Can anyone tell me if they have got a bladder irritation after fasting, I have been doing it for 2 weeks now and this week will be my third and I am really suffering at the moment, I thought I was drinking loads but I am really suffering.
Help!
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Hey. I have just finished my 2nd week and both weeks have suffered bladder irritation! It is only now that I have made the link as it starts at exactly the same number of hours after each fast starts and finishes at the same time too. I had urine dipsticks in the house anyway, so used them at various times to check things out and there was microscopic blood during the irritation phases and no blood shown during the non irritated phases. I will get it checked out at the GP anyway just to make sure but the fact that it comes and goes with the diet must mean that I’m excreting some bad toxins in my urine? BTW – no temperature, offensive smell, burning feeling or any other feeling indicating an infection. Also no increase in citrus fruits.
Since starting IF,I have had a flare up with bladder infections..have had to take a course of antibiotics
and still not quite right.
Hadnt related it to IF but thinking about it…
we have two days per week without much food or no food so we dont get the water thats in food,
plus we may drink less tea / coffee if we cant have milk in it on our two “fast,repair and heal” days –
I know I don’t.
Plus we may perhaps not drink as much water as we actually should be
All factors pointing towards bladder infections
Thanks Pippin, youve made me more aware about taking in liquids
Hope that you ( and me) will be infection free in future!
I was interested to read these posts which I came across because was searching whether anyone had found a link between the fast diet and cystitis. I have been fine with the diet which I like, BUT have had the worst cystitis I have had for years. I know this isn’t to do with less liquid (I keep my liquid intake up), and they have been full blown infections (not just irritation which I am familiar with), requiring two 7 day courses of antibiotics (which then causes other problems). This has just reminded me that when, many years ago, I started the Atkins diet, that also seemed to trigger cystitis symptoms. The link would be dramatic reduction of carbs/sugars. Would be good if someone could look into this further.
Autumn, I agree completely – more research needs to be done. Like Lizzy, I only saw the practice nurse too and was prescribed 3 day antibiotic course. I am finding the fasting part really easy but will be interested to see if cystitis symptoms return next week. Did your symptoms eventually clear up on the Atkins diet or did you have to stop it? Like you, I have not had cystitis for years and then day one of the Fast diet………
With the Atkins I kept thinking it was something I was eating more of, for example eggs. Then I would try excluding them, but then the pain would come back. It was more like radiating abdominal pain and frequency. I also sometimes got thrush like symptoms. I am now really nervous I will get another really bad attack… and think I am going to have to reluctantly give up the fasting, because I guess it could just be upsetting some internal balance making me more susceptible to infection….
Hey Pippin, 1,5 litres of fluid actually isn’t a lot… It also depends on where you are, the weather and what you do – but I always shoot for 2,5 to 3 litres of water a day and never have these issues.
I’m sorry I can’t be of any help, I don’t have these issues… it would be a shame if any of you had to stop the fasting because of this!!
This is my 4th week into the 2/5 diet and I have developed an ongoing urinary tract infection that waxes and wanes. I am 70 years of age and haven’t had an infection for a year. I notice there are a few women also suffering. It would be good for someone qualified to do some sort of research into this connection.
You can carry a urine infection and not get rid of it even with antibiotics since the infection may be resistant to several different antibiotics and in between flare ups you will have no symptoms. A 3 day course is not enough, you need to have a full urine test done (ie sent to lab by GP) and then start a 7 day course. If you have a hospital with a genito-urinary clinic attached to it I would go there since they will grow cultures on the urine. Apart from that I can highly recommend Waterfall-D-mannose , a tablet or powder based on a natural sugar which has kept me free from infection for nearly 2 years!!! available from Sweetcures in York http://www.waterfall-d-mannose.com Have done 3 days fasting with no problems! hope this helps
Hi I am a newby, week one with only one fast under my belt, the next fast is due tomorrow (Monday)…..but I’ve had an awfull night last night, cystitis!!!! I’ve felt it coming for a few days as it’s not the first time i’ve had it and know the signs, (about four times in total in my life, twice last year. I should have drank more to flush on those first niggly days but will I learn?!?! )
Question is….do you guys think I should continue on with the fast day tomorrow? (note: will most probably start anti-b’s sometime today)
and, my first and only fast day so far was last Thursday, could this have unbalanced things?
