Bladder infections hurrrrtttt...

The BBQ Pit
1

Last week I started feeling like I was getting a bladder infection. I’ve only had one once before, and this one didn’t burn like last time. But there was increasing pressure, and the need to pee was getting stronger, with less and less coming out.

I kept putting off going to the doctor, because I was too busy at work, and besides, it didn’t hurt that bad! Mistake!!! Thursday night it started REALLY hurting. I was thinking I had an exploded ovary or something! Or kidney stones, or, or, some other equally terribly painful thing.

Sweetie Tom—he kept saying do you want to go to the emergency room? No, I say, not yet, it’s not that bad. Until I doubled over in pain just from breathing deep! So we go to the emergency room at 9:00 pm on a weeknight. Shouldn’t be that bad, right? Wrong!

I finally get in to see the nurse at 10:30. I pee in a cup, and they send me out to the waiting room again. At 12:30, the pain has subsided some, and I’m ready to get out of there. I go up to the nurse and ask how do I check out of here? She soothes me a little and I decide to stay until 1:00 am, since I’d been here so long already. At 1:00, I’m through waiting. I walk up to the window again, and she says the doctor is coming with your lab results. So they call me back into the examining room.

Finally the doctor comes in, says you have a bladder infection, and gives me prescriptions. We finally get out of there at 1:45, and go get my scripts filled. Home in bed by 2:30. Poor Tommy gets up at 5:00 am to go to work. I call in sick.

So I take all my pills (Cipro) like a good girl, and start feeling better. Sunday night I felt a twinge like it might be coming back, but I start drinking even more water, and I feel better. Monday I’m ok, and I take my last pill on Tuesday morning.

Last night I feel like it might be coming back, and this morning I’m sure of it! Damn, this is so uncomfortable! Not too painful yet, but I know it will get worse.

So I called my doctor. She doesn’t see patients on Wednesdays, she’s in surgery all day. But she will check in periodically, so the nurse will tell her and get her to call in a new script for me.

So in the meantime, I’m at work trying to concentrate (ha! I’m on the boards!) telling myself that I don’t have to pee, it’s all my imagination. I took a Darvocet too, so at least I’m … who am I fooling.

This sucks!!! Sorry for the lack of cuss words.

2

Whether or not you need more medication, go out to your pharmacy and buy yourself some cranberry pills. Take them 3 at a time, 4 times today. It will help.

I used to get these things all the time, and they can be prevented and cured with cranberry pills, which do not screw up your body.

3

I second the cranberry recommendation. If you’d rather, or if you can’t find cranberry pills, drink cranberry juice. Prefereably the kind with no sugar, which you can find at health food stores. (Ocean Spray is only 20-something percent juice, as I remember.) My doc always said that sugar feeds UTIs. Also, she tells me to avoid caffeine like the plague when this happens.

Good luck! Your drugstore may also have a topical cream to relieve the burning until you can get to your doc.

4

The doctor at emergency gave you your prescription before planting your specimen and seeing what would grow, and what it is susceptible to (antibiotic-wise) - this take a couple of days. The quick test they do to see if you have lots of white cells in your urine (a pretty sure sign of a urinary tract infection) doesn’t give all the information. It’s possible the antibiotics you were given weren’t particularly effective for your particular bug. Before taking more antibiotics, I would check with the doctor who, presumably, has the lab reports and knows which particular bug you have and it’s susceptibility pattern is.

By the way, if you’ve ever had a urinary tract infection, you’re considered susceptible to them. The best thing you can do to prevent them is peeing after sex each and every time. I’ve also heard people swear by drinking tons of cranberry juice.

And they do suck. So very…uncomfortable. If not downright painful.

5

I’m one the somewhat rare males who have had a bladder infection. I was happy to drink cranberry juice, I love it.

But I had a severe allergic reaction to the sulfa drug I was prescribed, and my face puffed out so severely I looked a different person. I looked like a white Carl Weathers, actually. Wish I took a picture…

6

I used to get these all the time. Cranberry juice does have some support behind its effectiveness, and the Mayo Clinic also lists some other prevention methods.

There is an OTC drug marketed under names like Uristat that helps control the pain and feeling of “urgency” from urinary tract infections. This is not in any way a cure, and does nothing to the bacterial infection; it should only be used as a temporary relief before seeing a doctor ASAP. It should also be noted that this will turn your urine bright orange. Like, fluorescent orange. As such, avoid accidental drips onto clothing, and be aware that you might leave a slight ring of dye in the toilet (it scrubs off).

7

And the answer is…CRANBERRY JUICE!!!
:smiley:

(Well, at least we all agree.)

8

Personally, I like to take 2 cranberry capsules preventatively, after “the deed”. Works like a charm.

If I forget to do this and end up with a UTI, I prefer to use the herb Uva Ursi according to package directions. Cranberry acidifies urine, which can hurt if you’ve already got an infection. Uva Ursi alkalizes the urine, which doesn’t hurt, and it also gets rid of the UTI.

Good stuff.

9

Hi, it’s me again.

