Urinary Tract Infections in Men and Women

Dr. Dean Elterman, MD, MSc, FRCSC Urological Surgeon

Duration: 3 minute 09 seconds

Urinary tract infections or ‘UTI’ symptoms are typically things like frequent urination, urgency or rushing to the bathroom more than normal, and sometimes pain or discomfort with urination, which we call dysuria. There can be discomfort within the bladder or around the super pubic area.

Some people may experience cramping or will see blood in the urine. There can also be a cloudiness to the urine, or even a unusual odor to the urine. Everybody has different symptoms if they develop what we call a symptomatic urinary tract infection.

These symptoms aren't always necessarily a sign of UTI. Some people will always develop the same symptoms every time they get a UTI and it's predictable. However, just having for example, some cloudiness or odor doesn't necessarily mean you have a UTI.

There is a difference between men and women with respect to UTI’s. The urethra, or the tube that we pee through is very short in women and much longer in men. It is much more common for bacteria to be able to travel into the female bladder. So even having one or two urinary tract infections per year in a woman would not be considered abnormal. However, in men, even one urinary tract infection would be considered abnormal.

Another really big thing to think about is whether there are symptoms. Some older people, particularly postmenopausal women will often have bacteria in their urine. If you take a sample, and they don't have any symptoms and it doesn't bother them they have what is called an asymptomatic bacteria, meaning no symptoms bacteria in the urine. It's really important to differentiate bacteria in the urine with symptoms versus those without symptoms because again, they don't all need to be treated with antibiotics.

Bacterial infections of the bladder in men, have different causes. We actually all have bacteria all over our bodies, for example, we have bacteria in our gut and on our skin. And some men may just have a small amount of bacteria in the urine and then it grows, and more specifically, if they have an enlarged prostate, they're not emptying the bladder all the way and there's this opportunity for that stale urine that's not being let out to act as this growth medium for the bacteria to grow.

You can think of our urinary system as like a one way plumbing system, and it's constantly flushing out whatever is in our urinary tract with urine. But if we don't empty our bladders all the way, this provides an environment for bacteria to grow. This is when men are predisposed to getting infections.

Presenter: Dr. Dean Elterman, Urologist, Toronto, ON

Local Practitioners: Urologist