My 4 year old daughter has had 16 urine infections in 1 year :(

You must have thought of this or been asked by the doctors, but I’ll post it just in case. Who wipes her bottom after a poo? Are they wiping from front to back - ie the correct direction? Have you taught her this good habit?

Has she had a voiding cystourethrography?  If not, I'd have one done.  I would be concerned about all the antibiotics due the risk of developing resistance.  I understand thought, you are between a rock and a hard place.   Just make sure you have the most experienced and competent doctors you can find.  You need a specialist in this area; a urologist that specializes in children's problems.

Poor little thing  -she's so young, this need the best paediatric specialists, not a doctor guessing!  Whatever it is is not going to go away on the low-dose antibiotic as your experience after Christmas shows. The low dose is pehaps keeping a lid on it but the way this keeps returning suggests that something has got a hold in there and isn't letting go - which sounds a lot like e.coli.  E.coli colonies protect themselves with what's called a bio-film that antibiotics just can't seem to penetrate.

Or it may actually be kidney problems rather than a bladder problem.  Your doctor should be at his/her wits end trying to find an answer!  Ask for a proper paediatric-specialist appointment - your little daughter deserves to be taken seriously with life - life can't be much fun for her at the moment.

Just a quick warning - they probably wouldn't dare but please be on your guard for if they try to give her Ciprofloxacin or one of the other fluoroquinolones (make a note of these names!).  They may say these are going to be just the thing but they won't warn you that the side effects can be (and are) very damaging for many people. They're not usually given to minors but they might feel desperate.  Make sure they find out exactly what's wrong and then give her the appropriate antibiotic - or treatment.  The fluoroquinolones are broad spectrum so are often thrown at any infection as the chances are they'll fix it (thus saving doctors a lot of detective work). 

Good luck, I hope you get this sorted soon.

Jodie, I'm so sorry that this is happening to your child.  I would suggest that you start giving her probiotics for children.  The constant antibiotics could have disrupted her bacterial balance, because they kill the good and bad bacteria.  Each of us has good and bad bacteria in our body.  When the good bacteria is flourishing, it overbalances the bad.  When antibiotics are given, for any reason, they disrupt that balance.

There is another possibility, which means I have to reveal my own early childhood trauma. Back in 1954, when I was 5, I, too had uti after uti.  I don't remember getting antibiotics, but my Mom used to spank me to make me urinate.  It was so painful, and only one of the traumas I was experiencing at that time.  I ended up having surgery because my hymen was overgrown and trapping urine, at least that was what the doctor told my parents.  

After that, I had no more utis.  However, at the same time, I was being molested, which I later learned also causes frequent uti's in little girls. Shortly after my surgery, we moved, and the relative who was molesting me no longer had access to me. This experience deeply affected me.  Please bear in mind I have no wish to accuse or offend you.    

I am sure that you would do anything to help your child--and that's why I'm revealing this very personal and traumatic part of my life. xx

Your daughter might have low beneficial bacteria levels, or a low bacteria uti infection. It might be gardnerella. I would purchase a canine test from tesco as that will turn green if gardnerella or yellow if candida or yellow and green if both. You definetly need to give her probiotic, ie yakult to build up her good bacteria levels and try the test. Gardnrella is resistant to medical antibiotics but odourless garlic and probiotic kills it. Get the canine test first to confirm. Oh yeah the reason urine tests come back negative is because its false negative and gardnerella is invisible to urine testing but doctors never seem to diagnose it right.

Oh yeah, this infection is highly infectious and survives in bath water, she may be getting it constantly if she's bathing next to someone that has it, so its essential she's isolated when in bath and previous bath water isn't reused.

hi, to be honest with you and i always say it - medications suck and most doctors suck too- finding a good doctor is like hitting a lottery ticket these days- they are so dumb and parrot each other by saying the same thing- copy and paste and what ever they learn in the book  that's it - viruses and bacteria are becoming so smart and by doing so they are creating new outlets and diseases and problems, and money is not going anymore to find cure or update information about previous cases but they go to plastic surgeries and new ways to enhance the beauty of bimbos and morons and the rich- i have been struggling with the same thing and they keep giving me antibiotics and they are not working- and everytime i tell these stupid , garbage doctors- you may need to look at different avenues other than UTI is a cause  but  rather a symptom of something else - like - i told them my urine is acidic and i usually never had that -- my ph is around 5.5-6.0 which makes me prone to UTI and i told them give me medications to alkalinizer  agent to make my ph in the 7.0 range - im 100 convinced that if you eat lot of acidic food, take supplements like vitamin d and probiotics for some people it may change their ph and then you will have UTI quickly- female hormones and anything that has estrogen activities give me UTI because it does change your PH is the most important thing in your body- and they never talk about that these idiots and morons- doctors-- good luck - finding an average doctor these days- only the very rich and the best will find them

Hey Jodie,

I’m sorry your daughter is suffering from this! 

Like everyone else has suggested, probiotics are a really good natural way to help prevent infections. However a specialist suggested to me that taking strong vitamin C tablets daily (the effervescent ones or the chewable ones) helps prevent UTIs as the vitamin C makes the pee within the bladder more acidic which helps prevent bacteria forming! I eat really healthily and don’t drink much else apart from water so my urine has a very neutral ph which makes it easy for the bacteria to grow. 

She recommended taking the vitamin C daily and then if I felt the symptoms of a UTI then I should take double, if not triple the daily amount. 

It has worked for me so it’s definitely something to check out. 

I hope this helps! x

Hi Jodie, you haven't posted for a while and I was just wondering if you've made any progress.  I very much agree with the responses about giving her probiotics (live yoghurt and capsules are both good - and harmless!).  My husband takes high dose Vit C to help ward off UTIs so is probably a good idea too - and also harmless although perhaps for one so young about 25omg spread twice a day might be a good dose to start with. Keep her actual sugar intake low as too much sugar encourages the bacteria (and isn't good for anybody!).  This includes sugary drinks of course.

I hope all our replies are helping and I also hope you're getting somewhere with a good paediatric specialist.

My 3 year old daughter had the same problem. What I did was I bought a product called d-mannose available in health food stores and I also bought cranberry capsules 400mg. I took one Tylenol scoop filled d-mannose powder up to 10ml mark and emptied one cranberry capsule mixed them together in little water probably 2 oz and gave her 3 times a day after each meal. Dosing is very important as in all medicines. also cut down her sugar intake and use stevia instead of it. Now she is 6 years old and she hardly has it. She only has if she goes on a sugar binge and doesn't drink enough water. Make sure she drinks enough water everyday. Give her potent probiotic everyday or colostrum to fix her gut and slowly take her off antibiotics.