar to us. You will get very few people who have never got a UTI.
It is truer for women.
Most of the women get urinary tract infection at least once in their lifetime. And most of them experience this illness in the first half of their life.
So, mostly you will get UTI in the active phase of life. It is the time when you lead an active lifestyle, both physically and sexually.
So, you may be confused about your activity during an episode of UTI. Many patients ask their doctor about their active lifestyle.
Should I take complete bed rest during urinary tract infection?
Should I avoid my regular physical exercise during UTI?
Should I avoid sex during this illness?
Does UTI spread to partner through sex?
These are the most common questions patients often ask their physicians. You might have heard these questions from your friends and family, or you may have these queries too.
In this article, we are going to discuss the effect of rest and physical exercise during UTI first. Then we will discuss a little about sex during UTI. Let’s start.
Should I take bed rest for urinary tract infection(UTI)?
Like many other infectious conditions, urinary tract infection induces an inflammatory reaction in your body.
During inflammation, the immune system of your body produces different kinds of chemical mediators.
These mediators induce different mechanisms to fight against infective organisms. But at the same time, you suffer from fever, dizziness, lethargy, etc.
All of these symptoms indicate that there is an active inflammation or battle running in your body. And if you take rest during this inflammation, your body will get more energy and scope to fight this battle.
This is common for all kinds of inflammation. Now, what about UTI?
Have you ever heard about the advice of bed rest for UTI?
Most probably your answer will be ‘NO’. Most of the patients continue their personal or professional activities with a UTI.
Usually, urinary tract infections confine within the urinary tract.
Unless it becomes very severe or complicated, you don’t require complete bed rest.
Uncomplicated UTI responds rapidly to antibiotics and you may continue your daily work during treatment. However, a little rest will help to promote an early cure.
But if it spread to the kidney and develops pyelonephritis you will need some rest. Actually, in such conditions, you will be compelled to take rest.
Because the pain may be soo much severe to make you bedridden. Another condition is UTI during pregnancy.
In such a situation, you should take bed rest to prevent any unwanted events. Especially if you have a previous miscarriage, go for complete bed rest.
Because untreated or severe UTI may cause preterm labor by irritating the uterine wall.
if you are noticing you are having signs of UTI like burning sensation during urination, frequent passing of little amounts of urine, etc… then you can take AZO urinary tract defense product on amazon.
it contains an antibiotic (the only approved OTC antibiotic) which will slow down the progression of the bacteria and also a pain killer to relieve the pain.
it is very effective especially in the case of recurrent UTI.
take 2 tablets 3 times daily with a full glass of water after meal.
do not use it for a long period of time, try to contact the doctor as soon as possible, also check with your doctor before if you are having other underlying conditions or taking other medications.
Should I continue my regular physical exercise during UTI?
This question can not be answered without explanation.
Just think a little, will you be able to continue the hard physical exercise with fever and lower abdominal pain? Definitely, the answer will be ‘NO’.
Because with severe abdominal pain, fever, frequency of micturition you will never feel comfortable.
So, the question to continue exercise or not arise only with mild UTI or cystitis.
When you have milder symptoms, you may think about going for exercise. But another point to discuss is the level of hydration.
You probably know that frequent voiding of bladder help to flush the organisms with urine. But to produce more urine, you must maintain good hydration. That’s why doctors advise taking more fluid during UTI.
Now you will easily understand the point. During physical exercise, you will lose water from the body via sweating.
Thus you may be dehydrated by strenuous physical exercise. This dehydration may delay the cure. And in the dehydrated state, your kidney will produce concentrated urine. This will further increase your burning sensation.
However limited exercise may help you to elevate the mood. It also boosts your immune system and reduces the requirement of antibiotics. Recent studies show that light and moderate exercise help to prevent and cure urinary tract infections.
A study was carried by the Aalborg University of Denmark on 19000 people. For research purposes, they categorized people into four groups and observed for one year.
One group was sedentary and three groups with physical activity.
sedentary group means those who lead a sedentary or inactive lifestyle. And the physical-activity group was ranked into three groups based on their leisure time activity: vigorous, moderate and light/low.
The study shows that low and moderate exercise group has 21% and 32% lower risk of UTI than the sedentary group. However, the vigorous exercise group has a little higher incidence of UTI.
