My SO and I have started having sex on a regular basis beginning August and since then she has had three urinary tract infections. She has taken antibiotics each time which interferes with her birth control pills (which she started around September) and this worry of a possible UTI is hindering our sex life. I think it’s relevant to note that this is first time in her life that she’s been having sex on a regular basis.
So basically what I’m asking is if any other women out there have a problem or have had a problems with recurring UTIs and if there is anything we can do about that beyond getting antibiotics all the time and the commonly known steps on websites (drink water, pee after sex, cranberry juice, wipe after sex, etc).
Thanks in advanced.
She should try to urinate both before and after intercourse. I know this may affect mood and spontaneity somewhat, but it’s the best thing IME. Keep well hydrated, well groomed, etc.
When I’ve had patients with this complaint whose symptoms didn’t improve with measures such as those described by the OP, I’d want to review the actual culture and sensitivity reports from each UTI, and do a pelvic exam looking for anatomic variances that might lead to infections. I’d advise the SO to clean the glans and foreskin well prior to intercourse, and depending on how things went after that, consider possible testing on the bladder.
Hey, you’re dating me! Except I got yeast infections from the antibiotics, too. Whee! For a while there my doctor had me taking a mild antibiotic every time. It didn’t matter how much I drank and peed and cleaned, I still got them all the time.
A nurse to whom I am forever grateful gave me the following advice: cranberry pills. I play it safe and take (assuming it is evening) 3 right afterwards, 3 the next morning, 2 before each meal during that day and before bed, and 2 the next morning.
I have not had a UTI in over 3 years, and last time was because I got lazy.
I’m not telling you to ignore Qadgop’s advice, but it just so happens that I am really, really prone to the things and am otherwise perfectly normal. Cranberry pills save me. You can’t drink that much unsweetened cranberry juice, so the pills do the job instead.
Are you circumsized? The only time I had this problem it was while I was dating an uncircumsized man. I made that boy scrub, I’ll tell you what.
Have you been tested for yeast infections (asymptomatic in males), STDs, UTIs, and the like? It may not be bad to have a course of the oral antifungals or antibiotics.
Do either of you have a genital piercing? That could be the cause of the sadness- badly cleaned jewelry and holes can be great vectors for evil.
Does she wear tight pants? Underwear that isn’t cotton? The girls have got to breathe. If she can wear a long skirt sans underwear, that’d be fab. Even if she can sleep nude regularly, that may help.
Otherwise, acidify the urine. I’d avoid cranberry juice- most (like Oceanspray) are LOADED with sugar. Instead try water with as much lemon juice as she can stand. Alternately, try a shot of vinegar (rice vinegar is the most palatable) a few times a day. Finally, a weird hippie doc I once saw recommended taking the silk from fresh corn ears, cutting off the brown bits at the end, rinsing it real well, and then steeping it in 2 cups of boiling water for 15 minutes to make a tea. Remove silk from tea before drinking. Can’t hurt, might help.
If the information you already have (peeing, drinking water, etc.) is not helping, then I’m going to second Qadgop*. See a doctor.
I have this problem if I’m not vigilant about my water intake and peeing after sex, however, once I follow those protocols, I never have a twinge. My OBGYN keeps me on the fast track with a Macrobid prescription attached to my chart for the times when I get lazy. I usually have to fill the script about once a year.
Um, this might sound a little personal but - do you guys engage in oral sex? Because the bacteria in your mouth can help spread UTI’s. My man is always careful to brush before he goes down on me (plus it’s just nice to kiss with minty green breath, and then there’s that whole minty green sensation on the clitoris…I digress) Seriously, it’s helped me out a lot. That and the peeing every time after, and then going over to the sink and rinsing a lot after.
Douching can be okay periodically (that’s not a pun), but it can upset the natural bacterial balance in your body if overdone.
I definitely am not a doctor, so please check with your SO’s physician, but these things have helped me. And the cranpills - fabulous.
Had a friend who got the worst UTI after not having sex for like four years, then finding a guy and going to three times a day. It was kind of funny in a “I’m so sorry” sort of way. The mysterious ways of a woman’s body.
OH!! I forgot - you never use a finger or phallus on the vaginal area after it’s been in the anal area - it might look “cool” in porn movies, but it really can make you incredibly sick. I don’t know how you two play, but there are some thoughts.
She should definitely pee after sex, then shower. She should make sure to clean herself really well between her legs. A handheld showerhead is perfect for this.
We don’t engage in any sort of anal play but we do enjoy oral sex. Does oral sex somehow effect UTIs? Because there was a good period when that’s all we did and she was problem free down there. Thanks for your input everyone. If there’s any more advice, I would gladly read them.
I had this problem, and sleeping in the buff (and not wearing undies with PJs/loungewear/whenever I could) made a HUGE difference. If she’s not comfortable doing this, putting on clean undies at night may also help.