The doctors at emergency only gave you five days of antibiotics? Way back when, I think it used to be standard procedure to take antibiotics for ten days for a UTI to prevent rebound infections, which it sounds like you have. This strikes me a little odd. Any doctors in the house?

Oh yeah, talk to your doctor about yeast infections, too. When you knock out all the good bacteria in the vagina with the antibiotics, the yeast look on this as a great time to party.

10

I thought my Appendicitis had burst when I had my second bladder infection, it was seriously the worst pain I had ever felt. I hope you feel better soon and may you be free of bladder infections for the rest of your days.

11

Thanks for the moral support, everyone.

FTR - I have been drinking cranberry juice, I do pee after sex (almost every time!) and yes they only gave me 5 days worth of Cipro.

I wish my doc would call me back telling me she called in a prescription.

12

By the way, the cranberry juice thing has some real scientific evidence backing it up. It’s so acidic that it acidifies the urine in the bladder, making it much harder for bacteria to thrive in there.

I used to work as a microbiologist for a company that made cranberry capsules, among other things. I tested products to make sure they weren’t contaminated with bacteria. Well, at one point we had to establish data for how sensitive our assays were, and, to make a long story short, we couldn’t get ANYTHING to grow in even very dilute dissolved cranberry. We’d get some nice nutritious broth, inoculate it like crazy with E. coli, or Salmonella or whatnot, and they’d be all happy and satisfied. Then we’d throw in a bit of cranberry and, well, there was a disturbance in the Force, like millions of tiny voices crying out at once.

13

I get chronic UTI’s. . . When I was at college, it was about once a month. I’d go to the student health center, pee in a cup, and they’d give me 5 days of Bactrim. Three weeks later, I’d return with another UTI and get another 5 days of Bactrim. I’d suggest maybe a different antibiotic. They’d basically tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about.

After 3 months, they decided it had to be something other than a UTI. They made me take a pregnancy test (despite the fact that I wasn’t having sex at all) and get tested for every kind of STD on the planet (including syphillis), despite my repeated protestations that I’d been completely celibate since my last tests. They finally caved and gave me 5 days of Macrobid.

When I returned (seeing a pattern here?) in 3 weeks with the UTI again, they sent me home because I’d taken Uristat and they claimed they couldn’t test with that in my pee. They told me tylenol would kill the pain just as well (yeah). So two days later they agree to test me. . .when it comes up positive, they then accuse me of not talking my antibiotics. . .they test me AGAIN for STDs and pregnancy, and then give me more Bactrim.

Fast forward. It’s now May. I’ve have 3 pelvic exams since february. I’ve been accused of lying about my sex life, not taking my pills, not following instructions, and possibly making this entire thing up (for what?). The week of finals, I wake up in the middle with a fever and stabbing pain in my lower back.

Yes, I’d aquired my very own antibiotic resistant kidney infection. It took six weeks of some scary, vomit inducing antibiotics. Please be carefull if you have a relapse. The new trend is to reduce the antibiotic doses for UTI’s-- it works well for some but is bad for others. Don’t let your doctor blow you off if it keeps coming back.

14

It’s great that you’ve been drinking the juice. But I do find that the pills deliver more Concentrated Cranberry Power! without the sugar or the awful taste of unsweetened juice. You’d have to chug mind-blowing amounts in order to get the same benefits that downing a few pills will give you (IME, of course!).

15

Eat live, active culture yogurt if you’ve just had anti-biotics, and avoid cheese, sugar, and caffine if you’ve had a UTI. (I think I was also told mushrooms too, but not sure. Believe it’s got to do with yeast infections?) Cranberry capsules and lots of water is GOOD! I’ll be seinding you get well vibes, and hoping you finally kill off the infection. Don’t let them cow you into not coming in, this is important, kidney infections are even less fun.

16

I get chronic UTIs, though not as bad as Obsidian did. I keep Uristat around and take it with me everywhere. AZO is another good brand (and they make cranberry pills, too). I usually get 7 days of Keflex (I ended up in the hospital after my first bout with sulfa) for my UTIs. I do feel for you, I really do. If someone offered to break my arm in exchange for not getting a UTI, I’d take the broken arm without hesitation. I hate them that bad.

17

Giving you fewer days of antibiotics than you need to actually kill the bacteria dead dead dead, and doing this repeatedly, is a great way to make the bacteria antibiotic resistant. Keep challenging them, then back off, then challenge, then back off - are they trying to get you to make superbacteria?

I haven’t had a UTI in years (or been a lab tech, for that matter), and I didn’t know that they had changed this process. There was a reason that people used to get ten days of antibiotics for an infection, and were told to take the full ten days worth of pills, even after they felt better.

18

Poor baby :frowning: I’ve had one bladder infection and that was enough for a lifetime, methinks.

I hope you feel better soon and NEVER have another one again!

19

In addition to cranberry juice, another thing that can help somewhat is celery seed tea.

It tastes fuckin’ horrible, though. Even sweetened.

20

Well, I’m feeling a little better today. The doctor prescribed Augmentin for 7 days. And I bought some cranberry pills. Much easier than drinking the juice that I didn’t like much anyway! And I’m taking Uristat, too.

Thanks for all your sympathy! I hope these antibiotics kill it DEAD.