OT: UTI Precipitated Psychosis

[Cursitor Doom]

Gentlemen,

The best place to get health advice is of course, uk.d-i-y, so here goes... We all know that wimmin have a 'design defect' that makes them more prone to UTIs than men (assuming they don't practice Islamic-style personal hygiene following a visit to the crapper, of course). Anyway, the question is, when a woman suffers a mental imbalance following a UTI, is it possible her personality can be permanently changed as a result? I have a friend of mine who had a UTI about 2 years ago and went completely do-lally and had to be hospitalised. She was completely away with the fairies and had to be nutted-off for her own protection. Now it's happened again. She got a UTI and became psychotic for between 7 and 10 days. Fortunately that quickly resolved itself after that initial period. However, she then went through about another week where she was lucid but totally paranoid. Then when that subsided she's been left with quite severe neurosis. I'm hoping that as her brain chemistry comes back into balance again, this last hurdle will resolve itself and will not become a chronic condition. The acute phases of psychosis and paranoia were no fun at all and thank f*ck that's over, but have there been any instances known where a UTI has given rise to a permanent, significant, personality change?

-CD

[SteveW]

My wife was a Community Mental-health Nurse, until she had to retire due to ill health a few years ago. She told me on a many occasions of patients suffering psychosis through UTIs. It also happened to couple of neighbours. In each case, clearing up the UTI completely reversed any new mental health problems - except for one of the neighbours ... however, she may well have been on the way to a whole host of problems already and it was likely totally unrelated.

[Brian Gaff]

I don't know but its not just females. I can well remember being out of it and very paranoid when I got a urinary infection when I was in my teens. Its really hard to understand why an infection like that can affect the way the brain works. Yes afterwards you do get flashbacks as well, but as long as the normality of life continues then that gradually passes as the neurons interconnections set up by the paranoia fade due to no use. I've never seen a real explanation of this. Its not like delirium that you get from a raging fever its something else. As for hygiene. always wipe front to back should be written on every sheet. Brian

[Jethro_uk]

Well biology is all based around chemistry, so any change in the bodies chemistry can obviously affect things.

The real key is the blood-brain barrier. Does he infection (or it's metabolites or those of any medicines treating it) cross that ?

Long term use of benzodiazepines can cause permanent changes to brain structure and function (for example).

[The Natural Philosopher]

Of course. 'clinical depression' is caused by biochemical changes sending people on weird trips, rater than their sensitive little souls being damaged.

IN fact that for me is the first sign of infection - mild 'depression' and fatigue. In a severe infection that turns into mild delirium, and physical fatigue and aches. Plus a fever.

So can reading the guardian. It's a tough world out there.

[Pete Zahut]

Cursitor Doom brought next idea :

Not the same, but... A friend of mine has suffered rapid onset Age-related Macular Degeneration (when I say rapid onset, it took about a month from almost normal vision to almost completely blind) and she's also suffering from Charles Bonnet Syndrome (halucinations).

We initially thought the halucinations were down to a UTI but no, not at all. Over the 86 years she's been alive her eyes have obviously had colossal amounts of information going through them, in the form of light. The light gets converted to electrical signals, which are then passed to various receptors (one for faces, one for landscapes, one for colours and so on).

Now that she's blind, that tsunami of information has slowed down to a trickle and the receptors get bored waiting for something to do, so they make up their own stuff, which manifests in the halucinations!

Thankfully most of them are benign, but quite often she can see demons and disembodied heads. Sometimes she sees fire and flames but knows it's not real because she can't smell smoke or feel the heat. It must be absolutely terrifying at times.

[Cursitor Doom]

IIRC, dementia with lewy bodies presents very much like that.