Joined: 29 Jun 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Kansas City
Re-occuring Uti's Posted: 06-29-07 13:59pm
I've been searching through forums trying
to find an exact match to what's happening
to me, but I can't find a single thing.
Let me tell my story, and maybe someone
will have answers.
About a year and a half ago I experienced
my first Urinary Tract Infection, (I was
20) and my mother in law was a nurse who
simply brought me home three tablets of
levequin. The symptoms stopped in two days
or so, but directly after I started
feeling a mild throb in my bladder when I
went to bed at night. Some days it'd be
really bad, some days it wouldn't be there
at all.
I'm divorced now, and I have a new sexual
partner and within a month of being with
this person I got a second UTI (the
following September) which I went to the
doctor and they gave me another run of
leviquin, which stopped it again.
Howevever, still the mild throb in my
bladder at night persisted. Two months
later, bam--another UTI, then another in
February. Now I just had one in early June
but the Cipro that they gave me seemed
lagged in responding to my UTI, and when i
finished them I noticed the right side of
my abdomen was swollen and heavy. Alarmed,
I went to a Urologist who told me I didn't
have a bladder infection after giving me a
urinary test, and I asked about having IC
and he said I wouldn't have that or I'd be
in pain all day every day. He thought
perhaps it was gynecological and so I went
to my family care doctor who performed a
pap and pelvic exam. He didn't feel
anything strange, but ordered me to do an
ultra sound anyhow, which the radiologist
turned up clear. This was a couple of days
ago.
Just today, however, I woke up with severe
nausea and the right side of my pelvic
area is still swollen. I'm suspecting the
previous bladder infection didn't clear up
and moved to my stomach or kidneys.
My family doctor thought I was just very
prone to UTIs, especially what with my
vigorous sex life and that I might just
have to take a mild antibiotic to prevent
more UTIs from doing permanent damage to
my bladder. However, I've heard that
taking antibiotics too frequently could
-still- do permanent damage to your
bladder. I'm only 22 and an A student, I'm
studying to be a nurse practitioner and
I've had a very healthy life prior to any
of this happening. I don't want to have a
chronic illness that hinders me from doing
my very best.
Am I doomed?
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HealthySex
Experienced User , Rather EHEALTHy
Joined: 09 Jan 2007 Posts: 414
Posted: 06-29-07 14:17pm
Well, I don't know what you're swelling is
and you should probably continue going to
doctors and specialists to pinpoint what
that is.
However, I could comment on UTI's.
First let me mention some things specific
to UTI's. I'm sure you've heard it
before...cranberries. I'm sure you've also
heard.....cranberry juice. Well, don't
listen to the juice part. The juice you'll
find in a store is probably laden with
sugar, and either way pasteurized killing
it's effectiveness. So unless you're going
to juice your own cranberries, forget
juice. You can eat fresh cranberries
often, or frozen if the bag says Contents:
Cranberries. Don't get anything with added
sugar, sugar is bad for infections and
your immune system. The other option is to
buy cranberry supplements, which you can
often find concentrated.
Another good supplement for UTI's is
D-Mannose, which ironically is a type of
sugar found in cranberries and other
fruits. You can buy it separately or found
as another ingredient along with cranberry
capsule products.
Then you could also and perhaps should
also do a general urinary cleanse, that
includes the bladder, the tracts and the
kidneys. You can find products at the
health store that deal with all 3 at once.
They'll usually contain Marshmallow Root,
Uva Ursi, goldenseal, etc. and maybe even
cranberries and d-mannose.
There's also some other type of berry
that's good for the urinary system, but I
don't recall what it is. You could
probably ask an experienced person at the
health store or a naturopath.
So since you're infections are urinary
related I'd do some or all of the above.
And regularly since it's chronic.
The rest I wanted to mention is general
infection information. I've typed this so
many times that I've just gone a copied
and pasted it from elsewhere I wrote it
recently...
Chronic infections usually leads to
chronic antibiotic use which usually leads
to chronic infections which usually leads
to chronic antibiotic use. See the
circle.
Also, when an infection is treated, it
does not mean all traces have disappeared.
Since you can't take antibiotics all the
time, nor should you as already pointed
out, you'll have to get your body to do
the healing.
