Still relapse or new baseline

[JILLSHYE]

Currently I am one week out from a hellish UTI where I developed new symptoms, and well, just plain miserable. Now that the UTI is cleared, my symptoms have not returned to baseline. My new ones are still there and still very intense.

Do I
1 consider this my new baseline
2 consider this is relapse
3 still residual effects from UTI and how long will it take to return to baseline?


And if this is residual UTI, why new symptoms occur? Most of the time when I get UTIs it is just increases in old symptoms so I am not sure what is going on.

Any advice?

[rdmc]

Have you had a culture done to make sure you really are over the UTI?

That seems to me to be the place to start because so many drugs these days are resistent to meds, and even though some of your symptoms of a Uti go away, with MS UTIs don't always have symptoms.

I have had what appears on the test strip as a clear sample, i.e. no leukocytes and no nitrites, turn out to have the type of bacteria I thought I had eradicated with the antibiotic, still be present in the sample once they cultured it. That's why, for us especially, if everything doesn't seem okay, it's good to get a culture after the UTI. Because anytime you have any trace of a UTI (at least in my experience) it makes your MS really hard to deal with.

A UTI can cause a pseudoexacerbation, or it can sent you into a real flare. In which case, you'll have to wait quite awhile to find out if this is your new normal or if the symptoms will eventually ease (I think 6 months is the time they say to wait to see if a symptom is going to be "hanging around" longterm.)

[BigA]

I've never had a UTI, but I do have extended symptoms which last for weeks, which are not exacerbations (at least as far as my Doctor and my MRIs are concerned). So rest, get better and relax - but keep your doctor well-informed about what's going on. I always phone in when something is going on. It gives the Dr. a chance to decide if it's worth coming in for and otherwise, there is a log over the years to see, for example, if I feel worse at the beginning of every spring (which I do).