[spoiler] Never once in my life had I gotten a UTI. In fact, I thought it was crazy that my friends seemed to regularly be complaining about UTIs, chugging cranberry products, and just being extra concerned about their urethras. For 25 years of my life, I had nary a problem.
Then I went to Fiji and spent the week on the beach, drinking a ton of rum, and doing everything you’re not supposed to do. I ended up with what my doctor back here in the USA horrifyingly called, “the worst UTI I have ever seen in 25 years of practice.” He asked me how I wasn’t in the ER from the pain and I pointed out that I have a high pain tolerance. Anyway. That was treated with extensive meds antibiotics and other-- and let me say, praise the lord for pyridium.
Anyway, since then (July), I have had two UTIs-- that includes the one I have now. I suspect this last one was maybe spawned by me not drinking enough water over the weekend/ running around like a mad woman for 15 hour days for three days-- AND that I forgot my cranberry supplement at home, so I didn’t take that for 4 or so days. Other than that slip up, I do everything I’m supposed to do-- all the wiping, peeing, and blah blah blah stuff we all know about.
So, I guess I’m curious if this is normal. Never having had a UTI before, I’m a little perplexed that I seem to have gone from 0 in 25 years to 3 in less than a year (I used to NEVER pee after sex or take a cranberry supplement and was fine). Because honestly, this shit sucks- even when you catch it early, it’s unpleasant. [/spoiler]
Your experience mirrors my own. Never had them (even while being sexually active), then boom! Seemed like I had one every time I visited my boyfriend in college (or when he visited me). However, that’s tapered off, for the most part - I haven’t had one in, well, I don’t really remember when, so let’s say a year or so. (It was definitely in the last couple of years or so, but not recent. Hence the prevarication. Of course, now I’ve doomed myself by talking about it. I’m sure to get one in a couple of weeks.)
It does seem to me that UTIs hit me earlier in life but a bit after I started having sex regularly. So, from 18-20 = not so much, but then from like 21-25 = lots. But since, say, 27 or so, they’ve been much more rare. Maybe your body adapts? No idea.
I rarely keep up with any sort of cranberry regimen, but I do try to be careful about peeing and wiping and blah blah. (Is this like the yadda yadda yadda from Seinfeld?) I’m 35 now.
I was sexually active (and I can admit a bit promiscuous) for 10 years before I got my first UTI. I met my current boyfriend literally a few weeks after I was cured from the horrific Fiji UTI and have only been with him since. I did give some consideration to the fact that maybe his evil, awful penis is corrupting my sweet lady bits with residual UTI bacteria. . . but I haven’t even seen him in two weeks and this one just started. So, while possible, that seems unlikely.
So yeah, I’m right there with you on the confusion of the frequency.
I’ve never had one. My sister gets them all the time (well, used to be several times a year, now is at least once a year, but that seems like a lot to me). I think there’s something sex-related that regularly sets it off for her, though I can’t remember what it is – I’ve always been the sex-clueless one, so she gave me the laundry list of things to do/not to do re: sex and UTIs, and I can’t remember which one is her nemesis – peeing after sex, perhaps. Which I do religiously (although geez, I think it totally kills the mood. “Sorry, can’t cuddle, gotta go pee now so I don’t get an UTI!”) but I’m not sure how much it helps me – I suspect I’ve just been lucky.
I’ve heard though that once you get one, you are much more likely to get one again. IANAD and I don’t know why that is.
Right? SUCH a mood killer. I told my boyfriend to get the fuck over it-- until his urethra feels like it’s en fuego for a week straight, he can hush up. :D:p At first he was confused, but then I explained how when I had that first really terrible UTI, I’d start crying when I had to pee, because I knew how awful it would be-- hell, I’d even have to bite a towel while peeing, so I wouldn’t scream. It was awful. There isn’t a cuddle in the world worth all that.
And I wonder if there is a medical reason that you’re more likely to have them after getting them once. Does the bacteria lurk around, being a jerk?
I’ve had 2 in my lifetime. The first one was enough to get me to change my habits - I started taking cranberry pills, made sure I peed after sex and all that. The second one happened because thought it wouldn’t be such a big deal if I just let myself doze off, just once, instead of getting out of bed.
That second one was worse than the first because I took the pills that kill the pain and kept convincing myself that I could knock it out with cranberry juice. When I finally went to walk-in clinic because I was running a fever and hurting, they pointed out that that was a really stupid thing to do because I was getting some kidney involvement. Also, if you’ve never felt your kidneys throb, count yourself lucky. Thank goodness for antibiotics.
