Question about urine tests?

I am a female. I saw blood in my urine yesterday and had frequent and a bit painful urinations. I constantly feel that I didn't empty my bladder. I have done a routine blood test today. I have bacteria and nitrite in my urine. The urine culture results will be after 3 days. The weird thing is my W.B.C. my white blood cells is normal. My doctor said that is weird and that he is waiting for the culture results. Anyone with similar experience? Shouldn't I have high WBC if I have an infection?? By the way I am married and trying for a baby if it has anything to do with it

I have WBC according to the microscopy, it is in the normal range. The report says I have bacteria and nitrite seen in my URINE.

Do you mean that there are no white blood cells in your urine or that the WBC level in your blood is not elevated?

In either instance, there are a few circumstances which might explain this. You may not have an infection. Sometimes, bacteria can wash off the skin if you don't clean properly before a collecting your urine sample. There is no way of telling what kind of bacteria is showing up in your urine without doing a culture. After the culture comes back, the doctor will know whether it is a true infection or skin contaminant. If you don't have an infection, its possible that you might have a kidney stone or a functional bladder problem, considering the blood. However, the nitrite test on the urine dipstick is intended to detect the bacteria which most commonly cause infections and often doesn't turn positive with skin contaminants. If you have an infection, there should have been WBC's present in your urine. Sometimes, the dipstick does not detect everything, which is why it is so important for the urine to be examined under a microscope.

However, if you're referring to your blood WBC count ... many times with localized bacterial infections, the extra white cells produced by the immune system migrate straight to the affected area and are not circulating in the blood stream. This is why the white cells would be seen in the urine, and not in a routine blood sample.

Hope this information helped!

*Edit -- By the way, the most common reason that women get urinary tract infections is simply because of the close proximity between your urethra and anal opening. The bacteria that are most well known for causing UTIs are the ones that live naturally in your digestive tract and exit your body when you poop. Its not a far jump for them to enter your urethra if they are left on your skin after doing #2. Not "cleaning up" after sex isn't likely to cause you to have urinary tract infections; it will most likely cause yeast or bacterial vaginal infections.

*Edit #2 -- Normal range on the microscopy is about 0-5 white cells per high powered field. This means that a person without an infection can have up to 5 WBC's under normal circumstances ... but usually, they don't. In a normal urine, its highly irregular to see a white cell in every high powered field. If your urine has, say 3-4, that means that the body has definitely upped the amount of WBC's in that area, but it hasn't had time to skyrocket yet. Also, your urine might be diluted since with UTI's patients tend to empty their bladder more often. If your urine is dilute, it can make amounts appear lower.

Possibly a stone, but you probably would have had other symptoms as well. Mostly pain!

URINATION STATION!!!!

Not too unusual with bladder infections. If it went to the kidneys the count would go up.

Its either a kidney stone, or an infection.... with not all infections the WBC's will be high, if you have crystals = crystaluria, crystals will scratch the narrow opening of the urethra and thus bleed, the cut is called sterile (No bacteria to infect) and thus no elevation of WBC's... if you retest your blood now, WBC's range will show elevation because the cut will be inflammed after 12 - 24 hours of the scratch.

I don't think it's THAT strange for your white cells not to have gone up...

If he's waiting for the culture to come back before putting you on an antibiotic, run out and buy cranberry pills. They'll help with the symptoms. There are OTC urinary pain relief pills, too, that can help quite a bit.

Oh - one of the most common reasons women get UTIs is because they don't "clean up" after sex. Even though you are trying to get pregnant, it is still important to go to the bathroom and urinate after intercourse!