Q: My mother 62 years old, was hospitalised last year and was diagnosed with UTI, septicaemia, ITD and diabetes. After 12 days of hospitalisation she returned home. During hospitalisation she was given several antibiotics but after one month of discharge, infection recurred but without symptoms like fever, burning sensation, etc. The doctor did not give any medicine because of the absence of symptoms and asked to test her urine after a month, which confirmed infection. She was prescribed Nitrofurantoin 100 mg (twice daily) for 21 days but one month after stopping the medicine, there was recurrence. A referral to another doctor resulted in some new drugs but the problem persits after stopping treatment. According to the doctors, all reports except urine culture (blood report, blood sugar, ECG, ultrasound, chest x-ray) are normal. At present my mother has no problem except acidity for the last 25-30 years. When acidity an extreme. she cannot pass out urine in one sitting and has to go 2 to 3 times to completely void. She also has chronic sinusitis for the last 5 years. I am afraid she my develop septicaemia again. Please help.

A:Urinary tract infection causing serious infection and life threatening sepsis is not uncommon, especially in elderly diabetics. Situations that lead to seriousness usually result from a combination of infection and obstruction of the urinary tract. Such obstruction may occur in kidney due to stones, in ureter due to a sloughed kidney part (papillary necrosis), in bladder due to bladder wall dysfunction (diabetic Cystopathy), or in urethra due to simple post-menopausal changes in females and prostatic obstruction in males. Your Urologist and Physician would be in best situation to discern the exact combination so as to avert the threat effectively. In a single person, different combinations may cause such different events. It would be important to look at all the evidences afresh, and treat such septic episodes early to reduce the risk.