A urinary tract infection (UTI) is among the more common types of infection, especially for women. As many as 50% of women could end up with a UTI during their lives, and for many women, it happens multiple times.
While UTIs aren’t as common for men because of differences between the sexes, they can still occur. Since the urethra in women is close to the anus, it’s easier for bacteria from the anus to reach the urethra and then go to the bladder. Women also have a shorter urethra than men, so bacteria don’t need to travel as far.
A UTI causes inflammation in the urinary tract and can affect any area, although most end up with lower urinary tract infections. Typical UTI symptoms include frequent urination and burning during urination, which can be painful. Symptoms are worse with more severe infections.
For upper UTIs, you could experience a backache. This is also a common symptom if your infection spreads to your kidneys, which may also cause nausea and even vomit. The standard treatment for a UTI is antibiotics, but these have their drawbacks.
You could experience side effects from the medication, and with antibiotics, there’s the risk that the bacteria adapts and becomes resistant to the drug. This is more of an issue with UTIs than with other infections because they often recur. You may want to start with some home remedies for UTI before you go the antibiotics route.
Fortunately, this is one type of infection where home remedies are often effective. If you need to know how to get rid of a UTI, here are some options you can try at home without a visit to the doctor.
Stay Hydrated
Sometimes the simplest solutions are best, and this is one remedy that you can start right away without getting any supplies. Your immune system is at its best when your body is hydrated, and for any type of sickness or infection, doctors will advise you to drink plenty of water.
One reason to drink water for a UTI is that it causes you to urinate more frequently. Every time you urinate, your body flushes out toxins and bacteria, including many of the bacteria that are causing the UTI in the first place. The pH level in your urine plays a role in how well it rids your body of infections. You get the best results when your urine’s pH level is close to the pH level of water.
Obviously, you can alter your urine’s pH levels by drinking more water. How much water should you drink? There is no ideal amount but aim for at least 3 liters to 1 gallon per day. At a gallon every day, your body will stay hydrated, and you’ll flush out more bacteria. You’ll notice your urine is clearer when you’re getting enough water. Don’t overdo it with drinks that dehydrate you, either, such as coffee and alcoholic beverages.
Urinate Often
If you follow the first tip, this shouldn’t be difficult, but it’s important that you don’t hold it when you feel the urge to urinate. When you do this, you’re keeping the bacteria in your bladder there longer, and this allows them to multiply. They can also enter the lining of your bladder.
Bacteria are even able to create biofilms that are resistant to antibiotics, with sufficient time. There’s no benefit to holding in your urine, but there are many potential drawbacks. Holding in your urine also makes it easier for your infection to enter your kidneys. The kidney and bladder have flap valves that keep urine from going back into the kidney after entering the bladder. You can damage these valves by holding in your urine, and once those valves are damaged, the UTI can travel into your kidneys.
Urinating often isn’t pleasant, especially when you have a UTI. It could burn every time, and you may not urinate that much. You need to do it anyway. Increase your water intake if you don’t have much urine output, and use treatments to alleviate your pain if it becomes difficult to handle.
Drink Pure Cranberry Juice
For many years, cranberry juice was the drink of choice when it came to how to get rid of a UTI. While the evidence regarding cranberry juice’s effectiveness has been inconclusive, the drink may help. One reason for this is that cranberry juice contains molecules known as aromatics. These molecules fight the bacteria that cause UTIs.
If you decide to drink cranberry juice, make sure it’s pure and not one of the many loaded with sugars and chemicals. Despite the benefits of cranberry juice, it does have drawbacks, as there’s the potential for irritation in the bladder and intestines. It can also increase the acidity of your urine.
The simplest way to avoid issues is only to drink cranberry juice in moderate amounts. You may also want to water your cranberry juice down so you’re still getting plenty of water and keeping the acidity levels of your urine in check.
Drink Coriander Tea
A belief in the Indian traditions is that some foods are able to cure diseases. It’s typically the herbs with phytochemicals that are most effective at this, which is why people use whole dried coriander seeds to make tea. The tea helps cool your body, bringing it into balance to heal.
Making coriander tea is easy, and all you need are coriander seeds. Crush the seeds and put a spoonful (about 1 tablespoon is sufficient) into your teapot. Coriander seeds have slight spicy and sweet flavors that you can enjoy with plain or green tea. You don’t even need to add a teabag.
If you’re not a tea drinker, just put the crushed seeds in a bowl and add boiling water, and then wait at least two hours. If you use this method, you’ll likely want to add a little sweetener.
