# Self-treatment story (UTI) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 12, 2026, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-treatment-story-uti/1034928 "2026-11-12T23:44:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2026, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-treatment-story-uti/1034928/1 "2026-11-12T23:44:11Z")
I know you are all going to advise me to see my physician. Great advice if I had one. I had an excellent one from 1980-2020 but he retired during the pandemic. The way Quebec medicare works is that a patient cannot choose a doctor and a doctor cannot choose to accept a patient. Only some bureaucrat can assign you to a doctor and if they are not satisfactory, tough. After maybe a year and a half I was assigned a doctor. He was only a family medicine resident but we really got on. His office, in a medical centre was downtown at the end of a long bus ride and buses are getting harder and harder for me to use. He finished his residency and left to do two years of military service, payback for paying for med school. His replacement offered only a telephone consultation. You cannot do a checkup that way but I made an appointment. She called and was either unwilling or incapable of speaking English and eventually hung up. Maybe 4 times during my using my first guy I had a urinary tract infection. Two doses of an antibiotic are enough to make it go away. A few years before he retired he gave me a prescription for an antibiotic. He explained that I should fill it right away and have it with me especially when I traveled. He also explained that the US army had studied the question and found that antibiotics keep their potency for at least 15 years and I should just keep it. So I woke up on Tuesday morning with a painful urination. It got worse during the day and by 2PM I was pissing blood. So I took one of the pills. The pain started to ease around 4PM although the bloody urine stayed till that evening. Since the pills said to take every six hours, I took a second at 8PM. By yesterday morning the urine was pale yellow and there was no hint of pain. Just to be sure I took a third pill. All has been well today. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2026, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-treatment-story-uti/1034928/2 "2026-11-12T23:49:05Z")
Lucky you. Passing blood is scary. You really need to get a doctor close to your home, tho’. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2026, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-treatment-story-uti/1034928/3 "2026-11-13T00:30:58Z")
What was your antibiotic?