Waking up next to your significant other in the morning, you smile and recall last night. Reflecting on your relationship, you feel as if you’re on the top of the world. You get up and head to the restroom with the strong urge to pee.
Squatting, you feel an awful burning sensation or even worse, like something piercing through your insides as you try to urinate; however, strange thing is, nothing but maybe a couple of drops come out.
You are left with a lingering sharp sensation in your derriere as you stand up and pull up your pants. You figure that it’s nothing too serious as you tell yourself, “It will go away eventually.”
Throughout the day, the same incident happens, except the piercing sensation amplifies every time you try to urinate. Unfortunately, something that was — or still is — a daily necessity now disrupts your regular routine. What used to be a natural, painless action has now become an agonizing burden.
Every time you see the restroom you are tempted to go in, but you try to stop yourself from going inside since you know that it’s a false alarm and that your mind is just probably playing its late April Fool’s prank on your body.
Generally, feeling a burning or piercing sensation as you’re trying to wee when barely any waterfalls come out hints that you may have, accidentally, allowed bacteria or a foreign substance to enter your urinary tract.
Especially if you just recently had sex and recall that you and your partner tried inserting something new or, in general, inserting an unsanitary toy, you most likely have a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI).
UTIs are considered very common among women since germs can easily travel to their bladders. Not only can women contract this infection from intercourse but they can also retrieve it from simply wiping in the wrong direction.
Regardless of what the cause may be, if you are experiencing any insanely burning or piercing sensation when urinating, immediately visit your doctor rather than self-diagnosing with the information provided on WebMD or other “credible” medical sites that may mistakenly tell you that you have kidney stones or even cancer.
Once you have been diagnosed with a UTI and given a prescription for antibiotics, here are some home remedies to ease your discomfort and tips to prevent it from happening again.
1. Avoid Tight Clothing
When you have a UTI, save that tight pair of pants or shorts for another day. In general, tight clothing, including thongs, around the pelvis will create unnecessary moisture and heighten the pH level of your urine, which will ultimately introduce germs to your urinary tract. Ideally, it would be best to wear less tight clothing, especially if you have been constantly contracting UTIs.
2. Wiping the Right Way
Ladies, as surprising as it may sound, there is such a thing as wiping the wrong way. In order to wipe in a sanitary fashion, you must start wiping from the front to back. Wiping the other way is equivalent to smothering your urethra with feces, which clearly isn’t sanitary and won’t help you alleviate the sharp sensations you’re feeling.
3. Cranberry Juice
Throughout the past several decades, cranberries have been commonly used for prevention and treatment of UTIs because they contain a strong polyphenol that particularly prevents germs from infecting your urinary tract.
According to a 2012 medical study, cranberries decrease the chances of attaining another UTI. Though, keep in mind that drinking cranberry juice alone cannot heal your UTI.
4. Practice Good Sexual Hygiene
As it is great to explore your body and boundaries, always make sure that your hands and toys are clean. Double or even triple wash them with antibacterial soap if you have — always remember that your safety is more important than temporary pleasure.
Moreover, other suggested precautions are to use lube, perform anal play last and urinate immediately afterward. Specifically, applying lube on condoms before any kind of penetration will lessen friction and minimize any possible damage.
Along with that, despite how clean your anus may be or how hard you try to clean it, the substances there may not work well with the other end. For women, by urinating after intercourse, you will be flushing out the potential germs that may have been residing in your vagina.
If you want to be extra safe, clean your vagina before sex as well, not just afterward. There is nothing wrong with being adventurous in your sex life, but you should keep these precautions in mind.
5. Switch Your Birth Control
If you notice that you’re constantly contracting UTIs, you can try switching up forms of contraception or different brands for spermicides. Notably, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has reported that the use of a diaphragm and spermicide may increase the risk of UTI.
Diaphragms especially have risks, since they give indirect pressure to the urethra and reduce urine flow, which makes you more likely to contract a UTI.
6. Stay Hydrated & Continue Urinating
Drinking more water will flush the germs out of your system. Though, a slight downside to this is that you may need to make more bathroom stops, which is something you have possibly been avoiding.
Although you want to lessen your toilet time due to the piercing sensation, you must go whenever you need to, which will also help get rid of the bacteria. Therefore, holding it in will only be detrimental to your chances of recovery.
These listed remedies and tips can ease your current discomfort and possibly prevent the next upcoming UTI from ever occurring. But don’t misunderstand — antibiotics will be the key in curing your UTI; without them, these remedies will not have a chance of defeating the germs that reside in your urinary tract.
Altogether, if you feel a burning sensation and the constant urge to urinate even though nothing comes out, don’t wait around for the infection to go away on its own. You should immediately visit your doctor since you wouldn’t want your UTI to develop into a more serious problem than it already is.
