The first time Edith acquired a urinary tract infection, I felt so bad seeing her suffer with it. The way it was handled by the Allopathic (regular) medical doctors was, in my opinion, poor at best. Here is what they do where we live. This is probably the standard protocol most doctors will follow. Edith was my mother, and she had Alzheimer’s disease.
You call the doctor, and they have you come in to charge you for the doctor’s visit. They call the hospital and send you over to the emergency room. This is so they can verify it’s a urinary tract infection and get a urine sample. Then they determine the best antibiotic. It sounds not bad when I say it like that.
First, I’d like to say that mom did pretty good communicating when in a familiar environment like at home. Put her in a strange place like a hospital, and it was a different story. It would be difficult for her to focus and follow what was being said or asked of her.
The people in the hospital didn’t exhibit much patience or compassion in dealing with the situation. They just want to get things done. My cats get treated better at the animal hospital. They need to be trained to interact with Alzheimer’s and Dementia patients. Not at the top of their to-do list, I’m sure. It would have been even worse if I wasn’t there, I’m sure.
This visit was like we were an inconvenience to them. I could see the impatience in their faces. Why? I don’t know because I saw many of them standing around talking this day about everything except what they are there for. I could hear what they were saying. I guess we were cutting into their gossip and me time.
They want a urine sample, so they give us a cup to collect some. At this point, mom can still get a trickle flowing if she has some privacy. But no, every few minutes, someone has to stick their head in and ask if she’s gone yet. Not with all the interruptions. I would have had trouble peeing in that environment without an infection.
Shoot, as I walked up to the Nurse’s station to get my mom some ice to suck on, they started turning away and acting busy. They totally ignored me. I had to speak louder than normal to get any of them to look my way. They just didn’t want to be bothered. But give mom a cup to pee in, and they won’t leave us alone for more than about 3 minutes. Idiots.
So they resort to a catheter and drain her urine to get a sample for testing. If they had had a nicer attitude from the beginning, it would have been easier on mom and me. All the extra craziness makes it harder for a person with Alzheimer’s. At least they drained her, so the urgency and pain were gone. That’s the only plus I saw of the process besides finding out which antibiotic to use.
This involves growing a culture overnight and testing with various antibiotics to determine the most effective. They send the sample to the lab to see what is causing the infection. They then fax the report to the family doctor, who calls us. It’s off to the drugstore to pick up the prescription.
The prescription requires taking food with it and is to be taken at certain times of the day. It’s the end of the third pill-taking day (4th day since the doctor visit) before she starts to improve in the discomfort department. She was able to pass small amounts of urine during the treatment period. I didn’t need to take her back to the hospital to get her drained again.
So this whole process took over four full days from doctor visit until she started to feel better. By the end of the fifth day, she was pretty much back to normal. That really tormented me, but she was lucky in a way. She couldn’t remember what had happened before or how long it had been.
They call this modern medicine. I hope you have a better medical community and experience where you are. I didn’t plan to talk about the hospital staff, but it bothered me as I wrote. Remember, it’s what happens when you’re not there and usually after visiting hours are over. I’m not saying there aren’t good people in the medical community. There are good people.
If you need a doctor go to one. Take control of your own health or the person you aretaking care of and make your own decisions. Do your own research. Ask questions and see if what they say agrees with your research. Listen to your inner voice. I say this not just because of my own experience. I recently read that doctors kill more people each year than the top 2 diseases combined.
If they prescribe medicine, look it up in a PDR Physicians Desk Reference before you even buy it if you can. The drug manufacturer supplies the drug info, but there’s a lot more information than you get with the medicine.
Check official websites if you can. They often have warnings that haven’t made it to print yet. Like these –
Postmarket Drug Safety Information for Patients and Providers
MedWatch: The FDA Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program
Reporting by Consumers – for reporting serious reactions, product quality problems, therapeutic inequivalence/failure, and product use errors with human medical products, such as drugs and medical devices. If you have a problem happen, don’t think your doctor will report it even if the doctor says they will. 99% of the time, they will not, so make sure you report it.
I found there are quite a few urinary tract infection home remedies. They had natural remedies 100 years ago that worked better. The problem is figuring out which ones really work and which ones don’t work. There is a lot of bad info being passed around on natural and home remedies. I mean a waste of time by bad, but some may even cause harm. Check more than one reference when using herbs.
Even the PDR Physicians Desk Reference on herbs has mistakes. There is a PDR dedicated to herbs. I was going to buy a copy, but I looked through it and found many mistakes. I didn’t buy it. They had it at Barnes & Noble. I was looking for the Merck Index when I found it and checked it out.
I call them mistakes, but I wonder if they may be intentional. It still makes me question how reliable their other publications are. It may not surprise you to know there is a major disinformation campaign going on against natural cures. It all comes down to control and the all mighty dollar.
Most of the natural remedy information is from people that don’t know and haven’t done it. They just read it and parrot it and act like an expert, but they’re not. Much of the info for treating simple stuff doesn’t work. What happens when something serious needs treating or even an emergency life or death situation.
