Important Note: I am not a doctor. This is not medical advice. This is based upon my own experiences, study, and testing on my own body. You should always consult a medical professional before trying anything like the following, ESPECIALLY if you are pre-diabetic or have type 2 diabetes. This is a guide for beginners so I try to keep things as simple as possible.
TLDR:
Part 1: Consider beginning a fasting regimen and change your diet to a low carb diet. Bacteria in the bladder feed on glucose (sugar)- carbs and sugar get converted to glucose and if you eat too much of it your kidneys will dump excess glucose into your bladder. If conditions become ideal for bacteria, the bacteria will start to colonize. No glucose in the bladder means no ability for bacteria to colonize. This will help limit your bladder infections, help you lose weight, and will likely help prevent and even manage pre-diabetes and Type 2 diabetes (but please talk to your doctor before you start).
Part 2: Consider taking a D-Mannose supplement. D-Mannose doesn’t really have any side effects unless you’re allergic to it. It prevents bacteria which enter your bladder from being able to stick to the walls of your bladder, which means there won’t be many bacteria waiting around for you to feed them glucose.
It’s a 1-2 punch which should immensely help eliminate bladder infections and encourage a healthy lifestyle.
Hello:
As mentioned on the front page of this site, I am a T8/T9 Asia-A complete paraplegic. For some of you, that is gibberish, which is totally ok. I’m gearing this site towards people with paraplegia and quadraplegia, but realize this information could be useful for all users of catheters who struggle with bladder infections. Off the top of my head, this would include individuals with urinary retention issues, urinary incontinence issues, neurogenic bladder issues, urinary obstruction, the list goes on and on.
Anyways I’ll get straight to the point and try to save most of you some time. If the following applies to you, you can stop reading now because you’re wasting your time, which is totally fine:
If you love bread, pasta and soda, and it would be absolutely impossible for you to give them up completely, this advice is not for you. Though I think you are underselling yourself and you could if you really wanted to.
So here’s the back story to how I figured this out. At the beginning of Covid, I realized I was starting to get fat and decided to try one of these new low carb “fad diets.” Specifically, keto. It worked. I studied the mechanism that makes low carbohydrate diets successful and it seemed relatively simple. You cut out carbohydrates including sugar completely or at most limit yourself to around 20 grams of carbs including sugar per day, and eventually your body will change it’s energy source from glucose to fat (or ketones). Which means, any energy your body needs in addition to what you consumed with your food, will have to come from your fat storage. Which means, you’re going to lose fat.
Why Do I Keep Saying “Carbohydrates Including Sugar?”
Ingredient lists (at least in the USA) do a weird thing where they tell you the total number of carbohydrates, and then below it they tell you how much sugar there is. This is because sugar is kind of considered more dangerous then other types of carbohydrates. But I think it can confuse people into thinking you can still consume a bunch of sugar on a low carb diet. This is wrong. Sorry.
Sugar is a simple carbohydrate that provides calories but lacks essential nutrients. Consuming too much added sugar can contribute to health problems such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
– The American Heart Association
So What About the Bladder?
As explained earlier, E. coli mainly lives off glucose. When you eat carbs, like bread or pasta, or sugary soda, your body turns them into glucose. If you eat a lot of carbs, your body might have more glucose than it needs. This extra glucose can end up in your pee. This happens because your kidneys can’t “catch” all the extra glucose when there’s too much of it. On a low carb diet, your kidneys no longer have to deal with excess glucose, and so there won’t be any discarded glucose in your urine. Which means, even if you get bacteria such as E. coli into your bladder, it won’t be a suitable home for it to set up a home base and “colonize.”
Why Fasting?
Fasting jump starts the body’s transition to a different energy source. As mentioned earlier, the body needs to switch from consuming glucose, to consuming fat (ketones). This is kind of like your car switching from consuming regular gas, to consuming diesel fuel. Some modifications need to occur in the body for this to happen. This transition, sometimes referred to as “keto flu,” is when you might feel tired, dizzy, get headaches, or feel sick when you start a low carb diet. It’s because your body is getting used to using fat for energy instead of carbs. Keto flu only happens to some people, and lasts at most a few days to a week before you won’t even notice a difference.
What type of Fasting?
Initial Fast:
If you’re hard core like me, I like to do a 3 day water fast (3 full 24 hour periods with water and black coffee but no food) to jump start the process. You can be pretty sure that your body will be completely switched to full on fat burning mode which is alson known as ketosis in that time. I like to get things done quickly. It hurts but at least I can get to the losing weight and not getting bladder infections part within 3 days. You can also do a shorter initial fast of 1-2 days or less. Everything helps. If you don’t want to do an initial fast and you just want to engage in a low carb diet, that’s fine, just know it will take longer to get your body to switch its fuel source to fat (ketosis).
Intermittent Fasting:
I do what is called 16-8 intermittent fasting. This means 16 hours of every day (including when I sleep) I do not consume calories. I consume calories during an 8 hour window. Usually starting around 2pm. Keeping it very simple, intermittent fasting can help you stay in fat burning mode, and help keep glucose out of the picture. I generally drink water and coffee (because coffee has basically zero calories) but do not eat anything. Some people mess with things like bone broth but I do not recommend it.
D-Mannose Supplements
D-Mannose is a naturally occurring sugar that helps prevent bladder infections, primarily caused by the bacterium E. coli, by interfering with the bacteria’s ability to adhere to the bladder wall. When D-Mannose is present in the urinary tract, it binds to the E. coli bacteria, preventing them from sticking to the bladder lining. Instead, the bacteria are flushed out with urine, reducing the likelihood of infection. This makes D-Mannose a useful preventative measure against urinary tract infections, particularly for individuals who experience recurrent infections.