Natural infection killers include anything
that boosts the immune system like vitamin
c, zinc (don't take more than about
45-50mg's of zinc a day. Count all
sources, food and supplement), astragalus
(don't take if fever is present) and
echinacea (don't take for more than a
couple weeks or so, without a couple weeks
break if you want to continue again).
Oregano oil, garlic, and colloidal silver
are great at killing infections as well.
If I had chronic infections I would avoid
sugar, caffeine and alcohol. Do a
infection kill using oregano oil and
colloidal silver for a few weeks. Then
continue taking vitamin c and astragalus
as well as a multi-vitamin/mineral (the
multi-mineral should give you some zinc,
take it separately if you want more)
forever. Astragalus could be dropped after
several months, but it's good for the
immune system so you can alway use a
maintenance dose if you want. I don't take
astragalus, but if you've got chronic
problems you might as well bring out the
big guns and keep bombarding.
Then, and this is probably the most
important. I'd replenish my probiotics.
Probiotics are beneficial bacteria.
They're present in and on your body and
responsible for many things such as aiding
in digestion, assimilation, immune system
and keeping bad bacteria in check. A
healthy flora of probiotics is good for
all sorts of problems, infections being
one of the biggest. The reason this is so
important is because all of the
antibiotics you've taken have killed all
the bacteria in your body, the bad and the
good. Without the good, the bad easily
come back, hence the reason chronic
antibiotic use cause chronic infections.
Replenishing them extremely well will not
only fight infections, but it will prevent
them.
So get a probiotic supplement from your
local health store or research and find a
good one online. Look for one that is
multi-strained, high count, and enteric
coated so that it can pass safely through
your stomach acids.
There's a specific strain that mercola (a
real doctor that treats his patients
naturally) reports to have the highest
success rate of survivning and planting
itself within you, lactobacillus
sporongenes or technically called bacillus
coagulans. If you can find one with that,
go for it. Fos in the supplement is also
good, because it feeds the probiotics.
Take the probiotic in a higher dose for
the first couple weeks, then at regular
dose for a few months. If you've got
chronic problems there really isn't a
problem in high dosing for longer than two
weeks, so if you really want to get this
straight, go for it. After that, you can
just maintenance dose indefinitely.
Remember to do this after any use of
antibiotics or use of infection killers
like colloidal silver or oregano oil.
You can also get additional probiotics
from yogurt (plain, remember avoid sugar),
kefir, or fermented foods like sauerkraut,
pickled foods, etc. However, if all you're
going to do is go to the grocery store and
buy sauerkraut and pickled beets, don't
bother. Those foods you find in the
grocery store are not "live" with
probiotics. They're either just flavored
to taste like fermented foods, or they are
fermented but then have the probiotics
killed through pasteurization. You'd have
to find true non-pasteurized fermented
foods online.
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tlnewberry
New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 29 Jun 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Kansas City
Posted: 06-29-07 18:58pm
I went to the clinic today and they said I
had another UTI. The nurse practitioner
told me that perhaps it was a strain of
bacteria that my other antibiotics weren't
properly killing, and perhaps it was
clearing up the Urinary tract but not
penetrating the bladder as it should. She
put me on sulfa for a month, but I also
told her about the dangers of hurting my
healthy bacteria and she said I should be
eating yogurt regularly to keep my healthy
bacteria count up, and also taking daily
vitamins.
A big part of this she thinks is my
caffeine intake and I need to cut it out
of my diet. I drink coke like crazy and a
lot of coffee. I bought some cranberry
pills and some plain yogurt, and ill be
looking for the urinary cleanse stuff.
She said it's definitely not IC because
its clear I -have- a UTI and its not just
symptoms. The whole mystery is the reason
I'm getting them so frequently.
Is it possible to just be on a mild
antibiotic but eat healthy and keep my
nice bacteria count up?
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HealthySex
Experienced User , Rather EHEALTHy
Joined: 09 Jan 2007 Posts: 414
Posted: 06-30-07 15:00pm
Yogurt does contain probiotics, but hasn't
really been shown to replenish strong
flora. Eating it would still be
beneficial, as long as it's plain. You
could flavor it with fresh fruit or
perhaps cherry concentrate. Apothe-Cherry
is a good brand because they offer it
non-pasteurized. It's a good bedtime
snack, because cherries naturally contain
melatonin and helps with sleep.
But to really replenish your probiotics
you should take the supplement. It's
higher concentration and will take hold
better and faster so as to not let your
infection grab hold again.