When I first met my ex-wife she had the same problem. It eventually cleared up two things the doctor did- continued another course of antibiotics after symtoms were gone. advised her to tell me “learn to get by on sex once a day only for a while”.
Me and my gal have the identical problem to the OP. Thanks for all the tips, I’ll pass them on - especially the one about sleeping naked, which she doesn’t like to do (though I do!). Bedtime nakedness and no infections - could there be a better solution?!
dangermom, how many mg is each of those cranberry pills you take? I get UTIs all the time, and discarded the idea of cranberry pills after taking one per day. I’m planning on trying your way now, and have a fresh bottle of 1680 mg pills in front of me.
r4nd0mNumb3rs, your SO could try taking acidophilus pills. It’s a live bacteria that is supposed to live in you. From what I understand, if the good bacteria is taking up space, the bad UTI-causing bacteria has a lot less room to grow. A woman I know swears by acidophilus, and I think it might have helped me somewhat, for a while.
Also, something that tends to help me is to not go to sleep after sex until I have used the bathroom, showered, and urinated again. Sure, it’s not romantic, but neither are UTIs.
Three UTIs in four months is way too many, though. All of this advice might help her reduce the number that your SO gets, but she probably won’t be UTI free if you are already doing everything you listed and still getting sick. She really should have a workup done by a doctor. A urologist prescribed me an antibiotic to take every time I had sex, which worked great for a couple of years.
When she takes Qadgop’s advice (ahem), she might ask her doc to check for kidney stones; by the time mine put me in the emergency room I’d fought off uti’s for years. Afterward my ob/gyn said ‘someone’ should have caught the stones earlier as the repeated infection was a ‘big hint’.
I do NOT recommend my ob/gyn. But both of you can go to Planned Parenthood together for your own personal goings-over - just not in the same exam room. Won’t that be great??
I’ve never had much luck with cranberry pills, but what has worked is chugging a huge amount of water in a very short period of time (e.g. 100 oz. in 1 hour). It’s pretty uncomfortable for the next hour or so, but flushes your system pretty well and seems to take most of the bacteria with it.
The easiest way for me to accomplish this is to line up 5 slightly chilled bottles of water and drink my way through them while doing something distracting. (Ice water is too cold to drink quickly, and room temperature water never tastes good to me when I try to drink that much of it.) Sometimes I’ll have to repeat this after a few days, but most of the time, it just goes away. I guess my body is able to fight whatever is left of it.
I’m prone to UTIs as well, and it helps me to take large amounts of vitamin C. I take 2 grams three or four times a day. The C acidifies my urine to a pH around 5 and reduces bacterial growth. In addition, methenamine mandelate or hippurate (such as Urex) can be prescribed as a prophylactic.
Because this is the Dope, and we like stuff like this here, I have done a little research into the genetic components of being susceptible to recurring UTIs. Your girlfriend is probably a non-secretor of the ABH blood type, random. From this site:
Doesn’t help you much for treatment, but now you know why some people are so prone to them! It does also tell you (and your girlfriend) that she needs to be vigilant all her life. I did see in my research that they are developing a promising vaccine for recurrent UTIs. Take heart, all you genetic mutants!
I will add a vote for peeing after sex as a way to avoid UTIs. (However, if I pee before sex, there’s rarely enough in the bladder to allow me to pee afterwards, too.) During my sexually-active years, this has been the absolute decisive factor in developing UTIs. If I pee immediately after intercourse, I do not get UTIs. If I do not, then 90% of the time, I get a UTI. (It was 100% until about a year ago or so.)
My GYN is very good at understanding that I know when I have a UTI. After all, I am in my 40’s now, and I can usually recognize the symptoms within hours–no test required. I generally just have to call the doctor’s office and talk to the nurse on duty. They then call in a script for an antibiotic. Four or five days later, I call in again for a script for the oral yeast infection medication. (I forget the name.)
In the last year or so, though, the UTIs are not as predictable, and I have found that an inability to pee after sex is no longer a 100% guarantee of a yeast infection. I read somewhere once that a common reason for UTIs is that bacteria is pushed into the urethra during sex, and that usually, the bacteria comes from the man’s penis. Once a woman develops immunity to the bacteria common to her partner, UTIs disappear almost completely. In my case, though, it has taken almost 18 years for this to happen.
My GYN’s nurse practitioner did tell me at one point that oral sex can be a cause of vaginal infection. (Douching is a more common cause, apparently, but I don’t douche, and still ended up with a whopper of a vaginal infection.) But I’ve never had a UTI that I can attribute easily to oral sex.
Regular intake of cranberry juice can be effective as a way of preventing UTIs, but my experience is that if you don’t already drink cranberry juice every day, it does not cure existing UTIs.
