Urinary Tract Health, Infections; The Vagina as a Good Neighbor

Mardy,

I happened to notice on facebook today that it was your birthday so I have to teasingly THANK YOU for allowing me to send you a birthday present in your email today to let you know about this question.  I should learn to not be surprised by anything you accomplish that is above and beyond expectations but on this one, I was amazed. Thank you for your response; not only was it same day, but it is so thorough and a wonderful start, I hope, for others to add on their opinions and suggestions as Comments, if they have them to offer here as well.

I wanted to share here that I'm seeing myself in much of this, above, in the past, perhaps about the time I was 45 or 46.  I had a scheduled appointment related to looking at my dysfunctional uterus related to a possible hysterectomy.  I'd been traveling by airplane for a funeral in a city where I know the water is horrible tasting and we were stopping every night to pick up another gallon of water and despite that it was humid there and I'm used to dry climate, I was thinking it had something to do with the change in altitude or something. I didn't recall not feeling well or any other symptoms and returned late at night to have to collect my car at the repair shop and get home very late and just in time for the doctor's appointment the next day.  

I remember saying 'as long as I'm here, can you look as I feel I maybe have a UTI starting'.  The doctor came in later with eyes as big as saucers asking if I had any idea why I had 'tons of' white blood cells in my urine. I was given a very short course of antibiotics which I questioned but was told it was the new strategy for UTI and clearly recall not feeling well after I started on the antibiotic and or about a week after that.  I remember thinking that it felt like my body was having to adjust to a whole lot of things being essentially 'shaken up'.  I was supposed to go on a hike on the weekend and remember calling to specify that I didn't want to go on the motorcycle, and then ultimately deciding to just go to breakfast and not a hike and just being really NOT myself. I remember feeling just 'wimpy' and not having the energy to resist temptation.  To quote one of my favorite quotes "Entropy happens, but who gives a damn." -- that's how I felt.  

"We" (a GP, a urologist, and an infectious disease specialist) chased around and around trying to figure out what the bacteria type was (is it the same thing coming back and getting resistant or something else, catheterization at one point, radioactive imaging of the bladder and then colon to see if the bladder and colon had a hole / connection from being all crammed in together.  Plus TWO abdominal ultrasounds to see if the kidneys looked okay -- there were cysts and then they were gone, which was good but 'insignificant', and for each one it was an extensive prep like before a colonoscopy except the gal that would give me the stuff to take home apologized each time and her face literally winced when she saw on the screen what she was to get for me to take).  

And then I went to an alternative-thinking MD who at the time had been part of my "YOU model" for health care, and he suggested d-Mannose.  He told me I might need to take it every day for ever.  It had good results immediately and after three months I stopped and didn't have another problem for years, until my overall health slid backwards a bit related to the hormone/adrenal aspect of things.  

I've been able to purchase a d-Mannose product that has cranberry and probiotic in it, or take combinations as needed of d-Mannose and cranberry and probiotic separately.  I carry it with me in my travel bag along with a few other potions I might need from time to time; that's a suggestion to all.  I'm not a light packer, but I'm prepared!  I'd have made a good boy scout!  

I hope this information from my history helps give a scenario to fill out this piece and is of benefit to those reading.  I know most of what Dr Spurlock had written, above, I'd known, but much of it was also new to me and I'm sure a LOT or all of it is NEWS to many.  Again, UNDERSCORE the part about prevention is better than needing to seek and obtain 'treatment'.  ~~ Mardy

I wanted to mention that on a trip through the aisle at my local Kroger grocery store looking to get a Time magazine, I saw they had Merck Manuals (The Merck Manual of Medical Information: Second Home Edition.  The world's most widely used medical reference for the twenty-first century; the complete and unabridged national bestseller -- more than two million copies sold!).  I'd not bought one since 1995, and that is not the home edition -- it's tabbed like a dictionary and I've used it extensively over the years for my patients, family, friends, and self.  

I'm was amazed at how much new, progressive information is in this new and completely revised copy, including a section on herbs and pharmaceutical medication interactions. I want to bring the discussion and information here now to focus on the Mental Health section in order to have information here related to the psychiatric/mental 'symptoms' someone might be displaying when they have a UTI.  The "bizarre behavior" Dr Spurlock refers to, above.   In the Merck Manual, I found this section by looking up Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which is the 'bible' of mental health.  