Hey CeeCee. I continued with my fasting days and tried to drink more. It is really strange, the timing of everything. I started fasting last October and the second night I got a UTI. I got a short course of antib’s (from a nurse)on about day 5 after my UTI had come and gone and come back and everything seemed fine for a couple of weeks. However the same pattern repeated two weeks later, same number of hours after starting my fast. This time I got a stronger course of antib’s and I haven’t had any problems since. I saw my GP anyway after the second course , just to check other causes.He hadn’t heard of the fast diet and thought that it was coincidence. My first urine culture test showed multiple growth of bacteria, second test showed no bacteria. I found that with the fast diet you pee a lot more anyway and this has to be a good thing particularly with a UTI. There still seems to be no known link for how a few of us suffer at the start of the diet. Is it coincidence or not? What I do know is it didn’t stop me and I lost half a stone in eight weeks and am now on the maintenance plan. I would say keep going, but get checked out by your GP just in case there are other problems. An added bonus was that I got my GP to check my cholesterol and it went down from 6.3 to 5.2 in eight weeks ! Hooray.The diet is worth it, keep going.
I sent away for and received the D-Mannose powder etc. but haven’t had to take it yet, hopefully never, as my infections haven’t returned. Interestingly I finally went to the doctor for antibiotics but on the 5th pill I developed a raging allergy so had to research the internet for a natural cure for the thrush that also developed. I applied white vinegar and also scrubbed my mouth, teeth and tongue with it as well. Sure it stung but the results were nothing short of miraculous.
I am still on the diet and have lost 8kg in 13 weeks which I am very thrilled about. Maybe, I reason, that the fasting flushes toxins and pathogens out of the body in a cleanse and the infections already exist in the body in a dormant state until expelled. (theory!?!) My cholesterol went down also but only by 0.6 which is okay but not enough to please my doctor however I am not focussing on the cholesterol but on being healthy and well. The diet is worth it and has becomes its own motivation.
I started fasting 28 days ago, and have lost 24 pounds. I am fasting 16 hours a day, with an eating window of 8 hours; everyday. I have UTI which started on almost the 3rd week.
Here is my Theory:
☞ Dues to some of you having thrush etc. This seems to be “candida”, which is a yeast.
☞ It is stored in the fat.
☞ As we are flushing other toxins, this one makes it to our bladder.
☞ These Bacteria cannot cling to the bladder & urethral walls when sugar is present.
☞ Lack of sugar, coupled with the release of these bacteria from fat is logically causing this.
ANSWER:
☞ Eat your daily amount of sugar that you need.
SOLUTION:
I fast once a month and have felt a slight burning sensation in my bladder area and sometimes accompanied with a vaginal burn or itch.
The book “You don’t have to live with Cystitis” gave me the idea to balance the bladder’s PH by drinking a glass of water with 1/2 tsp baking soda mixed in. Even by itself, this helps with the first sensations of a UTI. Whenever possible I also take 3-4 cranberry pills from Costco.
For the vaginal burn or itch I apply acidophilus. Either a plain yogurt “popsicle” made in an empty tampon applicator (insert like a tampon), or making a paste with a few drops of water and the powder of an acidophilus capsule (insert the pieces of paste where it itches). This has helped me many times. The yogurt/acidophilus solution came from the book “Nutritional Healing”.
I began the 5 2 diet at the beginning of May and by the end of the month I had a terrible attack of cystitis. Since then I have not be free from pain,I am on my 6th antibiotic along with painkillers including morphine. My gp referred me to a urologist who is now due to perform a cysoscopy examination. I have been advised to steer clear of juices,carbonated drinks such as coke,citrus fruits and spicy foods. I have been tested for menopause to see if oestrogen levels are low as this can cause cystitis/uti/bladder infections but the results came back negative. The only link I have to this painful condition is the 5 2 diet.
Dear Tina123b,
try waterfall D Mannose a naturally occurring sugar(birch bark) that stops bacteria from attaching to the bladder wall. it is available from Sweetcures. I am never without it. Try and make sure your 5-2 diet is more alkaline and lemon juice in water is not acidic; it has an alkaline effect on body; lots and lots of fresh vegetables and at least 2 litres of water a day. Avoid unripe fruit since this will ferment in stomach.
Good Luck
I am coming to the conclusion that fasting including 5:2 can cause the akaline/acid balance in your body to get out of whack, and that what I thought is a bladder infection is just an imbalance because I am too acidic at the moment. Trying to counteract this with magnesium suppliments and baking soda solutions. will keep the post posted 🙂 on results. Antibiotics might just not be necessary.
