Urinary issues, brown spotting and green poop.

mary asks:

I'm 17. Today is July 12, I got off my period on July 1. I've had sex about three times since the first. I've only had sex with one guy in the past three years, and nothing like this has ever happened. I think I might have some sort of infection, but I'm really not sure. Yesterday I experienced frequent needs to go to the bathroom, and little or no urine came out. Also, at one point there was light brown spotting. I thought maybe like, holy crap am I pregnant?! But then I was also feeling an uncomfortable almost like burning [for lack of better word] sensation on my clitoris when I did urinate. The brown spotting I researched and found that it is just old blood, and could be pushed out because of an active sexual relationship, or it could be implantation bleeding, or a growing fetus pushing the old blood out. But this burning feeling is a mystery to me.

Today I woke up, and I had none of these symptoms, I do not feel the need to urinate every five minutes, and there have been no more spotting, but I did poop green today. The first symptoms I thought maybe was from pregnancy, or a urinary tract infection, they are even symptoms of gonorrhea & clamydhia, but can I get those if I've been having sex with the same guy for years?

Green poop I researched could be a sign of something I ate, or an infection. Would this "bowel infection" be related to a UTI?

Heather replies:

Any infection in your body can mess with your stools, but green stool is most often just caused by having eaten something, and usually something perfectly healthy.

The brown spotting and the urination issues would be a greater concern. Per the spotting, if it was brown, you can be realtaively certain it was not implantation bleeding, as that would not be older blood, and thus brown (and an inability to urinate isn't a symptom of pregnancy). But given that your period ended on the first, and you saw brown spotting on the 12th, it'd also not likely be due to old blood from your period, either.

Have you ever had an annual (yearly) pelvic exam, pap smear and STI screening? If not -- even if you had NO symptoms -- now is the time to start. Your partner should be being screened at least once a year, too. While limiting partners and monogamy is one part of safer sex practice, it can't be the only part: you still need to have those tests done: once a year, if you're both monogamous.

You don't say what birth control method you're using, but if you're not using condoms and/or have not been, then we always have to consider STIs a real risk. Even with latex barrier use and long-term monogamy, they're still a risk, just a risk that has been radically diminished. If neither of you has had any other partners for years, then STIs like chlamydia and gonorrhea just showing up now in you would be pretty unusual, but partneres don't always keep promises, weird stuff happens sometimes, and annual sexual healthcare and STI testing is something we need to do no matter what.

I'd suggest getting into your gynecologist or sexual healthcare clinic for an exam and screening if you have not done so over the last year. if you have, then you can just call in, describe your symptoms, and see what they suggest.