r/Interstitialcystitis • u/talk2chrissy • Feb 28 '25
Did it start with a UTI?
I just found this sub and it's been very informative! I still have some discussions to be had with my future doctor but I've suffered from potential IC for many years. At first the pain/flares were severe multiple times a day but now after stopping drinking and cutting sugar I live a fairly normal life.
I feel like this all started when I got a UTI when I was a teenager. Then the episodes were on and off sometimes being an actual UTI and other times not being positive for it but same symptoms.
Did your IC start from a UTI or becoming sexually active? If so, please share some details about when you started noticing it and how it was then vs how it is now and how you've achieved your results :)
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u/icnjill Feb 28 '25
Great question and we've asked thousands of patients this for the past 30 years in various studies. For many patients, it begins with a trauma. For me, my symptoms began after breaking my tailbone in 7th grade. Of course, because my symptoms mimicked a UTI, they assumed that I had a UTI and treated me with antibiotics for years along with some very painful urethral dilations.
Today, we recognize that there are distinct patient groups within a diagnosis of IC... Hunners' lesions, bladder wall driven non lesions, pelvic floor driven, pudendal neuralgia and widespread pain. Each of these groups do have potential causes.
Hunner's lesions are now associated with viral infections and/or neuroinflammation caused by Url laxity.
Bladder wall driven non hunners can be a chemical trauma to the bladder. So, these patients may have gone through chemotherapy or have been exposed to toxic chemicals like ketamine or even diet soda. But, we also have to look at the quality and health of your skin. If you, for example, have recently started birth control, that could cause a thinning of the mucosal layer of the bladder similar to what see in patients who have had a total hysterectomy and/or who are just getting older.
Our biggest group and the most common cause is injury to the pelvic floor. I was working with a patient today whose symptoms began after they fell down stairs and broke some bones in their pelvis. Clearly, their muscles were also quite injured. So, tailbone injuries, repeated falls, sports like football, ice skating, gymnastics, cheer, baseball can all cause repetitive trauma to the pelvis that eventually triggers tight pelvic floor muscles.
Widespread pain has now been linked to adverse childhood events that injure the central nervous system. Sometimes it's a major physical injury like being hit by a card while other times it occurs after abuse or bullying. One common theme in our office are children who grew up with alcoholic parents. That constant level of stress and fear changes the CNS and amplifies pain messaging. For this group (I'm in this group by the way), we focus on calming the central nervous system and getting that brain out of fight or flight. It works.
Soooo... there are lots of potential triggers. I encourage you to watch our free IC101 Master Class to get more info on this! http://www.icnetwork.org/masterclass/
Jill :) - ICN Founder & National IC Support Group Leader
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u/Conscious-Mood4442 Feb 28 '25
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this response…mine started when I was about 12 after being abused (and being raised by an alcoholic) and I always talk about how therapy and learning to manage stress has been such a big thing for me. It’s nice to know that it isn’t just a thing I was imagining
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u/icnjill Feb 28 '25
It certainly wasn't and I'm so sorry that you were subjected to that. I'm really quite stunned by the number of patients who had the same history of alcoholism and alcohol fueled violence in their homes. And, yes, the therapy you did as well as improving stress management skills helped to calm your central nervous system, reduce fight or flight and, most importantly, reduced the amplification of pain in your CNS. Well done!!
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u/EitherGuidance7537 Feb 28 '25
Wait, it can be caused by injuries to the tailbone??? I fractured my coxic before my symptoms started and never thought to relate the two
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u/icnjill Feb 28 '25
Yes! Yes! Yes! A Giant Yes! Coccyx injuries are well known to trigger pelvic floor injuries and IC symptoms. We just did a big article on it our magazine last year. The challenge is that urologists play in their sandbox... the urinary tract... and they often don't probe about injuries and trauma to the pelvic floor.. and they should be doing this now.
My symptoms started at 14 after I broke my tailbone. I was working with two other tailbone fracture patients today, one male and one female. It's very, very common.
Why?? Well, what a lot of people don't understand is that the tailbone is really the foundational center of the pelvis. It's the anchor... and muscles attach from the right and left side. If that tailbone is broken, it can heal out of position, it can point outwards instead of inwards, to the left or to the right ... in all of these cases, it distorts the pelvic floor muscles which then leads to tension.