Bathe in Hot and Cold Water
Hot and cold water each have benefits that make them effective home remedies for UTI. Warmth helps soothe pain, and if your UTI is giving you painful burning or any abdominal aches, a hot bath could alleviate those symptoms. Cold is an anti-inflammatory, so you should include cold baths in your routine to fight the infection.
Pelvic sitz baths are particularly effective for treating UTIs and other conditions. If you’ve had hydrotherapy treatment before, you likely know what a sitz bath is. If not, it’s simply a bath where the water only covers your pelvic region and lower torso. You sit in a way that the rest of your body is out of the water.
To get the benefits of both hot and cold water, spend a short time bathing in each. Begin with a hot sitz bath and spend anywhere from five to 10 minutes in there. Then, switch to cold water for about a minute, since you don’t need to spend as much time in the cold to reap the benefits. You can move from one tub to another, or just drain your tub and fill it with cold water.
Eat Plenty of Garlic
Garlic is excellent for getting rid of UTIs because of its strong antibacterial properties. These come from a sulfur compound known as Allicin, which occurs when you crush cloves of garlic. Of course, everyone knows garlic has a strong smell, and, unfortunately, there’s no way around that.
The Allicin gives it that smell. For a UTI, a small garlic clove per day isn’t going to suffice. You’ll need to have a high garlic intake to get enough Allicin into your urinary tract. Crushing around four or five cloves of garlic to use for garlic-flavored butter or other seasonings will work.
If you won’t use that much seasoning for your meals, you can simply cut garlic cloves into pieces small enough to swallow whole, like you’re taking a supplement.
Eat Food with Probiotics
Probiotics help boost your immune system, helping it better rid your body of infections. Greek yogurt, in particular, is an excellent source of probiotics. While it’s often recommended to take Greek yogurt when you’re dealing with stomach problems, researchers have found that it’s also beneficial for those with UTIs to eat it, especially if their UTIs keep coming back.
How does eating Greek yogurt help you prevent reoccurring UTIs? Since it brings good bacteria back into your system, it can ensure there’s a microbial balance. The antibiotics used to treat UTIs can also get rid of good bacteria in the process, leaving you at risk of repeated infections.
Besides Greek yogurt, other good sources of probiotics include sauerkraut and miso. All these foods may also create those aromatic molecules, just like the ones created by cranberry juice, that reduce bacteria in the urinary tract.
Use Coconut
Coconut has all kinds of health benefits, but when it comes to how to treat a UTI, it’s the monolaurin in coconuts that really helps. Monolaurin is a substance found in coconut oil, but it’s also found in human breast milk, so it’s completely safe for people of all ages. Monolaurin fights bacteria to eliminate the UTI from your body.
One of the nice things about coconut is that there are many ways you can add it to your diet. There’s coconut water, which has a slightly sweet taste and is very refreshing. It hydrates you just like regular water does, but it also has electrolytes which can make it even more effective. While you can drink straight from a coconut, it’s easiest to buy coconut water in stores.
There’s also coconut milk, which is obviously much stronger than coconut water. This works as a milk substitute as long as you don’t drink too much because it can act as a laxative. If you want something you can use with cooking, try coconut oil. You can also eat one or two spoonfuls of coconut oil at a time.
Drink Water with Baking Soda
As mentioned, the lower the acidity of your urine, the better. You can lower it by drinking plenty of water, but another option is mixing baking soda into your water. What makes this work is that baking soda is very alkaline, which is the opposite of acidic. Simply pour yourself a glass of water, and then add 1 teaspoon of baking soda.
Make sure you stir it until the baking soda is completely dissolved. It doesn’t affect the effectiveness, but it makes the drink much easier to put down. This is a good drink to have after you wake up, before you’ve gotten the chance to hydrate yourself, and will lower the acidity in your urine.
It can also help ease the pain if you experience burning during urination. Remember that baking soda has high sodium content, which means you should only do this for five to seven days at most.
Apply Heating Pads
Even though hot and cold baths are ideal, you probably don’t always have time for those. Heating pads and hot packs are both good substitutes that can relieve pain and stimulate blood flow to your pelvic area, helping with inflammation. Moist heat works better than dry heat for this, but you can use either depending on what is more convenient.
A gel pack that produces moist heat is an excellent choice. You can also soak towels in hot water or fill a bag with hot water and apply either to the affected area. There are also electric heating pads, although these produce dry heat. You should apply heat while you’re resting, and you can use it for as long as you want. Try to use it for at least 15 minutes to start. Be careful not to use anything too hot to avoid burns.
