Common Symptoms of Urinary Tract Infection

The symptoms of urinary tract infections vary in their appearance and severity depending on the part of the urinary tract affected and also on the severity of the disease.

There may be no sign or symptom at all and UTI may be discovered only on routine examination for other problems.

The common Symptoms include:

• Strong persistent urge to urinate (In medical terms, this is called urgency)
• A burning sensation when urinating (in medical terms this is called dysuria)
• Passing small amounts of urine frequently (in medical terms this is called frequency)
• Passage of foul smelling cloudy urine containing pus (in medical terms this is called pyuria).
• Passage of blood in the urine (In medical terms this is called hematuria)
• Flank pain and tenderness.
• Fever - Fever is worse in upper UTIs compared to Lower UTIs.
• Nausea and vomiting.
• Chills - This is when you feel cold in your body without any reason to do so. In most cases you may have a fever (i.e. your body temperature is raised) and yet you still feel cold.

As mentioned earlier, the signs and symptoms may also depend on which part of the urinary tract is affected e.g. If it involves the kidneys (acute pyelonephritis) you may have back or flank pain, a high fever, chills, nausea or vomiting.

If it affects the Bladder you may complain of lower abdominal pain, frequent passage of urine, and a strong smelling urine.

If involves the urethra there may be urethral discharge with the other signs and symptoms described earlier.

Created - March, 2007
Last updated - August, 2009