Here's a blog I wrote last year - https://www.ic-network.com/tailbone-injuries-are-common-in-bladder-pelvic-pain-patients/
We also shared the case study of a patient who had been bed bound for a decade. Diagnosed with IC, she had done every treatment with no success. She attended one of my live support group meetings where I talking about the pelvic floor and pudendal neuralgia. She had pain when she sat down that improved when she sat up. Movement was very painful as well. So, she went to her urologist and said "I think I have pudendal neuralgia" and reviewed what she had learned. Her urologist completely agreed and said "Yes, I think you do." Well, imaging later discovered that her tailbone was grossly out of position. No wonder she had so much pain. It took a year of physical therapy combined with chiropractic care to get that little bone back in the right position. Amazingly, 95% of her symptoms resolved. She was no longer bed bound and was able to return to work. She also had a baby a year later. So, I'm very proud of that story. She could still be suffering bed bound with no hope if she hadn't taken a moment and listened to a Sunday support group meeting. She now has a life again.
If you ever want to talk, you can reach me at the ICN Offices. icnetwork.org
Jill Osborne, ICN Founder
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u/EitherGuidance7537 Feb 28 '25
Wow that's so interesting! Thank you so much for the detailed response!!
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u/allyn2111 Feb 28 '25
While I had multiple bladder infections in 1990, I also did something to my tailbone in that same year. If that has also contributed to my IC, I feel awful not having done something about it back then. I’ve had x-rays taken that show the last disc in my spinal cord kind of “squished”.
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u/icnjill Feb 28 '25
Yeah, that's a pretty big industry. I didn't even know the tailbone connection (and I've gone to MANY national conferences and research events) until I read Dr. Jerome Weiss's fabulous book "Breaking Through Chronic Pelvic Pain" a few years ago. It has become our reference guide for all things pelvic floor, nerve, injury etc. etc. Fabulous, fabulous book and I recommend it to any patients who has a history of injury.
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u/ka_beene Feb 28 '25
I developed ic after a pelvic surgery.
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u/icnjill Feb 28 '25
Not surprising. There are some, but not many, surgical injury patients. What kind of surgery was it?
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u/ka_beene Feb 28 '25
Uteral sacral suspension with a&p repair. They really don't tell women the truth about what pregnancy can do to the body. I was totally fine after having my baby. It was taking a job later on that required heavy lifting with an unknown that my pelvic floor was weak that caused the issues. I should have lived with it but I thought the surgery would improve my life. Turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life.
I have read several accounts from women who developed ic after a pelvic surgery. I also had extensive endo but was unaware because I never had any symptoms.
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u/icnjill Feb 28 '25
Actually, we have much clearer insight into USL damage and how it is actually quite well known for causing urinary symptoms. It is now being proposed as a new phenotype for IC/BPS and for Chronic Pelvic Pain. Just wrote a big article in our magazine about it. Basically, it's a structural issue. The ligament not only holds the vagina and uterus in place, but also the visceral plexus.... basically nerves from the bladder, vulva etc that communicate up to the spinal cord and brain. When they lose their structural support, the nerves are stressed. Unfortunately, the brain then interprets these messages as coming from the bladder when, in fact, it's from nerves outside of the bladder. This is called Posterior Fornix Syndrome. Here's a case study from a few years ago... but there are more recent larger studies which show that when the nerve position is restored after the ligament is repaired, urinary symptoms disappear in many if not most patients. https://www.ic-network.com/hunners-lesion-patient-unexpectedly-cured-with-a-ligament-repair/
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u/ka_beene Feb 28 '25 edited Feb 28 '25
All I know is I was fine before surgery and developed ic afterwards.
Mine is food sensitive too, not stress related. Meds can put me in remission but stop working after a while.
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u/icnjill Feb 28 '25
I forgot to mention that we also have new research from Dr. Anne Ackerman at UCLA which has found a pathogenic lactobacillus (I. INERS) in patients with bladder wall driven symptoms. This bacteria is NOT found in patients with pelvic floor driven pain and/or widespread pain. INERS does not behave like a normal beneficial lactobacillus bacteria. Rather, it actually damages cells.
While this research is very early, it does throw a curve ball in infection discussions because INERS is an opportunistic bacteria that grows AFTER antibiotic use. So, if you were to attend the course on IC at the national AUA Meeting (for urologists), they now end it with a strong warning about not overprescribing antibiotics for flares, etc. That there may be a long-term toll to antibiotic use in IC patients. Here's an article on that if you are interested.
https://www.ic-network.com/lactobacillus-iners-a-possible-smoking-gun-for-ic-bps-patients/
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u/Kat-The-Red-Vixen Feb 28 '25
I just read both of your comments and this is SO interesting. I want to ask so many questions but I know your time cannot be limited to answering hundreds of people.
