I had been dating my boyfriend for about a year when I got my second or third UTI. It was my sophomore year of college.
It was a particularly bad one, but I had just been riding it out for a few days, because it was finals week and I was about to go home for summer break. I didn't have time to take care of my UTI, I felt.
After finals ended for the day, my friends and I would sit in the living room of my boyfriend's apartment and have a few drinks. We didn't have much to do, as the year was ending. I wasn't drinking enough water, but I don't think I realized how little I was actually hydrating my body. Living on coffee, ramen and beer was taking a toll, but I didn't know until that fateful night in May that I developed a kidney stone and subsequent infection.
I kept getting up in the middle of the night to pee, but at around 4am I was stricken with a crippling pain. To this day, it was the worst pain I've ever felt. I went to the bathroom to try to relieve the pain in whatever way I could. But when I got there, I threw up, fainted and pulled myself back across the hall to my boyfriend's room. He had heard the thud and woken up. I told him, 'something is wrong. I need a doctor now.'
Luckily, my boyfriend called the campus EMTs and I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, given fluids and pain management in the ambulance. My pulse was weak and my blood pressure was dropping. Later that night I was told it had been a kidney stone and infection, and I was lucky they caught it before it got any worse. Needless to say, since then, I have avoided UTIs like the freaking plague.
Most people with vaginas will get a UTI at some point in their life. But did you know there’s tons of steps you can take to prevent them?
Now that you've had the long-winded introduction: here are my faves for preventing UTIS:
- A sugar called D-Mannose (you can buy it in pill form and take it daily or just when you feel like you need it.) This sugar occurs naturally in your body, but sometimes your body needs a little boost of it!
- Cranberry everything (my favorite is the cranberry gummies, but another thing I love to do is mix a splash of raw, unsweetened cranberry juice in with some sparkling water. It's tart, bubbly and delicious.)
- Hydration and nutrition. Please, do not live off of sodium, caffeine and alcohol like I was. Especially since caffeine and alcohol are diuretics (they make you pee), this kind of lifestyle can really hurt your kidneys and bladder.
- PEE AFTER SEX. I can't stress this enough. I know, I know... It ruins the moment or whatever. You have to interrupt the cuddle sesh to go pee. But don't worry! You can cuddle after you pee!
- Also, wipe front to back! Please!
One of my favorite hacks for when I feel a UTI coming on is to pop a multi-ingredient supplement, and my favorite one is a D-Mannose and cranberry extract pill from Queen V called UTMI (how cute is that?!) If you want to learn more about it, you can send me an email or shop for it at www.queenvlife.com and use my code “vipellah” to save some money. The product is also sold in most Walmarts!
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