And no, not that idiotic United Technical Institute school stupid enough to give their late-night infomercial-advertised school a name represented by the initials of a demon condition thought too cruel to use in Abu Ghraib. And I know from stupid school names. I got my degree from Triangle Institute of Technology. Yup, TIT alumni here.
No, I’m pitting the scorching pain unique to a Urinary Tract Infection. Whatever supreme being was in charge of creating infections was in rare form the day he came up with this one. Never had one? Imagine somehow a porcupine has managed to crawl up your urethra, and you want to get it out. He’s facing north in there, and the only way out is south through that same tube. While you foolishly think you’re going to pee, what actually happens is said porcupine is dragged out of your urethra by his tail, the quills piercing your innards, embedded against the grain. The less pee you have (and you desperately need to pee, even with only a few drops of weapons-grade urine in your bladder) the more it hurts. You have to use the handicapped stall at work with the bars so you have something to grab to keep from screaming as napalm dribbles out. And then there’s the aftershock. A third of your innards forms a small vortex of misery, twisting and yanking a uniquely agonizing thrust of pain that makes you punch your thigh to distract yourself and not freak out others in the bathroom.
Now I’m no stranger to pain. I’ve broken, bruised, stabbed, sliced, torqued, collapsed, perforated and bashed myself, with or without another person’s assistance, in almost every way imaginable in my six decades on a planet seemingly dedicated to seeing how many ways I can injure myself. I’ve had more surgeries than I have fingers and toes. But nothing compares to the singular horror that is a UTI. Thanks to antibiotics, pain meds specifically made for this unholy misery, and more cranberry juice than I’ve ever wanted in life, I’m no longer white-knuckling my eliminations now. But this is the second one this year, the worst goddam year ever, so I’m now adding Azo Urinary Tract Health pills to the daily pile of drugs I have to take.
So yeah, UTI, fuck you and the twat you rode in in. I really hate you.
I hear you! I had several in rapid succession earlier this year. They are NASTY.
Since taking D-mannose, which I get at the natural foods grocery and unfortunately is expensive, I haven’t had one. It’s a sugar that allegedly keeps bacteria from adhering to the bladder walls; IDK if this was simply a post hoc, ergo propter hoc thing but as long as I stay UTI free, I’ll keep taking it.
heh I had one when I was a kid… the hospital pediatric nurses were sedating me to it would just flow and id be out of it they couldn’t take the screaming …
Is D-mannose similar to the Azo Urinary Tract Health treatment? That’s got cranberry, soybean oil, rice bran oil, gelatin, glycerin, soy lecithin and colors. I’ll have to look up what I paid at Amazon.
I hate cranberry juice, so am deeply grateful for having it available in tablets or capsules that I don’t have to taste.
Last bladder infection I had, about six months ago, the meds urgent care gave me were nearly as bad. I did NOT need fever, chills, and heavy fatigue, especially during a week that was quite bad enough without the infection to begin with.
I swear I had one a few weeks ago.
Some history. About 10 years ago I DID have one. Throughout the day it got more and more difficult to pee. I felt like I had to go every 20 minutes but almost nothing was coming out. About 5pm I spiked a fever and went home. My (ex) wife was googling symptoms trying to decide what we should do when I came out of the bathroom and said ‘I peed blood, let’s go to the ER’. UTI, couple of meds cleared up. I’ve also had a few kidney stones. I’m no stranger to UT issues. I know what they feel like.
Now between then and now, 3 or 4 times a year, I’ll pee and think ‘that didn’t feel right, kinda hurt a bit more than it should have’. I’ll chug as much water as I can over the next 24 hours and I’ll be totally fine. Maybe it was something, maybe it was nothing, I don’t know.
FF to last week. I’m at work. Go to the bathroom, pee, fire, agony, not enough coming out, there’s more that needs to come out, I’m dying, I also can’t leave until another manager gets back. 30 or so minutes later he gets back, I leave. I stop home. Peed again, yup, still burning, hurts when I sit, hurts when I stand, hurts when I move, off to the Urgent Care. Get there an hour of BS while I’m drinking water, pee in a cup and they come back and tell me it was totally clean. No blood or anything else that flags me for a UTI. In her opinion it was either nothing or I caught it so early that it didn’t get picked up. She told me I could either wait it out for a day and see what happens or I could go on antibiotics now. I took the script.
I don’t know, it sure felt like something (2 or 3 times that day), but I never felt it again and I’m guessing the pills didn’t start working that fast. I did have someone tell me that’s it’s possible, with my history of kidney stones that I may have just kicked up some sludge and I was just passing that.
Unfortunately, the results of the UA and the bacteria test aren’t online so I can’t see them.
No exam needed, thankfully. The sample I gave was absolutely swimming with the evil evidence of my infection.
Mixed with apple juice, other fruit juice and/or sugar, like Ocean Spray, sure. But straight organic 100% cranberry? I look like Arseface if I try to guzzle a glassful of that…
Yeah, I was just pulling it out of my chapped ass. All I remembered was how baffled I was that any school would deliberately call itself UTI. Sorry 'bout that.
It’s a sugar that allegedly keeps bacteria from adhering to the bladder walls; IDK if this was simply a post hoc, ergo propter hoc thing but as long as I stay UTI free, I’ll keep taking it.
Carry on …