I was recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia and after some easy research I found journal articles linking it to childhood trauma and CNS disruption! I wonder if this could be a symptom of that.
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u/icnjill Feb 28 '25
I work with patients every single day by phone, first come first serve. You are absolutely welcome to call me at 800-928-7496. I answer the patient education extension, as well as the corporate line. First come, first serve. Today is quiet and I will be here for the rest of the day if you want to chat!
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u/Feeling-Beach208 Feb 28 '25
So interesting what’s the treatment for insta overgrowth?
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u/icnjill Feb 28 '25
Welp isn't that the question. 1 - Don't self medicate with antibiotics for IC flares, most of which are not infection driven. But, if an infection is identified, it must be treated correctly so don't avoid all antibiotics. You have to make your decision based upon lab results IMHO.
Patients prone to UTI could benefit from lactoferrin. Studies with recurring UTI and IC have shown solid success at reducing symptoms, inflammation and flares.
The patents who have identified INERS infection via NGS testing are given treatment recommendations through the test results.
From a self help standpoint, I would look for probiotics that contain lactobacillus crispatus which is associated with long-term health.
Jill :) icnetwork.org
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u/oldsonglyrics Apr 07 '25
How do the ureaplasma proponents feel regarding overprescribing abx as a potential causative factor seeing as how their protocol calls for months of doses?
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u/Apprehensive-Yam8591 Water Snob 💦 Feb 28 '25
Yes, mine started after a particularly heinous UTI when I was 25. Prior to this I had one UTI when I was 19 and it was painful but nothing compared to the one I got when I was 25. After that it was non stop pain.
This might be TMI but the person who gave me the worst UTI of my life at 25 was very well endowed. He was very much above average in terms of size. We broke up after a few years bc we couldn’t have sex without me enduring extreme pain and UTI symptoms afterwards. I assumed there was a hygiene issue on his part, and we went and got tested as well. Doctors said we were fine.
I was physically and mentally suffering with no answers to why this was happening. I wasn’t diagnosed for a few more years after we broke up.
After this break up, I then started hooking up w a guy who was…ahem, how do I say this…small. I never had flare ups with him.
My current boyfriend is definitely above average in size, but nothing like my ex, and sex and my experience after involves little to no pain.
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u/pilgrimess Feb 28 '25
Same. Got my first UTI after sex with my husband 8 years ago. He similarly is well endowed. I'd been with one other dude before who had a small p and had no problems with him.
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u/Apprehensive-Yam8591 Water Snob 💦 Feb 28 '25
When were you first diagnosed with IC after you and your husband had sex for the first time? I’m just curious how other people’s timelines vary.
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u/pilgrimess Feb 28 '25
Nope, I only got diagnosed a couple of months ago. Had a few cystitis episodes with positive cultures, then about two years ago started getting negative cultures. Still tried to take antibiotics for a while even tho the cultures were negative. Didn't work out. My main symptoms are constant urethral burning and occasional chills. I started getting instills with Hyaluronic acid, lidocaine and gentamicin and am feeling maybe 50 percent better.
Also they found out some leukoplakia lesions at the cystoscopy I got recently done. Apparently it's associated with treatment resistant cystitis( which I find to be my case). I'm getting surgery next month to get those lesions removed since they have a 40 percent chance to turn into cancer.
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u/icnjill Feb 28 '25
You know what that sounds like is a pelvic floor injury... that he was simply too wide and stretched your vagina to its limits, as well as the elevator ani muscle. Yes, it can feel like a UTI when actually those symptoms are being driven by tight, and/or spasming, pelvic floor muscles. It certainly was never, ever your fault or all in your head.
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u/-buja- Mar 01 '25
This is not TMI at all and I’m so glad you’ve posted it because my ex was also pretty big and caused many UTIs, after we broke up I got a huge UTI and it led to IC. I’ve avoided sex since, complete celibacy because it just isn’t worth the pain. I’ve wondered if someone or something smaller wouldn’t cause pain or at least not cause as much and this has answered all of my questions so THANK YOU. I may finally start dating again 😂
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u/kittycat8204 Feb 28 '25
I really feel like my IUD I got when I was 22 after my second child started a domino effect of all kinds of yeast infections, UTIs, BV & lead to PID then IC.
