How To Cure A Bladder Infection

Hello I'm Dr. Gemma Newman and I'm a GP and Broadcaster and today I'd like to help you with a few top tips to improve your health. So the symptoms of a bladder infection would be most obviously pain on passing urine other symptoms would include fever, groin pain, going to the loo a lot more often than usual, lower tummy pain, or if you're elderly sometimes confusion is also a symptom of a urine infection.

Now, it's always worth seeking medical attention quickly if you have these symptoms especially if you're a man or if you have child with these symptoms also if you have other symptoms like offensive vaginal discharge or if you're pregnant it's really important to go to your doctor straight away. So, what is the cure for bladder infection? Well the cure is antibiotics which is why I say it's important to go and see your doctor. Now, it's also important to drink lots of fluids if you're dehydrated.

Now, some people think that drinking fluids during a urine infection can be counterproductive because it involves taking a lot more painful trips to the loo. But what I think is that if you are dehydrated you're going to need to get your fluids up so especially to avoid infections it's definitely worth drinking a lot of water. Pain killers can also help if you're getting a lot of pain when you're passing urine.

Now, women tend to get these a lot more than men do because the urethra, the wee tube, leading from the bladder is shorter and is also nearer to the anus. So, if you are a lady and you are getting cystitis type symptoms but it's very early on you might be able to clear those symptoms simply by drinking a lot more water. Other things you can try would be alkalizing agents like cranberry juice or sachets that you can get from your local pharmacies, and if you drink these as well as lots of fluids often you may be able to reduce these symptoms on your own.

However, if you’re pregnant, if you have a fever, or if your symptoms last more than two or three days, or if you’ve got diabetes or generally you have other health problems you must go to your doctor to get some antibiotics. Now, if you're having recurrent problems especially as a lady, other things you might want to look at is trying to make sure that you wipe front to back to reduce any chance of bugs from back passage getting to the front, making sure you go to the loo avoiding your bladder before and straight after sexual intercourse and also making sure that you have plenty of lubrication during sex to avoid any bugs getting into the urethra or the wee tube. Now some people say that regular cranberry juice daily can help to prevent further infections.

But I would say again the important thing to emphasize here is you do have an active bladder infection antibiotics are the way forward and you should see your own doctor. So good luck and really hope that you will feel better soon.