Allergy and Urinary Infections: Is There an Association?
Anne Harrison M.D.1
1 Department of Pediatrics, University of Rochester, 822 Brown's Road Scottsville, New York 14546
Noting in my small general pediatric practide that the same families kept returning for urine checks following infections as well as for allergy shots, I decided to review all of the current charts to determine the incidence of both problems. "Allergy" includes hay fever, asthma, allergic cough, eczema, bee and other stings, and reaction to foods or drugs severe enough to warrant avoidance, medication, or allergic workup. "G-U infection" includes typical symptoms of bladder irritation with or without pyuria and bacteriuria, acute pyelonephritis diagnosed by the usual symptomatology and laboratory work, and subacute or chronic infections with the children presenting often with more subtle symptoms (tired, cranky, low-grade fever, and off-and-on abdominal pain being the most common complaints) and with a "clean-catch" urine culture of at least 20,000 colonies of one organism.