Even if you know the correct herbs, you need to know how to give them, the dose, and how long. Many of the herbal books don’t have complete info or are worthless. Same with many of the top magazines dedicated to medicinal herbs, natural and alternative treatments. They sell because people know so little about the topic they can’t see they are junk publications.
I wanted a natural UTI cure because both my parents liked natural remedies, and so did I. I want it to be safe. Each person may react differently to different natural remedies and herbs. A person may have an allergic reaction to a natural remedy or herb. Just like you can with anything else, even food or prescription drugs. I want it to work fast. I want it to work every time.
I found one. Worked for us in 2 hours every time. Better than 4 or 5 days. Leave a comment if you want more information on the UTI home remedy and how I used it.
my mother has alzheimers too so interested in the uti info. I know 2 tblsp.white vinegar in a quarter cup water,or a half cup of pickle juice , drank down followed after by a BIG glass of water works good for the burning for 24 hours .
Hi Cee –
What I was using to eliminate a Urinary Tract Infection is a simple herbal remedy. I was using Dr. Richard Schulze’s K-B Formula available from his site –
https://www.herbdoc.com
1-800-HERB-DOC
1-800-437-2362
If you go to the site you want to click on on the menu Tab “Our Products”. Then on the left side look under the section titled “FOUNDATIONAL” and click on “Kidney”.
You will see 2 products, K-B Formula and K-B Tea. The K-B stands for Kidney-Bladder.
The K-B Formula is a strong tincture. It is what I used to stop the UTI infection. Being a strong concentrate you don’t need to take a lot of liquid with it. If a person can’t urinate because of an infection you can imagine the discomfort drinking a couple cups of tea may cause until it worked. It doesn’t taste bad either.
If the person doesn’t like the taste to the point they don’t want to take it you can use juice instead of water. You could add a very small amount of Organic Maple Syrup.
When I saw there was a problem which might be squirming around on the seat. Making sounds of discomfort, holding the groin area or even noticing that Mom wasn’t peeing. The person may be able to tell you they can’t go and it hurts. People with Alzheimer’s often will not tell you they are uncomfortable so you may need to watch for the signs. Once you see the symptoms the first time it’s easier to recognize the next.
How I used it – What I would do is put 2 dropperfuls (don’t count drops just completely squeeze the bulb and whatever fills the tube is a dropperful)into a small glass with 1-2 ounces of water. I would give that to her immediately. Wait 20 minutes and give another dose and then 20 minutes later a 3rd dose. That’s 3 doses 20 minutes apart.
If it was bad enough that there was discomfort or she couldn’t pee I would have her lay down between doses. That reduces the pressure pushing on the bladder and feels better. About 40-60 minutes after the last dose she would head to the bathroom and everything worked the way it should. No pain and a nice strong stream of urine.
After the urine is following we used 3 doses a day for the next day or two just in case as a follow up. Morning mid day and late evening. Each dose just 2 droppersful in some water. That’s all we did, not much to it.
It worked every time for us using the 3 doses 20 minutes apart method. If it had not I probably would have waited up to 2 hours after the last dose and do the 3 dose routine again. I don’t know if everyone will get the same results but it worked for my Mother, Father and for me to.
I always try everything out on myself. It helps when you know the taste and what the herb does and what that feels like. It gives you an idea of what to expect. Just like you would better understand what a urinary tract infection feels like if you had one yourself in the past.
The tea is similar to the formula except the tea has a few more herbs to help dissolve kidney stones. You could also use the formula to get everything flowing and use the tea for the follow up doses. we tried this and it worked too. The tea is made up of dried herbs and you can just make it to directions and drink it.
To get the most out of the tea they recommend putting the herbs in water and letting them soak, like over night. Soak enough to make a days worth of tea and prepare in the morning. When you soak the herbs like this you get a lot more out of the herbs and a stronger tea.
Also when you go to the site on the Home Page check out the “Education” Tab there’s a lot of good info there. This is one of the areas on the site you can request a free catalog. I recommend getting it and sign up for their online newsletter.
I use the site but when I want something I always call on the phone. Just me but I like to talk to a real person to place an order or request a catalog. I like to find out delivery options or what’s new.
I and my parents had studied and used herbs for years so we had a pretty good understanding. Most of the good info is from older information from decades ago and even a century ago. When people could say and write without worrying about being arrested for telling about a treatment or what was the required dose of specific herb. Sometimes it’s not easy to find out how many capsules to take when all they can put on the bottle is the dietary recommendation and not the medicinal dosing.
If you need to get to a doctor or an emergency room for the UTI just do it. They will cure it even if it takes 4 or 5 days, but don’t do nothing. The faster you take action the better. Especially when it’s for the person you’re taking care of.
The first time Mom had an infection we went to the hospital just in case. The time we had to wait in the waiting room was longer than the time it takes to fix the problem using K-B Formula. 2 hours and part of a $30 bottle of K-B formula at home versus the approved medical protocol and all that goes with it including a huge price tag.