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How I cured a recurrent UTI

For a period of about 7 months I had a recurrent UTI. I eventually healed, but only by departing from conventional methods. I’m going to share my story with you in hopes of helping those who are in the same boat I once was.

To level set, here is my health history related to UTI’s:

1.       I had one UTI about 15 years ago and never another one again until this 7-month bout.

2.       Ultrasound tests show that I empty my bladder fully when I urinate, and my anatomy is completely normal from urethra to kidneys.

3.       Test results for STD’s are all negative.

4.       I am healthy: low BMI, good diet, fit, no other illnesses, proper immune function.

Here are the details of the 7-month saga of my recurrent UTI:

1.       Woke up one morning with a bladder on fire.

2.       Went to doctor, complained of symptoms. Doctor took urine sample. In office results did not show any leukocytes in my urine, but I was nitrite positive and pH was normal. I had taken an Azo prior to the appointment which can cause nitrites in urine, but given that there was no presence of leukocytes, I likely did not have a significant infection.

3.       Received rx for sulfa drug without culture results.

4.       Doctors office calls me 2 days later to tell me my culture was negative.

5.       Took sulfa drug for 4 days and felt better.

6.       Two weeks later: pain returned with a vengeance.

7.       Went back to doctor. Got another rx for sulfa drug without culture results.

8.       Took sulfa drug for 4 days and felt better.

9.       Doctors office calls me 2 days later to tell me my culture was negative.

10.   For 4 weeks I felt better and had no symptoms.

11.   Wake up one morning and bladder is on fire again.

12.   Head to the doctor and get a rx for sulfa drug without culture results.

13.   Start taking sulfa drug.

14.   Doctors office calls 3 days later to tell me my culture was positive for e-coli that is resistant to sulfa drug.

15.   Get rx for Macrobid and take that for 2 weeks.

16.   Feel better for about 6 weeks.

17.   Another UTI hits and get a referral to urologist.

18.   Culture is negative.

19.   Urologist confirms normal anatomy, complete elimination, etc.

20.   Urologist offers me the following options:

a.       Take low dose antibiotic for 6 months

b.       Take antibiotic prophylactically (as needed)

c.       Get my bladder scoped

21.   I decline the above 3 options and go take matters into my own hands…

 I love PubMed - PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez system of information retrieval.

For weeks, I find myself on PubMed daily looking for data on all things UTI. One study that really peaks my interest came out of the Netherlands.

**For reference, the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries are FANTASTIC stewards for antibiotic use. It’s not common practice for antibiotics to be administered routinely for things like UTI, eye/ear/nose/throat infections. The reason for this is not only because of antibiotic resistance, but also because of the damage that antibiotics do to our immune cells. Don’t get me wrong here, antibiotics absolutely have their place, but should not be taken unless ABSOLUTELY necessary (and the bacteria is known and culture shows it responds to the antibiotic you are about to take) and by that, I mean life and death necessary or if you have an infection that your immune system can’t eradicate on its own.

Ok, so back to this study. This study details the results of holding back treatment of UTI’s with antibiotics until culture results have returned. Usually takes 48-72 hours for culture results. The patient is sent home with instructions to drink a lot of water, urinate often and take Azo as needed. By the time culture results returned, most patients symptoms disappeared, and they rarely had another UTI. This goes back to the pre-antibiotic era when people got UTI’s, they suffered through it, healed and then never got another one. Why? Because their immune systems could do their jobs and developed antibodies, particularly in the protective lining of the bladder preventing bacteria from being able to “hook”.

More about antibiotic damage: For the most part, folks are aware that antibiotics kill bad bacteria, but also our good bacteria. What most don’t know is that antibiotics can be particularly anti-inflammatory as well – therefore sulfa drugs had me feeling better. They suppress the inflammatory response which is what causes us pain with UTI’s even if they aren’t killing the bacteria. The anti-inflammatory abilities of antibiotics persist for days after cessation of use, so this can also explain why I suddenly woke up 2 weeks later in horrific pain all over again.

So why do our doctors go so quickly to antibiotics? A couple of reasons:

1.       You are in pain and complaining of pain. They can be sued or lose their license if they don’t adequately treat pain in the US.