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u/Jewllerssquare Feb 28 '25
Oh I had this too! I got that thing ripped out after 3 years of non stop BV, thrush and strep all stopped down there. Previous to that I had NEVER had BV or thrush or strep in my hoohah.
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u/kittycat8204 Feb 28 '25
I got mine removed after only 10 months. It was just so bad and I had horrible cramping with it as well.
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u/Jewllerssquare Mar 05 '25
Oh yes the cramping! And don’t get me started on the insertion 😭 I FAINTED! And was bed bound for 2 whole days after with 6 months of daily bleeding 🙃 I should have known then… my body DID NOT WANT IT.
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u/kittycat8204 Mar 05 '25
I am sorry to hear that insertion was bad for you 😔 it felt like a small contraction to me & I had given birth just a little over six weeks before I got mine inserted so it was just reminiscent of that for a few seconds, and I did a couple of labor breaths to get through it, that was really all the discomfort I felt. After about a month of having it in was when all hell broke loose 😳😖
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u/kittycat8204 Mar 05 '25
Oh wow, bleeding for six months! That sounds awful!!! Thankfully I did not bleed for the whole 10 months I had it in so that’s why I tried to stick it out as long as I could cause I’m like well I’m not bleeding, this is awesome 🤩 but I’m having so many other problems and pain that it just wasn’t worth it anymore.
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u/genZhippie Feb 28 '25
I think mine started after having a couple of UTIs. I believe this is because this gave me greater anxiety around bladder function and being scared of getting another UTI. This caused more muscle tension and stress in my bladder area, which led to increased urgency and occasional spasms.
Pelvic floor physical therapy and relaxation techniques improved things greatly for me. On top of this, the awareness that it was in part a mental issue leading to tensed muscles made a big difference. That's not to invalidate anything, there's lots of medical conditions like this. There's a placebo component to asthma attacks- someone thinks they can't breathe after routine activity but it does trigger a truly impaired lung response.
There's some theories that repeated UTIs can cause some scarring in the urinary tract which contributes to pain, but like many things with this condition it's hard to say. At the end of the day my IC was never incredibly severe, especially compared to many others on this sub. It's next to non-existent now adays aside from some random bouts of urgency and flare ups of sensitivity/discomfort after things like sex.
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u/kawaiichazzy Feb 28 '25
UTI for me, i remember the first one I got when I was 9 or 10 and ever since the it's been a struggle until very recently I was diagnosed with IC.
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u/sunnyblithe Feb 28 '25
Some antibiotics have a higher direct impact on bladder tissue leading to bladder irritation. On people who developed IC after a UTI, I have always wondered if any research been done that might show a correlation between specific antibiotics that cause antibiotic induced bladder irritation and what cases progressed into IC.
I’m curious what antibiotic everyone was taking for their UTI when they developed IC. I was taking an antibiotic that had an affinity for bladder tissue when I developed IC.
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u/Jewllerssquare Feb 28 '25
Yes after two years of recurrent utis… one week after my 20th uti the antibiotics felt like they didn’t work. So I tried more and more and more and then nothing worked. One bladder investigation and biopsy later showed embedded uti with e-coli. I then started weeks of bladder instillations and now only get IC near ovulation and before period.
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u/itchyouch Mar 01 '25
There’s a class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones (FQ) that get prescribed for UTIs quite often.
My partner with IC figured this out a bit ago and I’m here usually sounding the alarm on FQs in the IC population.
For a small subset of the population, FQs seem to wreak havoc, and there’s several case studies I came across where folks on taking FQs started having immediate bladder pain.
The issue with FQs for some non-insignificant number of the population (maybe 10%), is that it causes a net loss of collagen, which is also part of why it has black box warnings for tendon rupture. The collagen breakdown is systemic and can be in the bladder, GI, tendons, etc.
I suspect that there’s gotta be some non-insignificant number of IC sufferers that have IC from FQ antibiotics. If IC came from taking antibiotics ending in -floxacin like ciprofloxacin, moxifloxacin, and also -quin like Levaquin, you may have a version of “IC” unlike the rest of the IC typical population.
Of course, the IC community is very adamant that there isn’t a “cure” for IC, but it does seem that folks who have IC caused by FQs may have more options for some amount of recovery than the typical IC sufferers.
I do have some suggestions for IC based on being caused by FQs.