I know a bunch of women who get them all the time and I too couldn’t understand… I never went to the bathroom after sex and was definitley not drinking enough water, it seemed like the more you took precautionary steps to avoid them, you’d get one, when I talked to my girlfriends about it.
Then one time I was sleeping on the couch and woke up to go to the bathroom. After I was done I fainted in the doorway, once I came to, I got up and walked to the living room to lay down, but fainted again right when i stepped foot into the living room (bathroom is like 10 steps away) and when I came to this time I crawled to the couch so it wouldnt happen again. I flipped out and went to the Dr. a few hours later. The Dr. seemed 100% sure that my skinny jeans and yoga pants along with not drinking enough water was the issue. When your clothes are tight they rub your body without you realizing it. I dont know about your clothing but maybe it could be that?!
Maybe residual bacteria traveling back down from your kidneys? Can it do that? Its very easy to have a low-grade infection and not notice - but as soon as your guard goes down it will flare up.
Having damaged your kidneys before does leave you more vulnerable
But, you’re doing everything right - just keep up on the water, that’s key.
I am spectacularly oblivious to UTIs, but I think I’ve been diagnosed with four between 1996ish and last fall. The first was a doozy. I knew something didn’t feel right, but I couldn’t identify the problem. Then I started peeing blood and running a very high fever and assumed I’d be spending the rest of my short, miserable life on dialysis. Fortunately, a course of antibiotics worked wonders and I only missed three days of work. Still, my kidneys ached for what seemed like weeks and I had a hard time finding a comfortable position to sleep in.
#2 was diagnosed during pregnancy, when I was peeing in the cup for the midwife every two weeks. Three straight visits of positive results and she insisted that I take some antibiotics, even though I wasn’t having any symptoms.
#3 and 4 have actually been diagnosed after trips to the doctor because “something doesn’t seem right.” I am keen to avoid bleeding kidneys in the future.
I suppose it’s possible I’ve had others without ever noticing they were there.
I’m not sure how often I get them. I get symptoms of one every couple of months around my period, but it never turns into anything.
With my last boyfriend I got them fairly often, which was really annoying, and I learned to kill them before I had to go to the doctor. (I would notice the symptoms really really early).
(To kill them early - drink at least 16 oz of water every hour, and as soon as you notice symptoms take 1000 - 1500 mg of vitamin C. That should kill it within an hour or two. If it doesn’t, take a few more pills. Avoid sugar. If it doesn’t go away within a day, go to a doctor. Pineapple and blueberries are also recommended, but optional. Blueberries have the same good stuff as cranberries.)
I’m on prophylactic, post-coital antibiotics, or I get a UTI virtually every time I have sex. I also get them from taking a bath if the tub wasn’t scrubbed out just before. When I get them they are fast and furious: pain, chills, nauseau. There’s no way I can drink water and hope for the best. I did take cranberry pills, which helped some, for awhile.
Dude checking in here to empathize. I was ‘lucky’ enough to get a raging UTI/kidney infection/etc. once and it was possibly the sickest and most uncomfortable I have ever felt.
Funniest thing about it was that I got it in high school. The doctor was conviced that I had chlamydia. Totally embarrassing to convince him that was not possible.
Never, not even once. I fully attribute this to luck and luck alone, as my mother and sister get them frequently and are both MUCH more careful than I am.
The only possible thing I can think of that might be having an effect is that I drink a TON of water and always have. (No, I’m neither diabetic nor in kidney failure. Promise.)
I marked “once” but upon reading this thread, I feel like maybe I had several over a 2 year period, several years ago. I thought they were all recurrences of the same ones, but now I’m not sure.
Anyway it was brutal for a while but then it did taper off and now I never get them. Maybe that’s hope for all you girls?
Voted for ‘a few times’. Which is not quite accurate. More accurate would be ‘Constantly, during a certain period of my life.’
When I was living with my husband, he commented ‘You seem to get cystitis as often as you change your knickers’, i.e. every day. And while that was a slight exaggeration, he was pretty much correct. Irritation, itching, burning, all the way up the scale to bleeding, including some sizeable clots. (And if you think the itching and burning and bleeding hurts, try passing a clot or two down your urethra, and you’ll rethink what pain is.)
His mother, a qualified nurse, suggested that the problem might be caused by some bacteria he might be carrying. Might have been, might not have been. I don’t know.
What I do know is that I’m now with someone else, and haven’t changed my habits at all. I have rampant, penetrative sex on a very regular basis, thank you very much. And not a UTI in sight.
YMMV etc. But it’s worth considering that it might be something to do with the interaction between your partner’s body and yours, rather than what you do, which is causing repeated UTIs.
