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Is a urinary tract infection considered a staph infection?

And is a staph infection really serious?

2428 day(s) ago

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Some urinary tract infections (URIs) are considered staph infections and some aren’t. The two types of infections you are comparing belong to two different categories that can’t easily be compared. A URI is in a category named for the location of the infection. A staph infection is in a category named for the type of bacteria causing the infection. Staph infections can occur in many different parts of the body, including the urinary tract, but not all urinary tract infections are staph infections.

The staph infection gets its name from an abbreviation of Staphylococcus. Staphylococcus is a type of bacteria that includes several different strains. These bacteria are almost always present on our skin and in our nose, but they usually don’t cause a problem because they are well-controlled by our body’s defenses. However, sometimes they get past the body’s defenses, multiply and cause an infection.

Staph infections can be very serious if the bacteria get deeply inside the body. If the infection gets into the blood, heart, lungs, bones or joints, the infection can be deadly. To make matters worse, strains of staphylococci that were once easily killed by antibiotics have become immune to the standard antibiotics.

A UTI is an infection that can affect the kidneys, bladder, ureters and urethra. It is a bacterial infection, but it is usually caused by the Escherichia coli bacteria, better known as E. coli. However, in young women, UTIs are also commonly caused by the Staphylococcus saprophyticus bacteria. When an UTI infection is caused by S. saprophyticus, it is considered both a urinary tract infection and a staph infection.

It is important to note that just because a UTI is caused by a staph bacteria, it does not make it any worse than a UTI caused by E. coli because both of these bacteria can be very serious should the infection spread to other parts of the body.

Clinically speaking, the only real difference in treating these two common types of UTIs is that the staph UTI cannot be treated with nalidixic acid, a type of antibiotic that can be used to kill E. coli.

Posted 2422 day ago

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