If you’ve suffered from recurring UTI, Cystitis or Bladder Infections for some time, you’ll recall how cranberry – when you first tried it – seemed to be that mythical knight in shining armor, an answer to all your prayers. But then, just as things were improving and you seemed to have a permanent cure for UTI – the attacks returned – much worse than before! That’s what happened to me – anyway! Now why is that?
What’s going on. How do you avoid that happening again and again? Well, e-coli (the cause of most Cystitis / UTI and Bladder Infections) is known as an adaptive bacterium, meaning it is capable of adapting its nutritional needs to its immediate environment. Because Cranberry creates acidic urine (rather than the normal neutral kind), you are effectively nourishing the e-coli whenever you drink Cranberry.
About 5 years ago I began to regularly take daily cranberry, in the belief that it would reduce or eradicate my frequent Cystitis attacks. At first things improved, but then discovered that I still got just as many infections as previously. Only when I began to do my own research did I realize that I had been wasting my time and money. I was foolishly following a widely-dispersed myth instead of searching out something that really worked (I did in the end though). If it’s a fiction, just why is cranberry so popular? Why do those "experts" say it actually works in reducing and/or curing Cystitis / UTI?
Is its reputation totally underserved? Here is a very basic summary of the information I picked up: It is well-known (in scientific circles anyway) that the e-coli bug sticks like crazy to the walls of the urinary tract, where it sets up home and multiplies. It is also well known that Cranberry juice has a mildly anti-adhesive property. From these two unrelated facts everyone seems to have decided that if bacteria sticks and cranberry un-sticks, then cranberry must be particularly good for cystitis sufferers and UTI sufferers. However, if you compare the benefits of its anti-adhesion properties against the potential damage done by producing an acidic urine in which e-coli thrives, then the benefit just don’t outweigh the disadvantages, and cranberry fails miserably There’s another problem – cranberry can prevent many antibiotics from working effectively.
Antibiotics work by attacking and damaging a bacteria’s cell walls. Adding cranberry-created hippuric acid to the urine just persuades the bacteria to grow a thicker skin, making the future use of that antibiotic much less likely to succeed. This is why some UTI-sufferers who have taken cranberry for years may find that their physician’s standard course of antibiotics no longer works and their infections quickly return. This problem is compounded by the modern physician’s desire to prescribe smaller than the usual courses of antibiotics, when actually a longer course is needed. "BUT IT WORKED SO WELL WHEN I STARTED USING IT!" Yes, it usually does! Taking cranberry results in your urine becoming much more acidic, and that acid will – at first – attack and kill many of your bacterial cells.
So at first you’ll feel better, and probably believe that cranberry is the miracle you have been searching for (I know I did). But that is usually only a temporary respite. The e-coli cells remaining, (always the stronger tougher ones), will quickly get used to their new environment, then start to reproduce and breed ever-stronger replications of themselves. Your next UTI attack will inevitably be worse than any previous one, and you’ll label cranberry as a curse. Of course, all that I’ve outlined here does not happen to all cystitis or UTI-sufferers, but it did happen to me! After 22 years of occasional uti-problems, I was told about cranberry. I hated the taste, but taking a cranberry pill every day gave me four years of total relief. Then, right out of nowhere, I had a really terrible attack. So I increased my cranberry intake – but as it turned out – to no avail. I had to visit my physician and get a prescription for antibiotics. Then, just a few months later, I had another even more painful UTI, much worse than every before (I’ll spare you the gruesome details). It was only then that I accepted that cranberry no longer the cured for my UTI that I had believed. I began a search for an alternative. It took a long time, but I did locate a natural remedy for UTI, one which is staggering in its simplicity.
It had no known side-effects, no reaction to other drugs, and it wasn’t absorbed by the body! And it could also be used as a uti-preventive or as a very effective UTI remedy. It’s called Mannose, or D-Mannose, or Waterfall D Mannose (sorry, I don’t know why either). It is extracted from trees (just like the common aspirin), and I believe it offers a solution for many people for whom regular UTI’s are part of everyday life. If you want to learn more about it, just follow the links in my final paragraph