The DSM is a huge and detailed book for mental health providers in terms of the amount of detail, and the Merck Manual has a distilled version that gets it into just a few dozen pages of the top and most pertinent information which I think is appropriate for medical providers, obviously, since that's what the Merck Manual is all about historically.  In today's "times", it is really increasingly necessary for people/ consumers to get out their thinking caps and resources and look into things themselves as there just is SO much information about SO many things in the huge field of medicine these days.  And the providers and organizations / facilities are just struggling to keep up without the time to really 'process'.  The families or advocates I work with also have to absorb and process when I do education with them so in a way, there's no way to compress the time.  Sometimes it takes, unfortunately, multiple admissions or different providers, etc. to get to the bottom of something. 

That's one of the underlying premises of Lumigrate is that nobody cares about YOU as much as YOU (and your family/friends and support system/advocates), so the educated public is going to have a better outcome with their health.  Getting progressive, valid information on Lumigrate which streamlines the medical education process, while making it fun as much as possible, is our goal.   

There is a particularly interesting matrix which I actually feel fits in here on this discussion string on Common Coping Mechanisms (projection, splitting, acting out, turning aggression against self, fantasizing, hypochondriasis). Hey, I'm an old OT at heart, we're half psychologist and half physical therapist, I say to simplify in what occupational therapy 'is'; I find it much easier to say I'm a functional advisor and consultant.  What I found particularly interesting is this paragraph about Disorders that resemble schizophrenia:

General medical and neurologic conditions such as thyroid disease, brain tumors, epilepsy, kidney failure, toxic reactions to drugs and vitamin deficiencies can sometimes cause symptoms similar to those seen in schizophrenia.  In addition, a number of mental disorders share features of schizophrenia ... (and it goes on to cover a short description of brief psychotic disorder which can last from 1 day to 1 month and often occurs in people with a preexisting personality disorder or in people who have experienced a severe stress, such as the loss of a loved one.)  It also has a paragraph about schizophreniform disorder, schizoaffective disorder and schizotypal personality disorder.

I've long believed, since learning about all these things in studying to become an occupational therapist and then getting a really outstanding internship in the psychiatric unit of the Denver VA, that the general public has a huge lack of information related to psychologic and psychiatric which is very disabling to being able to figure out situations.   

There is another set-out block titled Consequences of Personality Disorders, which has five bullets about people who have personality disorders that are

• high risk of behaviors that can lead to physical illness such as self-destructive behavior, alcohol/drugs, hypochondriasis; clashes with society's values, reckless sexual behavior
• inconsistent, detached, overemotional, above or irresponsible styles of parenting leading to medical and psychiatric problems in their children
• vulnerable to mental breakdowns (a period of crisis when the person has difficulty performing even routine mental tasks) as the result of stress.  The type of mental health disorder that is demonstrated (anxiety, depression, psychosis) depends in part on the type of personality disorder. 
• less likely to follow a prescribed treatment regimen; even when they follow a regimen, they are usually less responsive than most people to medications.
• often have poor relationships with their medical provides because they fail to take responsibility for their behavior and feel overly mistrustful, deserving, or needy.  The provider then may become blaming, distrusting, and ultimately rejecting of the person.   

I can't more highly recommend everyone's bookshelf have a copy of the Merck Manual of Medical Information.  This one I referred to above is the 'Second Home Edition'.  

I'm getting silly, but does this mean it is for a person's second home?  Do you have the hard back copy that says "First Home Edition" at your primary home?  I only have one home and truly this is on my bedside table quite a lot of the time as I find it such an excellent 1606 pages of information! 

Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better!! ~~ Mardy

Thank you both for posting such helpful information.

Mardy, I am very interested in the Merck Manual of Medical Information as it seems like it would be very beneficial for everyone, not just someone in the health field. In addition, the paragraph you cited from on schizophrenia and how many illnesses can foster the same symptoms really speaks out to me.

Living with FMS for so long, I know that many illnesses have the same symptoms as FMS and it can be fairly hard to determine the root of the problem. It is important to understand that just because a person may have some symptoms, it does not mean that it is a classic diagnosis.

Furthermore, as patients, it is crucial to understand these things and to try to look at things from an outside perspective. This manual will definitely prove to be beneficial, so thank you again for suggesting it!!