How to Know if You Have a Uti or a Yeast Infection
If you lot have a vagina, don't be surprised if you bargain with a yeast infection and a urinary tract infection (UTI) at some point (but hopefully non both at the same time!).
Yeast infections happen to a whopping 75% of women, and more than half of all women get at least 1 UTI in their life, according to the Office on Women's Wellness. (And yes, people with penises too deal with these conditions sometimes, although they're much less common.)
But fifty-fifty though the 2 conditions are often lumped together, they're decidedly distinct infections that take their own unique sets of symptoms and treatments. Understanding how to tell the difference between a yeast infection versus UTI tin aid you know what you're dealing with and ultimately put you lot on the fast rail to relief.
Non certain which one you might take? Keep reading to acquire more about yeast infections vs. UTIs, including symptoms, causes, and treatments.
Yeast infection vs. UTI: What are they?
Yeast infections and UTIs can both affect y'all downwardly there, but that's just about where the similarities betwixt the two conditions end.
"They really are quite unlike, although you lot can have both at the same time," Felice Gersh, Medico, ob-gyn, founder, and manager of the Integrative Medical Group of Irvine in California, and author of PCOS SOS Fertility Fast Track, tells Health.
A yeast infection involves an overgrowth of fungus—usually information technology's one called Candida. This fungus naturally hangs out on your skin and inside moist spots of the body (including your vagina, but also your oral fissure, pharynx, and gut) without harming your health.
The tides can turn on that peaceful beingness when something (like a new medication you're taking) throws off the balance of the mucus and it starts growing out of control. That Candida overgrowth results in a yeast infection and all the funky symptoms that proceed with information technology.
UTIs, on the other mitt, can be blamed on something else entirely: bacteria. More specifically, a strain chosen Escherichia coli (E. coli), which is responsible for up to 90% of all UTIs, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Like the Candida yeast that lives on our bodies, East. coli is usually harmless when it's in its usual identify: the anus. Merely it becomes problematic if it makes the brusk journeying from a adult female'southward bum to her urethra and travels through the urinary tract, says the Office of Women's Wellness. Yous become a UTI when the leaner find a identify to create a colony (usually it's in your float) and multiply out of control.
When the colony is left untreated and continues to grow, the UTI could somewhen attain your kidneys and first to do major damage, so it's of import to address these annoying infections ASAP.
Symptoms of yeast infection vs. UTI
Just a doctor tin can tell you for sure whether you lot've got a yeast infection or UTI (or something else entirely). But each condition has its own distinctive set of symptoms, which could give yous clues virtually which type of infection you might have.
Karyn Eilber, MD, a urologist who teaches at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles and founder/CEO of lubricant-maker Glissant, explains that if your symptoms are primarily related to urination, you probably accept a UTI. That includes UTI symptoms similar:
- feeling like yous have to pee all the time
- an urgent demand to urinate
- a called-for awareness when you pee
- pee that's reddish, pinkish, or cloudy
When y'all've got a yeast infection, y'all generally experience vaginal irritation all the time—not just when yous have to urinate, Dr. Eilber tells Wellness. The Mayo Clinic says symptoms of a yeast infection include things like:
- vaginal discharge that's thick and white, almost similar cottage cheese
- vulva and vagina feel itchy and irritated
- vulva is swollen and red
- burning sensation, especially when y'all pee or have sex
- vagina is sore
- vaginal rash
- watery vaginal discharge
If your primary symptom is burning sensation when you pee, it might be tricky for you to figure out if it'southward a yeast infection versus a UTI.
"It's possible that when a woman who has a yeast infection urinates, the outside skin will burn, and that'southward where sometimes the confusion tin can come in with a UTI," says Dr. Gersh.
Simply chances are good that you'll also experience other symptoms that will help you narrow down the crusade.
Regardless, information technology'southward always a good idea to get checked out by a doctor, so they can help you find the right handling for either infection.
