Tips for Using Preventative Antibiotics for Recurrent UTI's

There seems to be a small handful of women around the world who seem to get those very unpleasant things called UTI's or bladder infections. Some women get them every time they have sex, for whatever reason (could be urethral-hymenal fusion, an improperly broken hymen that is causing irritation, etc.). Others get infections every three months. But the point is, they keep coming back. Smart women have tried all the natural methods of prevention, including D-Mannose, apple cider vinegar, cutting out alcohol and caffeine, and for some reason they just keep coming back. And so, for the women who have resorted to using preventative antibiotics (per their doctor's advice and prescription), here are some tips to make sure your method really works and causes as little damage to your body as possible.

Take with lots of water. This serves two purposes in the body when you are trying to prevent problems - for one, the water helps the antibiotic to be properly absorbed and passed into the bladder where it is needed in a urine stream. Two, lots of water is absolutely fundamental to prevent kidney stones that can develop with use of certain antibiotics. Go ahead a pour a tall glass of water right before intercourse, set it next to the bed or in the bathroom waiting for you when you go to empty your bladder after intercourse, and drink it on down. Or, if you prefer to take the antibiotic before intercourse, drink half the glass of water with your pill, and the other half after sex.

Take immediately after or right before sex. The reason for this is that antibiotics lose their strength after a certain amount of time. Even though traces of antibiotic can be found in the body even days after taking a single pill, the strength is almost completely lost. You want the antibiotic to get into your bladder and urine stream right at the same time anything else has the chance of doing so.

Do not take the antibiotic with citrus or vitamin C pills. It is a known fact that Vitamin C can actually interfere with the absorbtion of antibiotic into your stream. Just don't take it at the same time or the same time surrounding when you take the antibiotic. A good thing to do, if you like to take multivitamins or Vitamin C pills on a regular basis, is to take them at a time that you know you will not be engaging in sexual intercourse - say, immediately before you leave to work (or he leaves to work).

And so, it may be that preventative antibiotics are your answer as an informed, smart woman. If so, that's ok - just follow these three tips to make the journey pleasant.