Need Help with UTI Treatment (28 yr old Male)

If you still have symptoms , go to the lab post haste and have them check you to make sure the bacteria in your bladder are cleared out . It looks like they are not , so the Cipro is obviously not working . Have the doctor put you on Macrobid instead . Don’t drink Cranberry juice , take the capsules instead , and absolutely go on D Mannose . I take a teaspoon in water 3 times a day . Take a good probiotic , those good bacteria in your gut need all the help they can get to fight the bad ones , they get killed right along with bad bacteria from the antibiotics . Probiotics should be part of your daily routine at any time to promote good gut health . A healthy gut means a healthy immune system .

good luck !

I agree with Rainbowsend and would add that you read the warnings leaflet or whatever you have on the Cipro packet.  This is not an antibiotic to be taking just in case. If it was something the Cipro was going to deal with it would be gone by now.   Cipro doesn't get rid of E.coli which is the usual cause of a persistent infection as the colonies protect themselves with a biofilm.  D mannose is the best way to break down the biofilm but you need to take it constantly, as described by Rainbowsend, and maybe for about 6 weeks or so.

Cranberry juice is useful to prevent bugs from clinging to the bladder walls and setting up a colony in the first place.

It is essential to take probiotics whenever you take an antibiotic so get some capsules and also some live yoghurt.  I can't see that smoking the weed would have made a difference but who knows? Maybe it caused some changes when you did the cold turkey.

I just saw that you're about on your last dose of Cipro.  The fluoroquinolone family (Cipro has 4 siblings e.g. Levo) are very heavy antibiotics, they can affect you long after you've stopped taking them.  Even if you don't feel any different be aware of any tendon or joint pains that might creep up on you over the next few months.  Also watch out for insomnia or anxiety.  Make sure you never take another fluoroquinolone for a very long time (years) - check out the fluoroquinolone antibiotic discussions here on this forum to get an idea of what to look out for and what you don't want to get.

I'm not trying to scare you, I'm just stating some facts here. Take care and I hope you find a solution soon.

Hi Richard,

Your doctor has no idea either!  What's all this about 'will help cleanse' the prostate, which 'may' be the issue?  Does he even know what he's talking about. 

You said you had a prostate exam  - so was it enlarged or not?  The doc can't just say it 'may be'.  He has prescribed you another course of a very strong antibiotic that the FDA have just increased warnings for - yet again.  I'm in the UK, I'm guessing you are US?  I bet your doc doesn't even know they increased the black box warnings in 2016 let alone last week as well.  The FDA don't do this lightly so please take the warnings seriously - they include danger of permanent disability, permanent peripheral neuropathy and loads of other things.  I don't understand about there's no e.coli so Bactrim won't work?  What does that even mean? Do you know?

Have you had tests to show if you have a urine infection or not?  If not, you need NO antibiotics. If yes, you need one that is tailored to the actual infection, not one that will wipe out absolutely anything (including anthrax!) and possibly you with it.

Have you had testes to show if you have a prostate problem?  If you have but nothing was found, don't take a super-strong antibiotic 'to cleanse it' but do follow up looking at self-help relaxation techniques - most of men's prostate pain is caused by stress and tension.

If the doc has proof that you have a prostate infection (difficult to prove, actually) the Trimethoprim (Bactrim) is recommended (here in the UK at least) as a safer alternative to fluoroquinolones. 

Have you taken a look at the fluoroquinolone antibiotic discussion pages?  So many men hit by Cipro for a prostate problem they never had.  They will all say they wish someone had warned them of the dangers.  Your doctor won;t warn you (he probably has no idea) but. believe me, the dangers are sadly all very real. I'm warning you not to take this second course.  It may take time for the side effects to show themselves - it doesn't take time for Cipro to clear an infection that isn't actually there. 

You may have gone cold turkey but hopefully your brain is back in order enough for you to ask the doc straight questions and get some straight answers.  Your last reply is all "something about" this and that.  It's your health and your body - you need to understand fully what is happening. If your life is actually on the line and Cipro is the only option, then take it by all means.

I took ciprofloxacin for 33 days but had only one week of the anitbiotic prescribed by my GP because the dose I was on which incidentally was for three months was too low a dose to eradicate whatever infection I had.

I see from my notes that on two occasions no culture was carried out and even then  there are some bacteria that need far more than a week to evolve in a colony large enough to be detected.

The waterworks system is not small and in some instances it can take years to resolve some infections of the urinary tract.  Insist insist insist that is the way forward and even then insist again!  If you feel something is wrong  insist there is something wrong.......   Mimms states that Ciprofloxacin is usually and normally prescribed to men for a month. It has good penetration of the prostate and also infiltrates the hard to get ate tissue. In certain circumstances a bacteria can be walled off. Some of us seal in bacteria which can survive but then emerge again at a later date and make us ill......

I suppose that is why certain bacteria have been around millions of years.

It has been debated  within the medical profession = shall we give a long course or a short course of AB's.

The fact is of late and not so late that treatment of UTI's are very much a hit and (p)miss affair.... not really good enough is it?

Finally if I am anything to go by due to experience I found that Cipro was  'doing me good', but not that good that I felt I should stop taking it so I thought it sensible to take the full wack. I bore this in mind due to a previous month prior to the Cipro of a months worth of Septrin that made me feel better on two occasions but did not completely eradicate 'my' bug. To this day I have no symptoms and was told I could not prove I had had an infection....... On the contrary the only infection I harbored since being a child was TB.

I thought I was TB immune for life but not so it was discovered  very many years ago & while I have not proved that was the bacteria responsible for my waterworks nightmare, they have not proven to me that it was not TB.   Incidentally all the antibiotic types I have taken over 20 years are all killers of TB bacteria. I had a session of intravenous antibiotics back in 2001 that could well have knocked whatever I was harboring for six but it did not completely eradicate my infection........   Up and down up and down goes our resistance ability......

Shingles now three weeks ago but less and less & hardly noticable compared to the previous two times but the first episode was much the worse one.....  Chicken pox virus raises it's ugly head again after 70 odd years... remarkable those bugs.   Can you get your doctor to believe yes I really do think I still have that infection.........  What does it say in Mimms? 

Do you have burning sensation during or after urination? And where the burning actually occurs??

I did have a burning sensation that varied in severity after urinating but that was latterly in treatment...... 1 month of Septrin which one of my flanneling GPs told me 'they' don't give that AB now..... tell me another!

Because my symptoms all came back with a vengeance even when I was prescribed a low dose Cipro which I was on a week I then returned to the GP as I could hardly pee at all & the lady GP who is quite experienced doubled that dose & after two weeks my symptoms were almost gone...... However I saw in Mimms that the directive for prostatitis is a month at the strongest dose so being that doctors and chemists treat Mimms as their 'bible' I felt strongly that I should kill or cure myself & so gave whatever bugs were getting me up in the middle of the night for a pee & sometimes two I thought they needed a good  hammering

seems I was on the right track because I've been very well for well over a year..... I am not saying do this or that but I think it's well worth writing to those who care for you to get the record straight because a phone call or face to face most certainly goes one way and we all know which direction that is!