Genuine, non-pasteurized (if it's
pasteurized, the probiotics have been
killed) fermented foods are also good. Not
only for probiotics, but in general they
are one of the greatest foods for health.
Sauerkraut, pickles, olives, etc. Sadly
the stuff in the store is usually not
genuine (it's only flavored to taste
fermented) or it's pasteurized.
You can buy Kombucha tea in health stores
and health oriented grocery stores now
that is non-pasteurized. That contains
some probiotics and is an easy addition
for a fermented products. GT's is the
brand I know, but there are others, but
you'd have to make sure it hasn't been
pasteurized. You should only drink about
4oz.'s per day to start and work your way
up to a bottle a day if you want. Kind of
expensive. You can make your own of course
if you want.
The caffeine plays a role, but a bigger
one may be the Coke, which of course again
gives you caffeine. But the amount of
sugar you're ingesting must be crazy. A
can of coke has about 10 teaspoons of
sugar, and in America that's usually in
the worst form, high fructose corn syrup.
Multiply that by how much you drink in a
day. Not good for your immune system and
definitely not good for healing
infections. Try to replace your caffeine
and sugar habit with water. Filtered of
course is better than tap; reverse osmosis
is probably the best. Distilled water is
only good short term, otherwise it's too
acidic so don't think because it's pure
it's the best. Bottled is ok occasionally,
but the plastics leach into the water. So
filter and carry your own water in a glass
jar or a hard plastic that doesn't leach.
You'll probably have to taper off coke and
coffee so you don't get headaches and what
not, but afterwards you'll feel much
better.
The reason you're getting them so
frequently is probably because of your
diet, your coke and coffee habit, your
antibiotic use, and an infection that was
just never cleared up in the first place.
Bacteria reproduce very quickly and in
large numbers, which gives them the
advantage of very speedy evolution.
Weeding out the weak; survival of the
fittest. Those that survive an antibiotic
are the strongest and have likely created
an immunity to that specific type. It is
those bacteria that will now reproduce in
your body, basically having you end up
with a stronger, more immune infection
that you had before. That's why doctors
prescribe different antibiotics every
time. So if the infection was completely
cleared up, you now have a seed for
another infection, and this time they're
even more prepared for an antibiotic
onslaught. Plus, since you killed your
good bacteria, the bad bacteria are not
kept in check like they would be in a
healthy body with good probiotic levels.
So that leads to chronic infections
because you've got strong bad bacteria,
and a weak supply of probiotics that were
never replenished.
I don't know if it's possible to be on an
antibiotic and keep your probiotic count
up. The antibiotic will keep killing the
probiotics, and the probiotics you take
will keep replenishing, but the effect
might be zero. I'm not sure if you're
implying you take an antibiotic all the
time, but not sure why you'd want to do
that anyway. The bacteria will become
immune and it's not the healthiest thing
to do anyway.
If you help your immune system with
vitamins, cleaner diet, less sugar and
caffeine, and replenish your probiotics
you'll essentially have your body taking
care of the bad bacteria itself, so you
wouldn't need to take a mild antibiotic.
If you want to take something specifically
to kill infections all the time try
Oregano Oil or Garlic. Colloidal Silver is
a great one too, but if you want to take
something everyday for life, I'd say
choose one of the others. Give your
immunity an extra boost wit extra
Vitamin-C and/or Astragalus.
As for encountering a strain of bacteria
that antibiotics just aren't helping with,
there is an herb used in Chinese Medicine
that might help. Studies have shown that
when taken with antibiotics, it can kill
strains that have become antibiotic
resistant. There's a specific bacteria
that has become dangerously immune to
antibiotics, and this was killed using the
herb and antibiotics together. Whether the
herb can do it on it's own, I do not know,
the studies used them together. It's
called Scute.
If you really want a program to follow and
nip this chronic problem in the butt, go
see a naturopath. Conventional doctors
will just continue to give you
antibiotics, never asking you about your
diet, giving you advice on improving your
immunity, replenishing good bacteria, etc.
All of which are the real causes of your
chronic infections. Tell the naturopath
that you have this chronic problem and
that you want it gone. That you want to
kill the infection for the last time, and
really prevent it from coming back. The
naturopath can recommend a program for you
to follow and will ask you about your
habits and advise you on new ones.
