“My son feels burning when he uses the bathroom?”
My 13 year old son feels burning when he urinates. Could this indicate an infection or UTI?
4 Answers
Burning with urination can be because of few reasons. If he has burning with urgency and any blood in his urine or pain in his lower abdomen with fever, then he needs to get a urine analysis to make sure he does not have a kidney or bladder infection for which he will need antibiotics. Sometimes burning can happen transiently if children are a little dehydrated so increasing the intake of fluids can correct that. In a 13-year-old child, it is also important to get sexual history because at times STD’s are associated with burning urination, too. The number of days that the symptoms are there is also important.
A burning sensation in the penis during voiding urine can be a sign of a urinary tract infection and should definitely be ruled out. A urinary dipstick will help, especially if there are nitrates and white blood cells in the urine. If there is blood, then it is not necessarily a urinary tract infection. A urine culture would confirm a urinary tract infection.
It would be a bit unusual though for a 13-year old to have all of a sudden urinary tract infections. There may be other causes.
Men may experience painful urination due to prostatitis. This condition is the inflammation of the prostate gland. It’s a primary cause of urinary burning, stinging, and discomfort. This would be unlikely at this age. Excessive masturbation can also cause such symptoms.
You may also experience pain when urinating if you have a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Some STIs that may cause painful urination include genital herpes, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. It’s important to be screened for these infections, especially because they don't always have symptoms.
Certain sexual practices will put you at a higher risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), such as having sex without a condom, or sex with multiple partners. Anyone who is sexually active should get tested for STIs. Unfortunately our youth is getting younger and younger with sexual experiences.
I have a different suspicion though. Owing to our high salt intake, we are seeing so many adolescents now with kidney stones or urinary crystals. To make matters worse, children and adolescents eat a high salt, high protein and no vegetable diet. The high salt load requires that the kidneys excrete more salt as the salt level in the blood must remain constant. Delivery of a lot sodium in the urine leads to calcium wasting, which unfortunately can easily form crystals and stones. I would be curious if the symptoms occur at the end of the void. The high protein diet and the lack of vegetables leads to a high acid load which worsens the likelihood to make crystals in the urine. Urinary calcium can precipitate with weak acids when the urine pH is low. Ask for the urine pH when you have your son tested. Ideally, it should be 7.0-7.5, but we see so many children now with a urine pH of 5.0. There is unfortunately a direct linear relationship between urinary sodium and urinary calcium excretion. Lastly, the lack of vegetables (we should eat 5-7 servings of vegetables per day) leads to a lack of citrate. If there is not enough urinary citrate to envelop the calcium, urinary crystals can develop. We are now seeing this more often than a high urinary calcium/creatinine ratio. If the diet of your son is like that of most, you can try giving him 2 table spoons full of lemon juice three times daily. Lemon juice is an excellent source of citrate.
Also, ask for the specific gravity in the urine. So many of our youth are not drinking the recommended 2 litres of water per day. Instead, they drink sugary beverages which contain high fructose corn starch syrup, mostly HFCS 55. The reason is that this is 99% of the sweetness of sugar but used to be much cheaper. Unfortunately, this is not good. As our youth never fasts, and the liver glycogen storages are usually full, this goes right into the beta oxidation and into fat cells. Through a complicated mechanism, this leads to high uric acid, the stuff that can give you gout. To much uric acid in the urine can the be caused by those sugary drinks, which again may give rise to the formation of crystals. This should also be evaluated.
Hope this helps!
It would be a bit unusual though for a 13-year old to have all of a sudden urinary tract infections. There may be other causes.
Men may experience painful urination due to prostatitis. This condition is the inflammation of the prostate gland. It’s a primary cause of urinary burning, stinging, and discomfort. This would be unlikely at this age. Excessive masturbation can also cause such symptoms.
You may also experience pain when urinating if you have a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Some STIs that may cause painful urination include genital herpes, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. It’s important to be screened for these infections, especially because they don't always have symptoms.
Certain sexual practices will put you at a higher risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), such as having sex without a condom, or sex with multiple partners. Anyone who is sexually active should get tested for STIs. Unfortunately our youth is getting younger and younger with sexual experiences.
I have a different suspicion though. Owing to our high salt intake, we are seeing so many adolescents now with kidney stones or urinary crystals. To make matters worse, children and adolescents eat a high salt, high protein and no vegetable diet. The high salt load requires that the kidneys excrete more salt as the salt level in the blood must remain constant. Delivery of a lot sodium in the urine leads to calcium wasting, which unfortunately can easily form crystals and stones. I would be curious if the symptoms occur at the end of the void. The high protein diet and the lack of vegetables leads to a high acid load which worsens the likelihood to make crystals in the urine. Urinary calcium can precipitate with weak acids when the urine pH is low. Ask for the urine pH when you have your son tested. Ideally, it should be 7.0-7.5, but we see so many children now with a urine pH of 5.0. There is unfortunately a direct linear relationship between urinary sodium and urinary calcium excretion. Lastly, the lack of vegetables (we should eat 5-7 servings of vegetables per day) leads to a lack of citrate. If there is not enough urinary citrate to envelop the calcium, urinary crystals can develop. We are now seeing this more often than a high urinary calcium/creatinine ratio. If the diet of your son is like that of most, you can try giving him 2 table spoons full of lemon juice three times daily. Lemon juice is an excellent source of citrate.
Also, ask for the specific gravity in the urine. So many of our youth are not drinking the recommended 2 litres of water per day. Instead, they drink sugary beverages which contain high fructose corn starch syrup, mostly HFCS 55. The reason is that this is 99% of the sweetness of sugar but used to be much cheaper. Unfortunately, this is not good. As our youth never fasts, and the liver glycogen storages are usually full, this goes right into the beta oxidation and into fat cells. Through a complicated mechanism, this leads to high uric acid, the stuff that can give you gout. To much uric acid in the urine can the be caused by those sugary drinks, which again may give rise to the formation of crystals. This should also be evaluated.
Hope this helps!
Albeit rare in a young male, yes. There are multiple other possible sources as well though.
This could mean infection or inflammation. If he has been on any recent antibiotics, he could also have a yeast infection. Either way, increase fluids and get him checked.
