View Question

Urinary Tract Infection

by rmtran - December 13, 2009

Hi Steve,

I have general question in regards to urinary tract infection in older patients.

It seems that lately, several older patients that I started to see have similar UTI presentation. They all have not had any signs of UTI such as pollakiuria, stranguria, hematuria or accidents in house. They all came in to see our internists and when they are routinely screening with free catch UA, it was discovered. Some had really resistant bacteria (coliform) that required to stay on a long term abx treatment.

Here is my questions:

In these cases, will it be appropriate to add Ba Zheng San to help shorten the abx treatment length, even though I see not many signs of Excess?

Or, will it be more appropriate to use tonifying formula containing Rehmannia to improve the blood flow to the kidney, thus improved immunity to eliminate infection faster?

I think that all of these patients have more Deficient signs than Excess, so the latter might be more appropriate. Should I consider these patient somewhat Wei Qi Deficient if not Kidney Qi Deficient?

Thank you for your imput,

Rieko

by naturevet

December 14, 2009

Hi Rieko,

I would definitely think of BZT if the pulses are slippery and superficial, but then I would expect the dog to have clinical signs.

If the dog is relatively asymptomatic, this would qualify as a form of 'chronic lin' which is technically due to Kidney deficiency. So your idea of using Rehmannia Eight, which would have the side effect of increasing renal blood flow and immune surveillance, is a good one. As for Wei Qi, technically, Chinese medicine ony felt it gathered along the GI, skin, and respiratory tracts, but I don't see why we couldn't extend it to the epithelium of the urinary tract. So, yes, Yu Ping Feng San might be a consideration as well. I guess it's a matter of trying them and taking notes. Lastly, for E. coli infections, concentrated freeze-dried cranberry extract can be helpful, but is not certain to be effective. It is, however, definitely harmless, and works to inhibit E. coli in particular, by interfering with adhesion of bacteria by their pili to the epithelium.

Hope that helps,

Steve

You must be logged in to reply

CuredCases.com