2.       If your UTI does go septic or into your kidneys and they haven’t offered you an antibiotic if a UTI is suspected, they could be sued or lose their license.

Ultimately, it’s a “Cover Your Ass” situation that is doing a lot of damage.

All this said, the first thing I did was commit to never taking an antibiotic again for a UTI, UNLESS I developed the following symptoms: flank pain, nausea, headache, dizziness, and/or vomiting. These symptoms are indicative of a kidney infection which is absolutely life or death and needs to be treated ASAP as the bacteria is now likely moving into the blood stream. But, for regular old lower urinary tract infection (urethra and bladder), I vowed to suffer through. And you bet your ass, if I ever need to take an antibiotic again, I will not do so until a culture confirms the type of bacteria and the type of antibiotic it responds to. These drugs are NOT consequence free and we are dealing with increasing resistance all the time. (Side note: if you think that drug companies are rapidly bringing new antibiotics to market, you are wrong. Most antibiotics take about 10-15 years to make it through all FDA testing phases, making it a massive investment for drug makers for which they rarely see return. One drug company recently found an antibiotic that treated MRSA but went bankrupt trying to bring it to market). I cannot stress enough that you should absolutely NOT be taking antibiotics without test results or absolute need.

Enough on antibiotics, I think you get the point.

Next, I discovered in many studies that the notion of cranberry helping UTI’s is largely anecdotal, so I threw that idea out the window too. No more cranberry. In fact, cranberry is very acidic, so it can irritate the bladder further. And, sadly, most people think that drinking sugary cranberry juice is helping, but sugar is food for bacteria and empty calories for us. If your cognitive dissonance is well intact and you firmly believe in drinking cranberry, get cold pressed fresh cranberry concentrate – you can find this at health food stores in the fridges. Or, you can take a cranberry concentrate pill. If nothing else, it is full of vitamin C (a fantastic antioxidant), however, there is evidence that vitamin C in high doses is very irritating to a compromised bladder.

Additionally, I started taking high dose raw/live probiotics. 4-9 doses per day of this: https://www.gardenoflife.com/content/product/raw-probiotics-women/ I do this not only to repair my good bacteria colony from the antibiotic use, but to also promote the recovery of the immune cell damage I’ve done to my bladder. Make sure the probiotic you are taking is raw. Raw probiotics must be refrigerated as they are live and active. Shelf stable probiotics are simply not as effective, and I suspect you’re wasting your money if you use them.

I also take D-Mannose daily. 1000 mg twice per day, morning and night (2 grams or 2000 mg is the therapeutic dose for D-Mannose). You can find D-Mannose on Amazon or at your regular health food store like Whole Foods or a Co-op. D-Mannose is a simple sugar that has no impact to our blood glucose level. It’s reasonably harmless, but what it does is attracts e-coli bacteria away from your bladder lining. E-coli has tentacles that “hook” into our tissue, but apparently it prefers D-Mannose. We easily eliminate D-Mannose along with the bacteria when we urinate. Regardless of the type of bacteria that caused your last UTI (if you know at all), take this. Your bladder is compromised and give it all the weaponry you can.

Of course, drinking water is a must and I drink A LOT of it (about 1 gallon a day), urinate often and never ever hold it. I will literally get out of my car and pee on the side of the road if I must. Urinating is the key here. Nothing is more effective than the mechanical action of flushing bacteria out of our urinary tracts. I also make sure I pee at least 3 times before falling asleep after sex – if this means I stay up until whatever ungodly hour chugging water, I do it. Make sure you empty your bladder fully. A simple test at a urologist’s office can determine if you do this. If you leave any urine in your bladder, you might also be leaving bacteria in your bladder as well. To help with elimination, put your feet up on a stool when you sit on a toilet or squat on the toilet. Peeing is your lifeline, prioritize it.

