Is this unusual?

[Cassi307]

After a week of feeling like I was dragged down a road full of potholes I made it in to see my rheum. When I told them about the costocondritis and not feeling well they made room for me. She reviewed the blood work she drew during my last visit and discovered that my white count was really high. I was surprised that she takes routine urine and found out I had a really bad UTI. I don't have any of the normal symptoms and despite such a high WBC I only ran temps in the 99 range. The good news is that the ribs were feeling better.
I was again surprised that she didn't send me to my primary for treatment but decided to order an antibiotic and treat it herself. Is this normal? She is doing the follow up and did more labs because my creatinine had jumped. She said she will then get in touch with my primary and neph when the next results come in. Do your md's treat you for anything they find rather than sending you back to your primary?

[bloodless]

I do get UTIs without knowing it. My primary catches that though. My rhuemy has only taken urine once. It does stand to reason the one that got the test result would write the prescription though.

[SjoGirl]

Maybe she or he is just living the do no harm oath. It may have taken days to get a scrip from your PCP and sounds like you needed treatment asap.

FYI, from my own experience and reading I've learned that Sjogies don't tend to have fevers with infections. PCPs always look for one, but need to learn it might not be present even though there is an infection. I had H Pylori and never had a fever.

[Karen13]

That's interesting about not getting a high fever, I am the same with infections. Makes it hard to convince a dr you're really sick. My main troubles are sinus.

Hope you feel better soon!

[Cassi307]

Interesting. I have not read that we don't usually get fevers. Why does this happen? It explains so much. Even when I had recurrent bronchitis I never even reached out of the 99 range. I wonder how I am supposed to figure out that I have an infection if I have no symptoms?? I remember a prior UTI that I didn't know I had that nearly put me in a hospital. My kidney function gets hurt even further with each infection. My numbers were stable for 2 years until I began to get sick with SS.
Think I am going to explore the pharmacy to see if there is some kind of home testing kit for UTI.
Thanks everyone for teaching me so much based on your experience. You can't learn this stuff from a book.

[Jamie]

 Hi. I am new here. Will introduce myself in another post. My comment is about fevers.....I take enough anti-inflammatories and pain meds that even if I had a fever, they should keep it down. When any doc mentions a lack of fever with an infection, I ask them if that is the case and they usually agree.

[Cassi307]

Jamie actually the no fever thing has been going on for years and that was before medication. It's nice to meet another new member.