Eat Blueberries
Since blueberries and cranberries come from the same genus, blueberries provide many of the same benefits that you’d get by drinking cranberry juice. Blueberries are unique in that they may target the fimbria of bacteria while it tries to connect itself to the urinary tract. This can keep your UTI from worsening and may make it easier to flush out those bacteria.
Blueberry juice is much harder to find than cranberry juice, and even if you find some, it’s likely mixed with other fruit flavors and loaded with sugars. Instead, you’re better off buying blueberries themselves and snacking on them throughout the day. Even a handful of blueberries has all kinds of health benefits and can help with a UTI; plus, you can mix them with all kinds of other foods for tasty combinations.
Take Horseradish
Like garlic, horseradish has a prominent odor. What makes horseradish so great is a compound it contains called allyl isothiocyanate (AITC), which has antimicrobial properties. The big difference between AITC, cranberries, and blueberries is that the latter two are more effective at stopping bacteria from spreading, whereas AITC is better at attacking bacteria and destroying them.
All you need to add some horseradish to your diet is a root of it and a grater. Grate up about ½ to 1 teaspoon of horseradish, and simply swallow it. You can take it two or three times per day, but the most you should take is 1 ½ teaspoons for three doses per day.
Due to the taste, you may want to wash it down with milk or water. Horseradish may cause a bit of an upset stomach, and if that’s the case, either lower your dosage or stop using it.
Drink Marshmallow Root Tea
An effective home remedy for UTIs and kidney stones, marshmallow root tea helps your body in several different ways. It makes you urinate more and reduces the acidity in your urine. In some cases, marshmallow root tea has even gotten rid of blood in the urine. This tea can provide relief from an inflamed urinary tract, pain in the lower stomach, and pain while you urinate.
Marshmallow root tea is especially useful if you get a UTI while you’re pregnant, which is quite common. It’s best to stay away from antibiotics whenever possible during pregnancy, and marshmallow root tea is safe for babies. Start by crushing up marshmallow root and putting it in a bowl. Then, pour in warm slightly warm water.
A good ratio is one part marshmallow root for every four parts water. Let the mixture sit for at least four hours, and then strain it. It’s normal for the tea to be very thick. You can drink this throughout the day.
Supplement with Uva Ursi
An herbal remedy first used by the Native Americans, uva ursi is also known as bearberry leaf. You can get uva ursi extract in capsule form or in a tincture bottle. The primary bioactive compounds in the extract that help against UTI are glycoside arbutin and hydroquinone, both of which can decrease inflammation and help your body rid itself of the infection.
Plant tannins are also useful. The only drawback with uva ursi is that hydroquinone is toxic. That’s not a problem for short-term use, but if you kept using it, liver damage could occur. Limit yourself to a few days, five at most, and you won’t have to worry. Uva ursi also acts as a diuretic, so it can deplete your body of potassium.
Add a potassium supplement while you take uva ursi, or make sure you eat plenty of bananas. Some people really don’t like the taste of uva ursi. You may want to stick to the capsule form just in case.
Make Parsley Tea
Parsley can act as a diuretic, causing you to urinate more frequently and possibly flush out more sodium when you urinate. There are two different ways you can make your parsley tea. The first is to boil water and add about a cup of fresh parsley leaves once the water reaches its boiling point.
You can also use dried parsley, but to get the most benefit, fresh parsley is the best choice. After you add the parsley, lower the heat and allow the water to simmer. Wait about 10 minutes, and then use a strainer to get the leaves out. You can drink all the tea right away or have it throughout the day.
The second method is to mix an ounce of your own urine with a quart of water, and then slowly heat it. The rest of the process, including adding the parsley leaves and letting them soak in the water, is the same as with the previous method. This method is the one that natural healers typically use. If you don’t want to drink any of your own urine, simply using water and parsley leaves is fine.
Eat Celery Seeds
Celery seeds are another natural diuretic. If you don’t like the taste of parsley tea, then munching on celery seeds throughout the day is another way to go. These are especially good to eat after a meal because they improve your digestion. To get more fluids, you can make tea with celery seeds.
Just put a handful in a cup, add boiling water, and strain out the seeds after about 10 minutes. Celery seeds mainly help with UTIs because of their diuretic properties, but there’s also evidence indicating that they prevent UTIs, which could help if they keep recurring for you. When it comes to how to treat a UTI, there are plenty of home remedies available.
The first two tips here, drinking water and urinating often, are two you should follow no matter what. Other than that, pick a few methods that you like and give them a try. You may find that you clear up that UTI without needing any antibiotics.
