Did you know that females are up to 30--thirty!--times as likely to get a urinary tract infection (UTI) as males are? There’s a whole list of things to love about being a woman, but the increased likelihood of having a UTI isn’t one of them.
Painful symptoms can make UTIs burdensome and inconvenient. So let’s talk about the home remedies and medications that could help you manage UTI symptoms or cure a UTI.
A UTI happens when some portion of your urinary tract gets infected with bacteria. Your bladder is the part of your urinary tract that’s usually infected when you have a UTI. Normally, bladder infections aren’t serious and can be treated easily with prescription medications.
Sometimes your kidney, another part of your urinary tract, can become infected. A kidney infection can be more serious. Even if your UTI starts off as a minor bladder infection, not treating it could cause the infection to spread to your kidneys.
We already know that UTIs affect women more often than men, but any of the following risk factors can increase your risk of getting a UTI even more:
You can’t treat something if you don’t know what it is, so how do you know if you have a UTI?
Some of the most common UTI symptoms are:
Fever and pain in your back may be signs that the infection has reached your kidneys.
To confirm a UTI diagnosis, your doctor may also run a urine test. The results of your test can help confirm whether you have a UTI. While a urine test is one way to know whether you have a UTI, medical evidence also has shown that your doctor can be pretty confident about your diagnosis based on your answers to the questions about symptoms.
We’ve already talked about the most common UTI symptoms, but what can you actually do about them?
Acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Motrin) are OTC pain relievers that could help ease some of the pain and discomfort UTIs can cause. Phenazopyridine is another pain reliever that could help relieve uncomfortable symptoms. Some forms of phenazopyridine are OTC while others require a prescription.
Once you have a UTI, home remedies and OTC medications will not cure a UTI. You will need antibiotics to cure your UTI. Once you start antibiotics, symptoms usually clear up in 2-3 days.
Even though the symptoms should clear up quickly, you should still take all the antibiotics your doctor prescribes for you. If you don’t, the infection could come back even stronger the next time.
For an uncomplicated UTI, these antibiotics are prescribed most often:
Lemonaid’s UTI service makes it quick and convenient for you to get antibiotics to treat your UTI--so convenient that you don’t even have to go to a doctor’s office!
Instead, you can have an online visit with one of our US-based, US-licensed doctors and nurse practitioners (NP) via LemonaidHealth.com
If they determine that you have a UTI, they will prescribe you the antibiotic nitrofurantoin (Macrobid), trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (Bactrim), or cephalexin (Keflex)
You can use Lemonaid's convenient mobile UTI service as long as you are of female birth sex, 18 years or older, and have not reached menopause yet.