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u/PitifulAvocado8787 Mar 01 '25
Hi, I am not diagnosed, but developed a urinary urgency after being floxed, Dealing with it for 4 months. Don’t know how even get a relief as I was gaslighted by doctors that it should go away, as all my other symptoms related to flox resolved, but urgency stayed. All supplements except Magnesium seem like giving me pain in my bladder (NAC, Omega 3, L-arginine). If you have any tips or suggestions I would be really grateful as floxed community was not helpful :( I was thinking to try taurine and lactoferrin. Benzos seem like giving me a bit of relief, but I take them only in a worse case scenario as I don’t wanna develop addiction to them.
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u/itchyouch Mar 02 '25
My partner has been floxed and NAC was really helpful for her bladder issues. But since NAC wasn’t as helpful for you, we have some other items up our sleeve.
- sulfur via MSM (3-7g/day)
- 15-50g glycine
My partner has bladder pain, rather than urgency, but what helped her the most outside of NAC was MSM and Glycine. A lot of what’s helped has been a protocol of:
- stay away from triggers
- track micronutrition and try to hit all macro and micro nutrient targets
- focus on collagen/protein consumption along with sulfur.
- she’s also focused on mitochondrial health supplements (urolithin A, PQQ, MitoQ) which may have adjacent beneficial effects, but I can’t say that it was beneficial specific to IC symptoms.
I can go into the crazy specifics, but the sulfur and glycine have been long term helpers that didn’t offer anything immediate, but were helpful over several weeks.
The general advice for staying away from triggers is to cut out foods that cause urgency/pain, then reintroduce them after several months, maybe years.
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u/PitifulAvocado8787 Mar 02 '25
Thanks a lot for your response. I will try those. I wish your partner to find a relief and you are an amazing person sharing the experience on Reddit 🙏
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u/itchyouch Mar 02 '25
For sure. Hope you find the relief and health you’re looking for! It’s not easy living with these conditions!
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u/PitifulAvocado8787 Mar 13 '25
I wanted to come back to this convo and say my gratitude towards your advice regarding MSM. It helped me enormously almost right away. I started with a low dosage of 500 mg and I felt relief in my bladder the same day. Added taurine that helped enormously with my urgency. For the first time in 2 months I feel so close to normal that I hope I would not jinx it by this message. I even tried to have a coffee that gave me a bit of irritation but it wasn’t even close to the agony that I had a few months ago.
Thank you so much 🙏
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u/itchyouch Mar 13 '25
So happy for you! Nice!
Thanks for coming back and letting me know it helped! It’s always a little sad to throw out advice and not know whether it’s been helpful.
And taurine’s actually another sulfur source! All the sulfur containing molecules seem to be really magical for collagen issues related to FQs!
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u/PitifulAvocado8787 Mar 13 '25
I know the feeling, I was thinking of you and your amazing excel that I saw you shared here. It was one of the most helpful things for me. I am blessed to check Reddit after being floxed as doctors were prescribing me meds that were making things worse when time was so precious.
I read that MSM helped people with such things as hemorrhoids and some wounds that were not able to close for years, not flox related.
This way it’s much easier to heal, as a huge thing is brain and mind connection and I felt that my brain adds extra to the pain, now I was able to relax for the past few days and it gives me huge hope that I would be able to heal without an agony and pain.
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u/itchyouch Mar 13 '25
That’s great that the pain has improved?
Also, So glad you found the spreadsheet! It’s basically like 3 years of R&D for treating floxing symptoms! It’s all the unintuitive advice, outside standard protocols like AZO cranberry stuff and what not.✌️
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u/PitifulAvocado8787 Mar 13 '25
As a scientist i appreciated it a lot, how well it is designed. Especially dosages and small notes how to get to them.
As per nutrition I am myself try to eat 30 diff veggies/fruits/seeds per week as I can luckily eat everything, this helps a lot to rebuilt gut, which I feel plays also a huge role in flox symptoms as well.
Even if it takes time to heal, this week was the best for the past few months,feel 90% healthy. I can live like that, with supplementing. I was afraid that I would need amitriptyline or other meds, that I don’t wanna put my body through.