Can anyone provide updates? I am on a daily intermittent fast of 16:8 or 18:6 and was going to work up to 20:4 but I have interstitial cystitis (painful bladder syndrome) so the bladder lining is compromised. Ketones can irritate the bladder. I am trying to add baking soda to water to see if it helps, as I would really love to continue with fasting. Tx
Interesting topic. I am on antibiotics right now for a bladder/UTI infection. I rarely get them. I have been on the 5:2 since May 10, 2017.
I don’t really associate it with fasting and it started 3 days after a FD. I take magnesium every morning and night and have been for a long time. I’ll try some baking soda in water and cranberry juice. I always drink lots of fluids during the day.
Some interesting info from the web re acid in foods and cranberry juice:
“Cranberry juice is useful in preventing urinary tract infections because cranberries contain proanthocyanidins, or PACs, which prevent bacteria — including E. coli, the bacteria responsible for up to 90 percent of urinary tract infections — from adhering to and infecting the urinary tract. Adding sugar to cranberry juice cuts its acidity by increasing its pH value because the pH of refined sugar is much less acidic than that of cranberry juice. However, adding sugar to cranberry juice makes the juice highly acid-forming in the body because sugar is highly acidifying. Instead, cut the acidity in cranberry juice with unsweetened apple cider or unsweetened apple juice, both of which are alkaline-forming.” From: http://getfit.jillianmichaels.com/cranberry-juice-acidic-alkaline-2061.html
Also, this link: http://www.regenerate-wellness.com/alkalineacidicfood.html
More links: http://www.prevention.com/health/foods-fight-uti
Foods That Fight UTIs
By AVIVA PATZ JULY 10, 2015
If you’re susceptible to urinary tract infections (UTIs), you may want to tweak your diet. And yes, this goes way beyond drinking cranberry juice.
In a new study in The Journal of Biological Chemistry, scientists from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that the foods we eat—or rather, the small molecules created when we digest food—as well as the acidity of our urine, influence how well bacteria can or cannot grow in our urinary tracts. And while conventional wisdom has held that more acidic urine is less hospitable to bacteria, this study turns that idea on its head. (Are your hormones throwing your body out of whack? Find for simple resolutions with the Hormone Reset Diet.)
“We didn’t set out to link diet to urinary tract infections at all,” says study author Jeffrey Henderson, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine and molecular microbiology at the Washington University School of Medicine. “We were looking at immune response—how the body naturally fights infections.” Their goal was to learn how the body kills a strain of bacteria called Escherichia coli (E. coli), the most common cause of urinary tract infections (UTIs), since wide use of antibiotics is contributing to bacterial resistance. In the last 10 to 15 years alone, Henderson has seen a jump in UTIs that are resistant to antibiotics.
The team collected urine samples from healthy volunteers and cultured them with E. coli to see if there were differences in how well they tamped down bacteria. “Your body makes a protein called siderocalin that is known to control bacterial growth, and it shows up in the urine of people with UTIs, like the body’s first responders,” Henderson explains. The researchers then looked to see if levels of this protein functioned differently across the individual urine samples—and indeed, there were surprisingly large differences.
Further sleuthing uncovered two main reasons why some people’s urine showed greater bacteria-fighting power: (1) Certain compounds from their diet—either directly from the foods they eat or as byproducts of digestion—help siderocalin do its job, which is to deprive bacteria of iron, a mineral it needs to grow. “Siderocalin uses these dietary compounds as molecular grips to bind to iron and keep it away from the bacteria,” Henderson says. “If you can keep iron away from the bacteria, you prevent it from growing.” (2) Their urine had a higher pH, meaning it was closer to neutral, almost like water. According to Henderson, the protein binds to iron far more effectively when the urine is at a higher pH.
So What Should You Eat?
Which nutrients can help deploy the body’s first responders to stop a urinary tract infection in its tracks? Henderson’s research points to polyphenols, a type of antioxidant. And while generally antioxidants work by scavenging free radicals in the body to prevent them from causing cell damage, polyphenols work a different way here. They’re actually converted in the gut into those dietary compounds that help bind iron in the urine, keeping it from fueling bacterial growth.
Here are the top sources of polyphenols that may help prevent your next urinary tract infection: unsweetened cranberry juice, blueberries or blueberry juice, coffee (decaf is fine), black tea, and dark chocolate?
You can also try unsweetened yogurt, which nourishes your beneficial gut bacteria so that they can help process the foods you eat into more of those bacteria-busting compounds.