Causes of yeast infection vs. UTI
OK, so an overgrowth of mucus causes yeast infections, and an unwelcome colony of bacteria in the urinary tract causes UTIs. But what makes those things happen?
Showtime, allow's look at the things that tin can set y'all up for developing a yeast infection. The Office of Women's Health and Mayo Clinic say risk factors include:
- taking antibiotics
- using high-dose estrogen birth command
- existence on estrogen hormone therapy
- existence pregnant
- having compromised immunity (due to, say, HIV or taking steroids)
- having unmanaged diabetes
These factors can create an environs for yeast to spiral out of control, resulting in an infection.
And, information technology turns out, there's some overlap between yeast infection and UTI risk factors. Existence meaning or having diabetes or a depressed allowed system tin can also elevate your gamble for a UTI.
There are a number of additional risk factors too. Per the Office of Women'south Health and Mayo Clinic, your adventure of developing a UTI may also be greater if:
- you're sexually active
- you recently had sex with a new partner
- you employ spermicide and/or diaphragms
- y'all're going through menopause
- you lot have abnormalities in your urinary tract
- you have kidney stones or another blockage
- you utilize a catheter
- you recently had a urinary tract exam or functioning
These situations tin can cause a UTI past either introducing unwanted leaner into the urethra or lowering your torso's natural defense force mechanisms against pathogens.
Yeast infection vs. UTI treatments
Whether you lot've got a yeast infection or a UTI, treatment is mostly pretty straightforward. Nonetheless, doctors use very different tools to battle these singled-out beasts.
Treatment for a yeast infection typically involves either a unmarried pill of fluconazole (an antifungal drug) or using an antifungal cream, tablet, suppository, or ointment in your vagina for a few days to a week. Your symptoms volition usually start going away inside a few days of starting treatment, per research published by the National Institutes of Health.
When it comes to treating UTIs, antibiotics are the "gold standard," says a 2019 review in the Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics. You lot're ordinarily looking at taking oral antibiotics, such as nitrofurantoin or trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, for 3 to five days, per the American Urological Association. The good news is that just one or two doses is enough to make you feel better (merely you should definitely take the total class of antibiotics to brand sure you wipe out all the unwanted bacteria).
Treatment could take longer and exist more involved if you lot've got a serious yeast infection or UTI. That might hateful a longer course of antifungals (either the ones you take by mouth or identify directly on the infected expanse), or some other blazon of medication for a astringent yeast infection. Or, for a UTI that has moved up into your kidneys, you lot might demand antibiotics through an Iv at the hospital, followed by two weeks of oral antibiotics.
Preventing yeast infections and UTIs
While there's no guaranteed style to prevent a yeast infection or UTI from e'er happening, there are some things you tin can exercise to ward off both types of infections.
Avoiding irritating feminine products, similar douches, sprays, and scented tampons, tin assistance forbid both UTIs and yeast infections, says the Part of Women's Health. Y'all should likewise skip long baths and hot tubs. And if you think the type of birth control you're using is increasing your take chances of yeast infections or UTIs, consider switching to another method.
There are too more specific things you can do to fend off yeast infections vs. UTIs, depending on which one you're almost decumbent to. You can further reduce your risk of a yeast infection by:
- wearing cotton underwear
- avoiding tight undergarments, like underwear or pantyhose
- not staying in a wet bathing suit or sweaty leggings for long
- avoiding unnecessary antibiotics (just take them every bit prescribed)
As for preventing yeast infections, y'all tin try:
- taking cranberry supplements (Cleveland Clinic says in that location'south mixed evidence that these work, simply it doesn't injure to effort!)
- peeing earlier and after sex
- staying hydrated
- going to pee oftentimes and non holding your bladder
- wiping from forepart to back
Yeast infections and UTIs tin can both brand things pretty miserable down at that place. But knowing which infection you have—and getting the right treatment for it, stat!—tin can help you experience amend in no time and endeavor specific things to assistance you avoid coming downwardly with another one.
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Source: https://www.health.com/condition/uti/yeast-infection-vs-uti
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