Stop Agonizing Bladder Pain – A Natural View

by Drena Y. Williams, N.D. - Your Naturopathic Doctor

Herbal Support, Capitol Heights, MD

Do you feel like you need to pee every few minutes?  Are you the one who always has to stop your activity to go to pee?  Do you feel like you have to pee a lot, but very little comes out?  Does it hurt or burn when you try to pee?  Do you experience pain just above your pubic bone?  Do you have to get up more than once from your sleep to go to pee? 

If your answer to any of these questions is yes, you are not alone.  These symptoms are so common that most people get at least one of them at some point in their lives. According to NIH Publication No. 88-2097, each year, patients with symptoms of a urinary tract infection account for 5 million visits to a doctor's office. 

There are many medically defined causes for your symptoms, but when you continue to have this problem over and over again, maybe it’s time to think about what you may be doing within your lifestyle to cause the problem.  Could it be Hygiene or Foods?

Hygiene:  Some believe that bacteria, such as E. coli, which travel from the colon to the urethra and bladder (and sometimes the kidneys), cause these symptoms.  Therefore, when they start to get any of those symptoms, they quickly try to improve their hygienic habits, which were probably already good.  In many cases, external cleanliness just does not seem to be the problem; but if a woman does not 1) always wipe from front to back after a bowel movement to keep bowel bacteria away from her urethra and 2) practice good external cleaning including before and after sex, she could cause recurring symptoms for herself. 

Foods:  Excessive amounts of fats will suppress the immune system.  With too much dietary fat, it’s possible that 1) your white blood cells will be too sticky to quickly do their job and 2) you may get a build-up of excess fatty deposits in the kidney tubules which might cause an unnecessary backup of urine.  Both situations could cause an over growth of bacteria.

The Sugar Association says that “A teaspoon of sugar has 15 calories and 4 grams of carbohydrates.”  When healthy volunteers ingested a large amount (100 grams or 25 teaspoons) of refined sugar, the ability of their white blood cells to destroy bacteria was impaired for at least five hours.  Therefore, ingestion of excessive amounts of sugar has the ability to suppress the immune system.   

For these reasons, we should eliminate our intake of fat, and sugar (including alcohol) for at least 3 days during an acute symptom just to let your white blood cells get their power back.  Afterwards, we should reduce our intake for prevention of recurrences.

           One way to reduce our intake of sugar is to look at what you are drinking on a regular basis.  The average 12-ounce can of soda contains 11 teaspoons of refined sugar or 44 grams.  If you drink something sweet with each meal, whether it is juice, coffee, tea, soda, milkshake, you probably take in over 100 grams per day.  When you combine your drinks with the intake of breakfast cereals, ice creams, cakes, and candies, your intake could be over 200 grams per day.  This is serious for many reasons since it could make your blood sugar levels dangerously high.

           Drinking plenty of water every day is very important in helping to speed the relief of most of these symptoms. Since we are all different sizes, an appropriate amount of water for most of us to drink would be one half of our body weight in ounces up to 1 gallon (128 ozs.)  Ex.  If you weight 230 lbs., your daily goal for water intake would be 115 ounces.  As you loose weight, your requirement for water will decrease. 

           Drinking unsweetened cranberry juice is helpful since cranberries, in large amounts, inhibits the growth of some bacteria by acidifying the urine. Many people have decided to drink fruit drinks instead of sodas.  You must be careful since most fruit drinks are well over 50% refined sugar, with only a very small percentage being real juice. Some examples would be FIVE ALIVE, containing 58% refined sugar, while HAWAIIAN PUNCH contains a whopping 95% refined sugar. Some other well known brands include: OCEAN SPRAY CRANBERRY JUICE COCKTAIL at 77% refined sugar water; and HI-C and WELCH'S GRAPE DRINK each containing 90% refined sugar water.  Fruit juices are better to drink than fruit drinks.  Therefore, we should drink 100% fruit juices, but because of the high sugar content in the fruit, we need to be fully aware of how much we are drinking by checking the label for guidance.

            There are many natural products available to help relieve the symptoms and help prevent them if your symptoms have been recurring.  Among the single herbs that have been very helpful are Cranberry, Uva Ursi, Asparagus, Horsetail, Marshmallow, and Slippery Elm.  Consult with the Natural Health Professional on your health care team for a natural supplement program that would be unique to your needs.

Untreated symptoms can lead to serious infections of the kidneys, so when a symptom of pain or discomfort does not respond to self-help treatment within twenty-four hours, or recurs frequently, see a health care provider.

To resolve other painful situations naturally, contact Dr. Drena Williams, 301-420-5959