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In response to the question about bladder infections, I will now
re-embarrass the group with the tale of my bladder in hopes of helping
the poor little one with the UTI. First of all, THANKYOU for taking her
to the DR. I know someone who let her daughter go for a year with one
before she ended up in ER and now has permanent scarring of the urinary
tract. I'm sorry to bore the group with this but for me, at least, it was
related directly to gluten ingestion and this post may help others with
UTI's. I had bladder infection symptoms
between February and Sept (non-stop, not to mention the past 5 years off
and on) of this year and I went on
antibiotics of all sorts..let's see, Cipro, Macrodantin, sulphas,
amoxicillin, the 'Mycin' as in gentamycin type drugs and nothing worked.
Since they had already started me on what is known as an empiric (best
guess) regime by the time we got around to taking samples, I guess they
figured that certain drugs esp Cipro will kill off almost any bacteria,
they could find nothing in the sample in the way of bacteria (often even
if they took a sample before I started the antibiotics). I even had
a cystoscopy and the urologist just said I had bladder wall inflammation,
not interstycial cystitis. He was about to send me in for a second
cystoscopy when I found out I had celiac. Two weeks into the diet all of
my symptoms went away. If I accidentally eat gluten now, I first start to
feel nauseated then by the next day I get the twinges of a bladder
'infection'. Over the past 5 years I have had more negative cultures than
not. I used to tell my GP that I could bring on an 'infection' by eating
bread , quite reliably. I kept asking the Dr's if there was a chance that
I was celiac and that the drugs were not being absorbed. Not to diss the
DR's because this is new territory, I usually got 'maybe'. I know now
that my migraine drugs work so much better because I am GF so if I did
have any UTI infections probably the drugs were not being absorbed
properly.  I now
believe firmly that gluten was irritating my bladder and this was causing
an almost non-stop bladder inflammation. I did ask one very kind DR if
there was a chance that the inflammation set me up for a potential
opportunistic infection as the bladder walls would be probably more
susceptible to the germs that we all carry and she said that could be.
Oddly enough, most of my symptoms were at the very outside of the
urethra. What was very interesting is that a lot of my empiric treatment
was done because I had blood in the urine. This is suggestive of 2
things: an infection or Vitamin K deficiency- which apparently causes
blood to leak from the urinary system. My last 'infection' there was no
blood for the first time in years. I attribute this to the fact that I am
no longer K deficient. My heart goes out to you with your problem. I know
personally how agonizing UTI's can be and to have to see a small person
through one must be very difficult. It's not a big mystery where she got
it if you find that there are e.coli in the sample because the bowel
contains this bacteria, the urinary tract does not, and little people are
notorious for non-antiseptic bathroom procedures, to try and put it
delicately. I'm sorry to go on so long but I don't know how many other
people on the group are struggling with this problem and are embarrassed
to ask. If you have any more questions you can write to me directly or to
the group. I am not a DR but I have plenty of experience with UTI's. :(
All I can say is that I have not had more than a few twinges since I went
GF and always following accidental gluten ingestion.
Good luck and take care of your little one,
Lisa P