Help with UTI/Kideny issue?

Hi Uniquity,

Thanks for replying to my post about Cipro on the UTI forum. I am fully convinced that Cipro is a dangerous poison (my mom actually has a form of fluoride poisoning, but that's another story). I'm trying to solve my urinary tract problems myself naturally, but I've been doing that for years, and I'm still here posting, so something is amiss! You may have read my history in my other posts, but I'll copy and paste it here again, just so you know what I'm dealing with:

For the past 20 years or so, since I was a teenager, I have suffered from UTIs, bladder infections and sometimes kidney infections, like many women. (I think this all started with some sexua| abuse I experienced as a teen, but that's taking it to a deeper level, and not necessarily critical to solving it now.) Anyways, for years I just dutifully went into the doctor every few months and got my prescription of Antibiotics to knock back the infections. After a while I realized that this was not solving the problem, and when I became involved in healthy eating/lifestyle, I learned that Antibiotics are dangerous drugs and didn't want to continue with that pattern.

For the last 5 years or so I've been able to keep the infections away with what I would call hygiene methods: bathing/showering a lot, drinking water and peeing before and after sex, not having tons of sex in the first place, not drinking alcohol much if at all, not using fabric softeners or scented detergents, etc. I've also used d-mannosse and herbs with some success too. But I guess my whole urinary tract is just very susceptible to these problems after all these years, because even using the hygiene methods, I still get irritation a lot. Having sex or even wearing tight jeans often causes me to get a little mini-UTI. However, I can normally solve that with tons of water and d-mannosse and herbs like uva ursi, etc.

For the last 2 years I have not had lots of symptoms except for the usual irritation/tenderness from time to time, and two symptoms which I guess I was ignoring because I didn't know what to make of them: smelly urine and consistent diarrhea. I finally decided to use a home UTI test kit from Walmart, and the result came back positive for nitrites and slightly positive (trace) for leukocytes.

Based on just this information, my doctor told me that I had a kidney infection and should take the Cipro. She never did a urinalysis or any other test herself. Now I am thinking that since I don't have fever or any other signs of a severe infection, perhaps this is just the same old problem I've always had, albeit maybe settled in my kidneys.

So far I've only taken 1 Cipro pill (which I tried to vomit up, lol), and no more. Currently I'm taking a lot of oregano oil, and made a castor oil/oregano oil pack that I slept with all night last night. I'm also taking olive leaf; a kidney bladder herb blend that has juniper, uva ursi and some other herbs; raw garlic; a small amount of Iodine and selenium; apple cider vinegar; lots of probiotics and lots of water. Oh, and eating watermelon. I also read that baking soda helps, but I don't want to neutralize my stomach acid, so I'm not sure about this one.

I know I'm taking a ton of stuff, I'm just kind of desperate at this point! Please let me know if you have any suggestions or if I am leaving anything important out.

Thank you so much,
RB :)