Reviewed March 2016

UTIs, urinary tract infections.  God, what a pain, huh?  Especially for those of you who have recurrent urinary tract infections.  So what causes them?  Emotionally, believe it or not, they’re caused by being pissed off.  I kid you not.  The next time you get one of those suckers, ask yourself, who am I pissed off at?  And you’ll often get the result right away.

            If you can’t think of who it is, write with your nondominant hand, here’s what you do.  You pretend that you are your bladder and your bladder and your urethra are talking to you.  and you say, please talk to me.  And then with your nondominant hand write down what they say.  You will be amazed.  This stuff isn’t rocket science.  It’s right there.  Your cells are trying to tell you something.

            Okay.  So that’s the emotional part.  But that’s not going to get rid of the stinging and the pain that you may have, right, when you’re listening to this.  So for this you need to do something.  Alkalinize your system and also take nonsweetened cranberry juice which contains a substance that actually prevents bacteria from coating the urethra and so it flushes the bacteria out much sooner so that they cannot cause infections.  So cranberry juice and drinking lots of fluids really, really helps.

            Obviously there are times that you will need an antibiotic, and there are many that are given for this.  But to keep yourself from having recurrent ones, the other thing you can do is take a probiotic.  Now think about it.  Antibiotic is killing bacteria, probiotic is replenishing healthy bacteria.  And oftentimes with women you have unhealthy bacteria that go from the anal area and get into the vagina and the urethral area, so you take a probiotic which will replenish healthy bacteria in that entire perineal area in a woman’s body and help her prevent the re-seeding of the urethra with unhealthy bacteria.

            There’s this thing that we gynecologists call honeymoon cystitis.  This is when a couple is new in a relationship and they’re having a lot of sex, it can cause some trauma to the urethra which makes the bacteria in the area become pathogens they wouldn’t be ordinarily.  So it’s particularly important if you’re with a new partner or you’re having a lot of sexual activity to take those probiotics and keep that whole area healthy.

            Also, avoid douches, and unless you’re using a douche, something that decreases the pH because semen has a very high pH of about nine whereas the vaginal pH should be low like at about five.  So you want to douche with some vinegar or something of that nature if you’re having a lot of sex because that alone, just by getting the pH off, can cause UTIs.  But for those who have recurrent UTIs, it usually is [caused by] something that you’re not happy about.  And when you can speak [about it] with your upper lips, your lower lips will not have to get your attention.