The result was more significant for women. Similar studies were done on athletes previously and the result was almost the same. It was found that exhaustive, hard exercise may actually lower immunity and increase the susceptibility to infections.
If you are an athlete, probably you are habituated with regular exercise. But, please be careful when you have an active urinary tract infection.
Don’t mess with your body.
Take some rest and continue light exercise only. And don’t forget to take enough water and fluids before, during, and after physical exercise.
So the key points of the above discussion….
1. You don’t need complete bed rest unless you are compelled to do so.
2. Continue your regular day to day tasks if your body permits.
3. You may continue light-moderate exercise but avoid strenuous activity. Take adequate water.
Now we will discuss sex during UTI. What do you think about it?
It may spread to partner, or it may worsen, etc. are common thinking by patients. What’s the fact? Let’s discuss it.
Does UTI spread to partner during sex?
If you think about the route of sex and the location of the urinary tract infection, you will easily get the answer.
The UTI is the infection of your urinary tract which includes kidneys, ureters, and urinary bladder. This is different from the route of sexual intercourse.
So, how the organism can be transferred to your partner? There is no infection in the vagina or penis!
You may talk about male to the female transfer of the disease. Because the male urethra is a common route for urine and semen. But interestingly, the UTI causing organisms do not infect the urethra at all.
Urethritis is not defined as a type of UTI. It usually occurs in sexually transmitted diseases(STD) like gonorrhea, Chlamydia, etc. And yes, these infections can be transmitted via sexual activities.
But these organisms do not cause UTI! They usually cause urethritis, vaginitis, cervicitis, pelvic inflammatory disease(PID), etc.
Though many of the STDs may mimic UTI, they are actually different. And, UTI is not transmitted via sexual intercourses.
Should I avoid sex during UTI?
Before discussing the effect of sex during UTI, let’s think about the situation first.
Will you really enjoy this activity when you have lower abdominal pain?
I don’t think you will have the mood to go for sex when you are suffering from burning micturition, fever, pain, frequency of urination, and so on.
But if you really want to have some intimate moments with your partner, probably you may proceed.
You may want this when you have a mild infection, or when you are on antibiotics and your symptoms are remitted.
Yes, if you feel comfortable, you can enjoy sex during antibiotic treatment for UTI.
But, you may need to think a bit about the contraceptive pills.
There are some antibiotics that induce liver enzymes to fasten the drug’s metabolism. So, you may need to increase the dose to the pills to avoid contraceptive failure.
Don’t feel shy to ask your doctor or pharmacist about this. Ask him freely to know whether the given antibiotics will interact with contraceptive pills or not.
Does UTI worsen by sex?
This is a good question indeed. And the answer is debated.
Some say that sexual activities may facilitate the entry of the organism to the urethra. Thus new infection may be predisposed and existing UTI may get worse.
There is also a sweet terminology for this kind of infection. Have you ever heard the name of ‘Honeymoon Cystitis’?
As the name indicates, it occurs in a newly married couple by an organism called Staphylococcus saphrophyticus.
It is not a foreign bacteria. It is a normal flora of our body which lives around the urethra.
Urethral injury by vigorous or inexperienced sexual activity may promote their entrance.
Don’t get too much worried, it is not a very common condition. And just think a little, a married couple does sex regularly throughout their life.
How many times do they get infected? So, this hypothesis is not a common fact in reality.
What you can do is to urinate just after sex to flush out the bacteria from the urethra. And wash your pubic area to keep it clean.
Now, what about some other forms of sex?
Many people are fond of some abnormal or extravaginal sexual activity like anal sex, oral sex, sex toys, etc. more than regular intercourses.
If you go for vaginal sex just after anal sex, you are just bringing the intestinal bacteria closer to the urethral opening.
Thus, the risk of having a new UTI or worsening of existing disease rises by several folds.
Using sex toys in the anus and vagina do the same.
The risk is higher for women due to the shorter length of the urethra. So it is recommended that avoid this form of sexual behavior, especially during an active urinary tract infection.
So, that’s the end of the discussion. Hope you got some idea about the relationship of UTI with sex and physical activity.
Don’t forget to ask your doctor if you have any further queries. Have a nice day.
Thanks for reading.
you can find more related information in this article.