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Today I’m going to give you some strategies to help with urinary tract infections. I have to admit, I personally have never had a urinary tract infection, but many, many of my patients have, so I’m very familiar with what it is and how to treat it. It can be very painful with pelvic pain, lower back pain, burning upon urination. It can be extremely uncomfortable.
Before you run off to the doctor, you should try some of these natural strategies to see if you can stop it without having to resort to any medication. The first couple of things I’m going to mention you have probably already heard of, but I will let you know my number one remedy.
First and foremost, you want to make sure that you are well-hydrated and especially if you feel like a UTI is coming on, you want to increase your water intake by quite a bit, and drink it quite fast, so you can really flush out the kidneys and bladder.
If you are going to use cranberry juice, make sure you use unsweetened cranberry juice. Not a cranberry juice cocktail, because that just has sugar in it, which feeds bacteria.
Apple cider vinegar is sort of an overall, general health tonic. It’s great for balancing your pH in various parts of your body. Apple cider vinegar is very commonly used.
A natural antimicrobial that we’re all familiar with is garlic. Garlic is an amazing, plant that helps with so many things, especially when it comes to infections. Whether you’re going to eat garlic, or take it in a supplement form, garlic is a very strong antimicrobial and can be used to help treat a UTI.
To help with keeping your gut and body balanced, probiotics are very useful, especially if you’ve taken multiple rounds of antibiotics in the past. If you’ve had UTIs before, probiotics are very useful. Prebiotics, are foods that feed the good bacteria in your body, they can be very beneficial, as well. Fermented foods are excellent, natural sources of probiotics or you can take a probiotic supplement.
The number one remedy that I use in my clinic for urinary tract infections, both preventatively and when someone has a uti, is called, D-Mannose powder. This is a naturally-occurring sugar. Don’t worry. It’s not going to raise your blood sugar. It’s safe for diabetics, or if you’re doing a low-carb diet. It is a naturally-occurring sugar that’s in things like cranberries, and other berries.
What D-Mannose powder does, is it helps prevent bacteria from sticking to the lining of the urinary tract. So, it’s an excellent remedy that you can try for urinary tract infections, both preventatively and when you have an infection. When you feel one coming on, you should use a higher dose of it. Just follow the dose that it says on the particular one that you are using.
If your UTI is not clearing up from some of these remedies on its own, within three to four days, and you’re still really having a lot of symptoms, it may have been too late, or maybe your immune system isn’t strong enough to fight it. You may have to resort to go to the doctor and maybe get a medication. I’m not a big fan of doing that, of course, but if you’re suffering, you may have to.
One thing I want you to keep in mind is, if you do go to the doctor, see if they can run a test called, the PCR test, so you can determine exactly what kind of bacteria that you have, and it will also tell you which antibiotic will work for that particular one. Because there are different strains of bacteria, there are different antibiotics that work for each strain. As you probably know, we are becoming more and more antibiotic-resistant as a culture, because we’re overusing them. So, it would be good to know exactly if what you’re going to take is going to work for that particular infection.
Antibiotics should be the absolute last resort for this, because we’re using them too much and they interfere with our gut. If your doctor is going to recommend an antibiotic in the fluoroquinolone family, such as Cipro, you may want to ask him to give you something else, because these are the antibiotics that cause the most side effects and can be very dangerous, lifelong. I have seen so many patients have problems with this type of antibiotic. I just want you to know that there are other options, antibiotics should not be the first thing used for a urinary tract infection.
If you are interested in finding out the D-Mannose powder that we recommend here at the clinic, or if you are suffering from recurrent urinary tract infections and want to schedule a free consultation, please give us a call.
