Why does it keep coming back? Root causes of recurrent UTIs
UTIs are extremely common with half of all women getting at least one infection in their lifetime. And 20% to 30% of women will experience recurrent UTIs. It’s a real epidemic that has plagued womenfolk for decades. So, why are we experiencing recurrent and chronic UTIs at such high level?
Blame the bacteria, kind of
You’ve probably heard of E. coli bacteria, the most common organism associated with UTIs. E. coli is present in faeces and it can quite easily travel to the urethra or bladder causing an infection. This is why from an early age we’ve been taught to “wipe front to back!” and to pee before and after having sex to flush out any pesky bacteria trying to make their way to your bladder.
Other bugs with fancy Latin names that can make you ill are Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus mirabilis, Enterococcus faecalis and Staphylococcus saprophyticus. Your doctor might run a urine culture test to determine which one is causing your infection.
Anthony William (also known as Medical Medium) talks about Streptococcus being the cause of many UTIs, saying it can bury itself in the bladder lining. Personally I think it’s possible that a systematic, chronic strep infection could also cause recurrent UTIs. It’s food for thought.
But why you?
You might have noticed that not everyone will catch every cold and flu, even when others around them are sick. This became very obvious during covid when it seemed almost random how some of us got sick multiple times and others were never sick, despite our environments and lifestyles being very similar.
So, why are YOU getting recurrent or even chronic UTIs, when other women aren’t? What is it about you that makes you susceptible to these infections?
When I studied homeopathy, we had lectures on susceptibility. This concept is nothing new. It means the level of reaction in your body to external and internal stimuli. If you are susceptible to something, it means you have a higher sensitivity to that thing (food, illness, emotions etc). Susceptibility is likely a combination of what we’ve inherited from our parents and grandparents and the impact of our environment, in childhood and in adulthood also.
If you are reading this article, then perhaps repeated UTIs is your burden in life. And it’s a heavy one. I carried the pain and frustration of recurrent UTIs for years, until I healed, and I hope I’ll never return to that place. So, you have my sympathies.
Your body is trying its best but it can only cope with so much
Ultimately it’s your immune system’s job to keep all the bugs and germs from causing havoc in your body. And it does a pretty good job overall, but it’s not perfect. Mostly because we live in a world that isn’t very health-promoting with all kinds of chemicals, toxins, stress, and demands thrown at us on a daily basis. Your body is always trying to keep you healthy and works exceptionally hard to maintain equilibrium, but it has limits.
In addition to the physical causes such as bacteria and toxins, emotional and mental causes can absolutely contribute to your illness and wellness. Lovely Louise Hay, in her book You Can Heal Your Life, assigned UTIs to “anxiety, holding onto old ideas, fear of letting go and feeling pissed off”. Can you relate to any of these?
In homeopathy, we also take the mental and emotional state of our patients into consideration, because we cannot separate the different levels of health (physical, emotional, mental). What was going on in your life when you developed the UTI? Did something happen that made you feel upset, angry, shocked, fearful?
It’s rare to fall ill when you’re thriving and feeling on top of the world. Sometimes when we encounter a particularly stressful or painful moment in life it causes our immune system to “drop” making us more susceptible to illness.
There is no simple explanation but there is hope
There isn’t a simple answer to why you specifically are susceptible to recurrent UTIs, because you are a complex and unique human being like the rest of us.
The beauty of homeopathic treatment is that it will take your uniqueness into consideration. Let’s say, we have two women both experiencing UTI symptoms – urging to pee frequently and burning pain in the bladder. Likely, they will need two different remedies.
Person one: An UTI came on very suddenly, after being exposed to cold, windy weather outside and she’s finding it difficult to pee, it comes out drop by drop. In this scenario, I would try Aconite as the most appropriate remedy.
Person two: An UTI developed after sexual intercourse and it burns a lot when not peeing. And they have a constant urge to urinate. I would try Staphisagria in this scenario.
This is the individualisation process of homeopathic treatment. We look beyond the most obvious symptoms and try to find the uniqueness of your illness, to select the best remedy for you. Medical treatment of a simple UTI doesn’t really care about what the trigger was or how your symptoms are unique compared to the next person as the standard option is to prescribe antibiotics.
With continued homeopathic treatment, you can often change your susceptibility to an illness. This is what happened to me, it took about 6 months but I continued to use the remedies for each acute UTI and eventually, I stopped getting them all together. Homeopathy fixed the “weak link” in my body.
Next time you experience a UTI, why not try homeopathy? I made a list of 7 most common remedies that you can easily use at home to treat the infection naturally.
Did this article bring up questions for you? I’m Saila, a homeopath on a mission to help women heal and I’d love to hear from you and your thoughts on the possible causes of UTIs in women. Send me a message via the Contact page and I’ll get back to you.