Lastly, I have less sex. My guy and I like to marathon and sometimes have sex a few times a day. The friction alone causes damage to our delicate urethral, vulvar and vaginal tissue allowing bacteria to flourish. Don’t get me wrong, we still have great/fun sex, but try to limit it to every second day and only once. Also, when I got my last infection, I said no sex for 6 weeks – I need to heal. We didn’t make it 6 weeks, but we did make it 2 weeks (I couldn’t help it, he’s too damn sexy) and I can say that it helped immensely. If your partner puts pressure on you to have sex even though you are injured, get a new partner!!! No relationship is worth compromising your health (goes for mental health too). I’ve always been big on personal hygiene, but now I’ve stepped it up:

1.       No overly scented soaps that contain sodium lauryl/laureth sulfate. I go with plant-based soaps that are scented only with essential oils. My guy does the same for me, because residue of awful soap can be left on the penis. I pack soap for both of us when we travel. That is how important this is.

2.       NO LUBE – nothing water or oil based. Get on with more foreplay, but lube is just a vessel for bacteria to be pushed up into the urethra and stick there. Also, lube can disrupt your precious pH and natural flora both being your first line of defense. If you think coconut oil is benefitting your lady parts and preventing infection, you are incorrect.

3.       No douches. Never have I used a douche, but I’m putting this here for you because douching disrupts the pH and bacterial colony of your vagina. If bad bacteria flourish in the vagina, they can infect your urethra/bladder.

4.       Wash hands before touching genitals. Your UTI’s could be coming from bacteria on your hands rather than your genitals. I’d bet your hands are currently dirtier than your anus or vagina, to be honest. So, both you and your partner need to give your hands a good scrub with water and soap referenced in point 1 before touching each other. I now was my hands before AND after using the bathroom.

5.       Pee and rinse your genitals after sex right away – if you are worried this is going to be embarrassing for you, get over that quickly and/or get a new partner who will support peeing and rinsing. My guy always checks in now and says, “good pee?!” and we are both equally happy when I’ve indeed had a great pee. Also, there is some evidence that semen can really irritate female genitalia, so get that out of there or have your guy ejaculate elsewhere.

6.       Sleep naked or without anything tight fitting on against your genitals. Let them breathe! Air circulation is so important for limiting bacterial growth.

7.       Change your underwear after a workout or excessive sweating. Our groins can be the sweatiest parts of our bodies, so don’t sit around in sweaty underwear – for a lot of women this means thongs. Our sweat is wet and what do bacterial love? Dark, wet and warm environments.

8.       Cotton underwear only for regular daily wear. Cotton allows air circulation.

9.       Wipe front to back. This pushes bacteria away from your urethra. When you wipe back to front, you introduce bacteria from your vagina and anus to your urethra.

10.   If you are like me and fly a lot for work, shower as soon as you can after getting off the plane. Airplanes are absolutely disgusting and covered in ample e-coli, strep, staph and who knows what else…

Here is the kicker, none of what I told you is going to be an overnight fix and it’s a commitment – you will likely have to do this for the rest of your life.

First things first, your bladder needs to heal. This can take months. Inflammation is tricky and doesn’t go away overnight. Paired with the antibiotic damage a lot of us have done by blindly taking antibiotics, you might be looking at 6-12 months for the inflammation to subside. This just takes time. So be careful and delicate with yourself. It has taken a very very long time for my urethra and bladder to feel normal again.  

In parting, UTI’s hurt and cause us to panic, but your body is designed to overcome them. No one knows your body better than you do, so pay close attention for signs of sepsis or kidney infection as I’ve noted earlier. If none of these concerning symptoms arise and your pain is reducing over the period of 3-7 days, your immune system is doing its thing. Chug that water and pee freely. Use Azo – I take up to 400 mg at a time despite the instructions on the package. The standard dose (usually 182 mg) does not help me at all. After two days of a lot of Azo, water and peeing, I rid myself of my UTI’s on my own.

Here is some great news: I don’t get UTI’s anymore and I’m confident that if you’re healthy and make some lifestyle changes, you can rid yourself of yours too without doing further damage to your health.

**I have gone over all of this with my urologist and GP and they love hearing about the success of it to pass on to their patients, but they ALWAYS document that they have offered me an antibiotic and that I have declined**

#uti #urinaryinfection #urinary tract infection