UTIs after kidney transplant

@athamarie53 my transplant team (Mayo) put me on Bactrim to prevent UTI after my transplant. It’s worked really well with no UTI in the first 10 years. Then, this past year, I had 2 and had to be put on a different medication to clear them up. Now I’m back to Bactrim and things are going along fine. I hope you can find a good solution to this problem. Being hospitalised is no fun. Best wishes!

Thanks so much, I'm actually waiting on my video appointment to start with Mayo. I'm definitely going to ask them about bactrim.

Hi @athamarie53 😊
How did your video call go? Did they suggest Bactrin or something else to help prevent recurring UTIs?

I had kidney transplant in May of last year too. After about a week from discharge, I was hospitalized due to UTI and was of course on antibiotics. Subsequently, UTI always appeared in my blood work. My nephrologist did not put me on antibiotics as long as there are no symptoms such as fever, chills, etc. Fortunately, I had no symptoms so no antibiotics for me.
I did have diarrhea about six weeks after transplant. It was determined it was from Cellcept. It was completely put on hold for two weeks and put it back at half dosage. Didn’t have any infections since then.

@athamarie53, I am 13 years post liver and kidney transplant. And I had a couple of years where I was bothered by UTI's. My transplant team requested that my PCP have a urine culture in addition to the dipstick test. It took several days for a culture result which identified the bacterial cause. Then a different antibiotic could be matched. On several occasions i did need a different antibiotic.
Another detail that my transplant team included was that I took the antibiotic for 10 days and then do another urine sample.

Does your doctor order a culture or does he retest after you finish the antibiotic?

Is there a such thing as asymptomatic candida albicans overgrowth? If so, can it trigger a recurrent bacterial uti in renal transplant recipients?

Hi @mtv102, I moved your question about asymptomatic candida overgrowth, UTIs, and kidney transplant to this existing discussion:
- UTIs after kidney transplant https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/utis-after-kidney-transplant/

I did this so you can connect easily with other members who have had similar experiences like @bobinnevada @rosemarya @huffman1835 @leahdrose @athamarie53 @mollyv @hello1234 and others.

I had 2 UTIs about 2 months after my transplant. Seems to me the UTIs started when they added rapamune antirejection drug, my immune system was too low. The UTIs kept me in the hospital for 5 days followed by outpatient intravenous antibiotics for 2 weeks, a month later the same issue. Finally took me off rapamune and added a bit more Prograf. A year and a half later seems to be OK
Anyway have faith in your transplant team, they WILL get to the bottom of it.

I take a cranberry pill for prevention -
Mom does not have a transplant but she takes a 'live' probiotic and a cranberry pill. check with your doc tho' 🙂

Hi all who are posting here. I want to remind everyone that transplant, immune suppression and the subsequent infection prevention, detection & treatment presents a serious balancing challenge to the patient and medical team. There is no “one size fits all” answer. Thank God there are lots of options for prophylactic, immune suppressants and antibiotic treatments. Remember too that with any of these there are often undesirable side effects that also require attention.