I am 19 and I have had type 1 diabetes since May 2000. About six months after diagnosis, I got a pump, but I am back to doing shots because my body doesn’t heal very well. I always bruise. I had a bladder infection last year that turned into a very bad kidney infection. I was in the Emergency Room and hospital for about three days. Ever since then, I get really bad bladder infections about twice a month. Why would this be happening?

Your question is specifically why you get frequent bladder infections. There may be many reasons why and I do not have a definitive cause in mind. However, there is a process that your physicians will have to go through in thinking about why you have frequent bladder infections. First, poorly controlled diabetes can lead to frequent infections. Blood sugars above 200 mg/dl [11.1 mmol/L] do not allow for the killing of bacteria necessary to prevent infection in that part of the body. Other conditions may be playing a role. There may be a structural abnormality within the bladder and/or kidney that does not allow the urine to drain appropriately. The structural abnormality may be congenital or acquired. This causes urine to remain stagnant and becomes easily infected if it does not drain. Persistent kidney stones may serve as a nidus for recurrent infections. It would be helpful to know if it is the same bacteria each time or a different type of bacteria. This may suggest whether the same infection recurs as if it never gets permanently removed. There may also be functional problems with the bladder that does not allow complete emptying and is a risk for infection. This can occur in patients who develop neuropathy in the bladder. Urologists will frequently test for these type of functional abnormalities with tests called urodynamics.

I hope this list of causes gives you some indication about the causes of recurrent infections and allows you to speak with your physician more completely about this problem.

JTL