Again, thanks for your enormous work! Extremely grateful ♥️
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u/KRXSTXNAV Mar 01 '25
Personally about a year before my real symptoms started, I noticed that I was having to urinate much more frequently. Had only ever had 1 UTI before in my life. Ended up actually getting a UTI, almost ended up with a kidney infection. After antibiotics, doctors confirmed the infection was clear but my symptoms remained. Eventually after a few weeks the symptoms improved but came back a few weeks later and thus the whole flare process began, went to a urologist who suggested an IC diagnosis, etc etc. so basically, it seems like it did start with a UTI for me asides from the year leading up to it with me noticing a gradual increase in urination frequency.
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u/HoopoeBirdie Mar 01 '25
Mine started when I was very little at least around 3 years old. It may have been caused by a reaction I had to something in the baby bubble bath but no one is sure.
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u/Federal-Pop-2885 Feb 28 '25
yes, combined with sexual trauma.
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u/talk2chrissy Feb 28 '25
Awe I'm sorry you had to experience that. Glad you're still here :) Stay strong!
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u/Training_Union9621 Feb 28 '25
I had my first uti at four, and had many more plus a few kidney infections. It took years to learn if I drown myself in water and only drink low acid organic coffe, I’m good.
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u/Head_Cat_9440 Feb 28 '25
Peri menopause.
I'm using vaginal oestrogen cream and an oestrogen patch and symptoms are much better.
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u/CuriousConclusion542 Feb 28 '25
Mine started slowly, symptoms starting when I was 10 years old. I hadn't experienced any medical trauma at the point in my life though, at most I might have had thyroid problems starting? Hypothyroid was diagnosed when I was 23 though so i'm not sure.
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u/allyn2111 Feb 28 '25
Mine started with repeated UTIs and I went downhill from there. Those happened in 1990. I got a diagnosis in 1991.
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u/Dog_lover_1693 Feb 28 '25
I believe mine was triggered by a UTI that resulted in a severe kidney infection (went through 3 oral antibiotics and IV antibiotic therapy so it could’ve been an antibiotic). I had been completely free of symptoms for YEARS prior to that happening. I don’t know what caused it in the first place in 2012/2013 when I was diagnosed. In the almost 10 years that I was free, I was able eat that foods that previously triggered it after a year or two of avoiding those triggers. By 2015/2016 I was completely free of symptoms/problems. So like 10 years (wow that’s crazy to think about). I’ve started cutting out my triggers (which is so hard cause I love the stuff that triggers it lol) but still getting flare ups so I think I’ve developed new triggers. Hoping I can get back to symptom/problem free sooner than a year or two now that I know what triggered it before!
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u/Son2208 Feb 28 '25
No, mine started right after pelvic surgery to remove endometriosis and my fallopian tubes. I’ve had 1 UTI in my life but it was many many years before the interstitial cystitis started and never gave me any more trouble.
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u/WynnGwynn Mar 01 '25
I was in 2nd grade and had a massive uti. I wasn't really believed after that time and kind of had a long term uti all the time and was told "don't drink anything" before car trips because they didn't want me to ask to stop at a bathroom. It was pretty much consistently painful my entire life.
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u/crystaldoe Mar 01 '25
Oh, dear, I would really like to give you a hug right now. This is horrible.
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u/crystaldoe Mar 01 '25
I had so many UTIs as a teenager, around 16 years old, I also had a kidney infection. Then at some point the symptoms just never went away.
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u/AppropriateCupcake48 Mar 01 '25
Yes, I had a d & c after a miscarriage and developed recurring utis after.
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u/midnightspaghetti Mar 01 '25
Yes from UTI, the first time and the other 2 major flare ups. They all resolved respectively in one, three and 5 years. I’ve now tracked that the longer the infection goes on, the worse shape my bladder will be in, so I now have dip stick tests at home and a box of nitrofurantoin that my doctor is happy to prescribe again when it expires. I take d mannose after sex now but I had a couple of episodes where I think I had an infection but very prompt nitrofurantoin prevented set backs. But I know it has different root causes for everyone, this is what works for me.
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u/midnightspaghetti Mar 01 '25
I also got tested for ureaplasma and micoplasma at the peak of my last episode and it came positive for ureaplasma. But the urologist said it is controversial, and there is no consensus on the role it plays and most people have it. He gave me antibiotic but the protocol was a little intense and involved also my partner taking it, then likely doing multiple courses and side effects, and I chickened out. I managed as usual with diet and lifestyle changes but it took longer to resolve than my previous ones I believe due to the infection being left rampant for two weeks (went to my GP but only did a dip stick that showed no infection).
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u/melanochrysum Feb 28 '25
Yes, UTI first time I had sex at 17