Bladder Infection Symptoms. 9 Ways To Tell If You Have A Bladder Infection And 5 Ways To Beat It!

Lets start things off with a list of bladder infection symptoms. Some of these are really going to seem familiar to you!

If they do seem familiar and you have not seen your doctor for treatment, it is likely that you have had one or more bladder infections and did nothing about them. This is very bad for you because reoccurring or chronic infections can and do cause permanent, irreversible damage to your urinary tract. More about that later.

Here is the list:

1. Pain in the lower pelvic area, lower abdomen, lower back or genital area. Especially if you have one or more of the other symptoms on this list.
   
2. Muscle spasms. Some people have little or no pain during a bladder infection and instead have muscle cramps or spasms in the genital area.
3. Pressure. The sensation of pressure over the pubic bone.
4. A burning, stinging or tingling during or after urination. THIS IS OFTEN THE FIRST SIGN!
5. Incontinence. That means that you wet yourself-even just a little.
6. Frequency, this is when you have to go often or all the time.
7. Urgency, this is when you have to pee very soon after getting the urge for fear of having a accident.
8. Appearance. Does your urine look like it always has? Is it whitish or cloudy with sediment? Is it pink or even red from blood? Normal urine is yellow to amber in color and clear enough to easily see through. It should not contain sediment(things floating around in it)or signs of blood.
   
9. Odor. Your urine should not smell foul or strong. If you have not noticed any odor before and suddenly your urine has a noticeable smell this is a very good indication of a infection.

OK. Back to why having a bladder infection and doing nothing about it is bad. Your bladder(and urine)are normally sterile. That means that your bladder and urine is ideally free of any microorganisms of any kind.

No bugs at all. Squeaky clean. In a natural healthy state that is.

Every time you have bladder infection symptoms they are signs that very real damage is being done to your body. If you are young, and otherwise very healthy most of the damage will heal completely. But not all of it. And as we age our ability to heal becomes impaired.

And with each infection a new layer of damage kind of "piles up"on top of the last. One layer of scar tissue on top of the next, until eventually you are rendered incontinent and must wear a diaper because the bladder has lost its elasticity to the scar tissue.

Stop Your Bladder Infection Now

Or even worse, you have to leave a rubber tube(called a catheter)inserted in the urethra(the part of your body that carries urine from your bladder to the outside)because the scar tissue has built up so much that urine cannot flow out on it's own. The rubber tube stays in permanently. When you need to pee you just open a little little valve on the end of it and the urine flows out.

Not the future you were hoping for?

Then you had better start paying attention to what your body is telling you. And if you have a bladder infection it is telling you something is wrong. Do something about it.

There are lots of ways to help your body overcome a bladder infection. And the great thing is most of them are really great lifestyle changes that can help prevent bladder infections too.

Here are some simple things you can do to help your body out:

1. Drink more water. If you have a bladder infection lots of water will help by flushing the infection out. If you don't, lots of water will help prevent you from getting one.
   
2. Stop with the soda and tea already. Your body is 80% water. It is not 80% Pepsi.
3. Drink lots of cranberry juice. Cranberry is fantastic. If you have an infection helps kill it by making your urine more acidic. If you don't have an infection cranberry helps prevent you from getting one by keeping any infection that tries to start from sticking to the walls of your bladder.
4. If you feel like you have to pee, don't wait. Just get up and go pee. Don't let the urine stay in your bladder any longer than you have to. Keep it flowing.
5. If you wear pads instead of tampons change them frequently. Don't allow them to become soaked. Blood is a great place to grow bacteria, and if you leave a soaked pad in contact with your genitals you are really making it easy for the bacteria to enter your body.

There are lots of other natural, simple things you can do to treat bladder infection symptoms -or even prevent them all together. We will be exploring many of them in future posts.

If you want to learn more I recommend you read Bladder Infection Cure.

I would love to hear your thoughts or comments.

Thanks, Melody