At the risk of grossing everybody out, is it possible that wiping forward rather than backward after a BM causes UTI in women?
When younger and before memory impairment, my 95-year-old mother was compulsively clean. These days, she seems to have forgotten anything she ever knew on the subject -- kitchen cleanliness, bathroom sanitation, hand-washing, laundry -- you name it, she's stopped it.
In most cases, I can cover for her. However a recent incident causes concern. I was helping her get cleaned up when she had to use the toilet for a bowel movement. Then she wiped herself from back to front. When I commented, she said it didn't make any difference. Given her characteristic stubbornness and oppositional behavior, I knew that to say anything else would only make it worse.
But the incident made me think of the many reports on this website about urinary tract infections in elderly women and I wonder if there is a link with the wiping. Can anyone enlighten us on this?
I had a friend whose mother was in a NH. She became very angry when she leaned that her mother had a bladder infection with E. coli. She thought the NH had introduced it in the diet. I never could make her understand that it wasn't diet, it was hygiene. Probably even passing gas can transfer some of the E. coli, so staying clean is important.