What not to eat? Glad you asked. Foods and beverages that lower your urinary pH are going to work against you. That includes a diet high in animal protein, phosphoric-acid containing beverages, such as sodas, and large doses of vitamin C, which you might get from a supplement.
You’ll also want to avoid unnecessary antibiotics. “It may take down a component of your immune system, making you more likely to get an infection down the line,” Henderson says.
Tags: FOOD CURESGYNECOLOGICAL HEALTHNEWS
Thanks for the posts. I fear that some people in this thread are mistaking their bladder pain for a UTI when they actually may have interstitial cystitis and the ketones from being in a fasted state are creating more uric acid which is irritating the bladder lining. The way you might tell if it is this or an actual UTI is if bicarb soda in water relieves the symptoms. if it does than your bladder wall is sensitive/damaged and it is not necessarily a UTI. Especially for those that have had multiple rounds of antibiotics with no relief after treatment.
mimsy67, I have an update: I was eventually diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis. The culprit that causes my irritated bladder are oranges/mandarins/clementines etc.If I eat any of these or drink their juice then I have dreadful symptoms about 3 hours later and the severe irritation lasts about a week. I have visible blood in my urine but no bacterial growth during these spells. If something sneaks into my diet and I feel a reaction coming on, I try to take antihistamines and this usually makes the episode a lot more bearable. I would suggest that anyone who has non bacterial UTI looks at Interstitial Cystitis websites for potential culprits for bladder irritation. More recently I tried a dairy free diet and found that increased use of Soy products also made my bladder flair up. Cutting that out settled things down again. I haven’t done the 5:2 diet for a couple of years now but your post (re the ketones irritating the lining) makes sense now. Thanks for the info.
CalifDreamer. Yes thanks. I am VERY familiar 😉 with IC and UTIs and the differences. I have had IC for almost 5 years. But reading through this thread (and others on low carb, intermittent fasting, and fasting forums, I strongly suspected some people
Pippin glad your IC is under control. Thanks for posting! Mine usually is too and I have been doing some 16:8 fasting as was trying to do longer fasts to lose a few pounds. I love the fasting lifestyle but my bladder does NOT. I think I can get away with skipping breakfast, but the longer i am fasted, probably the more ketones are released. They seem to produce more uric acid and so for sensitive bladders this is not good. I plan to experiment a little bit more to see if I can get away with 16:8 fast and an occasional longer fast
Pippin, do you think that fasting triggered your IC?? or did you have bladder issues before?
Mimsy, I always thought it was triggered by the 5:2 diet as I had never had bladder problems before. As said in my first few posts, the symptoms came on at the same time with each fast and lasted the same amount of time but there was nothing to link IC to the fast diet. However, your explanation about ketones seems to make sense. I am back at the stage where I need to lose 5 or 6 lbs again and wondered how best to do this now. What is you 16:8 regime? Fasting for 16 hours and then eating small quantities in the other 8? Does it work as I would like to try something.
Hi Pippin!
Shorter fasts might be gentler for you. But with daily fasting it has to work with your lifestyle and your body. So it is very different for each person. For a perimenopausal or menopausal woman, a few 20:4 fasts per week seem to be the sweet spot. But I started having bladder sensitivity at 18 hours of fasting. I have done some research and Alkaline water during fasting is recommended to neutralize uric acid. I highly, highly recommend you go to YouTube and find DyAnn Parham’s discussions of Intermittent Fasting for women. I think you will really like her. Intermittent fasting is NOT a diet, so, no, you do NOT have to restrict calories during your feeding window. You need to have a window where you do not eat, and the window is different for each person. If you work with Dy Ann she helps you find your own personal sweet spot. Restricting calories only lowers your basal metabolic rate over time. Limiting your eating window is the key. Look at Dr. Jason Fung’s work too. But Dy Ann has a lot of free info on YouTube.
mimsy67, perhaps alkaline water would be helpful in preventing a UTI as well. Although a UTI is bacterial, it seems like something had to trigger it although it was 3 days after my last FD. I tried drinking baking soda in water last night (NFD) for the light lingering symptoms and it didn’t help. But maybe if I had tried it on a fast day it could have helped prevent it? Maybe I’m just over thinking it.
CalifDreamer i think it best to drink the alkaline water during the fasted state, yes, when the ketones are being produced. I am going to try to drink it throughout the day. By the end of the day it seems too late. Evening is the worst.
Have you had a positive bacterial culture as seen in a lab to diagnose your UTI? if it was a UTI d-mannose should help. If it was not a UTI then your bladder lining is inflamed and certain things may bother it.
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