Many people with multiple sclerosis have experienced a urinary tract infection (UTI) at some point. It’s a common problem with MS and can be caused by a number of things, such as the inability to fully empty the bladder or the need to self-catheterize. Symptoms can include urinary frequency and urgency, a burning pain while urinating, abdominal pain, and foul-smelling urine that looks milky or cloudy.
Urinary tract infections can be simple or serious
UTIs are often just a nuisance and easily treatable with antibiotics. Fortunately, I’ve had only one that occurred when I was being treated with Lemtrada (alemtuzumab), and it was quickly cured with a few days of antibiotic pills. But sometimes, UTIs can be life-threatening.
That was the case for MS News Today columnist John Connor earlier this year. He was hospitalized for weeks, followed by weeks of rehabilitation, apparently due to his recurring UTI problems. At one point, John says, he was ready to phone his wife to say goodbye.
“I had just spent three weeks in a fever-driven fugue and thought I was surely beyond help. Only the gloom of death made any sense,” he wrote.
Fortunately, John is now back home, recovering well and writing his column again.
Could it be due to something you ate?
A recently published study in the journal One Health suggests that a strain of the E. coli bacteria that is carried in food may be responsible for more than 480,000 UTIs in the U.S. each year. This number was derived after researchers compared E. coli found in samples of raw chicken, turkey, and pork from nine major grocery chains in Flagstaff, Arizona, with blood and urine samples from patients at a hospital in that area. They found that about 8% of the E. coli in the lab samples were the strains also found in the meat. The scientists say that 8% works out to roughly 480,000 cases nationwide.
The fact that UTIs are caused by E. coli is nothing new. Information on the UCSF Health website tells us that E. coli is the cause of about 90% of UTI infections. But the fact that a number of these infections may be due to bacteria in some of the food that we eat — rather than due to retaining urine in the bladder or failing to cleanse sufficiently while catheterizing — is something that people with MS should be aware of.
Meat isn’t a problem for John
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that my friend John’s UTIs were caused by meat. He’s been a vegetarian for the past few years, and he told me that he believes his UTIs — and he’s had many — have been caused by catheterizing and the suppression of his immune system by disease-modifying therapies.
A 2020 study by researchers in Taiwan, published in the online journal Scientific Reports, indicates that John is probably doing the right thing with his diet. The study suggests that a vegetarian diet can lower the risk of having an uncomplicated UTI.
Both of these studies are reminders that what’s in our gut is important, especially when we have MS.
(This post first appeared as my column on the MS News Today website.)
(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.)
