All this talk of UTIs

[stellalunatic.livejournal.com]

Um, not too vagina-related, but interesting nonetheless...
Get this...
Last year, my kitten had a UTI. Poor thing, he peed all over the place trying to find a soft spot where it wouldn't hurt to pee. Which meant that I did a lot of cleaning up after him...

Within a week, I also had a UTI (not my first). Now when the nurse was asking me the requisite questions, I mentioned that my cat had one, and asked if there was a possibility of contagion between people and animals, she looked at me like a third eye had just sprouted. Now I know pregnant women can catch toxoplasmosis from cats, and people get ringworm from cats, and the flu from pigs via birds. Is it that unheard-of (ok, maybe not unhear-of, but absurd) that I could have caught a UTI from a cat? Has ANYONE ever heard of something like this happening?

Comments

[junni.livejournal.com]

No, I've never heard of it happening. I think it would be more likely that bacteria that normally live in your digestive tract made their way to your urethra by any number of methods (wiping back to front, sexual intercourse, tight pants) than "cat bacteria" making it's way there, but that's just my two cents. I'm thinking it's one big coincidence...

[stellalunatic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too, but I still wonder...

[allthingsshiny.livejournal.com]

My veterinary technician answer:

The most common bacteria we find in feline UTIs is E. Coli, a digestive bacteria carried by many mammals (including us). There are no bacteria that are specific for feline or human urinary tract infections, it's just whatever is there that shouldn't be, unlike virus (flu) or fungi (ringworm) that cause specific diseases.

i guess it's possible that in cleaning up after kitty, you picked up some bacteria and transferred it somehow to your own urinary tract. It's probably more likely that it came from (as suggested above) your own digestive tract.

[katlynel.livejournal.com]

Only if you picked up bacteria on your hands while cleaning up, didn't wash your hands, and then touched your vulva.

[stellalunatic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sort of unlikely. But I was still curious about human/animal contagion. At any rate, the easiest solution is probably true...

:)

[katlynel.livejournal.com]

well, the thing is, human-human contagion is just about impossible too, remember? The only way to catch a UTI from another person would be through sexual contact. So you couldn't catch it from casual contact with your cat any more than you could from casual contact with your best friend.