HELP - My Gut is Dying (Update)

WBF - How are you doing now? Any improvement with these symptoms?

You can also get yeast/fungal uti which is not tested when they are looking for bacteria. Microgendx is apparently a better test. I was thinking of asking my doctor for it. I’ve struggled with urinary flares ever since 2015 yeast infection followed by bad reaction to monistat 1. I’ve never tested positive for uti and antibiotics actually cause me to flare. Recently tried minocycline for rosacea and by day 7 i was peeing 8x at night with discomfort. I called it quits and it got better. Normally will go 1-2x a night. So something is still underlying.

As a side note - pinworms can also cause a similar thing as they can get in urinary tract.

WBF, have you ever had your pancreatic enzymes tested?

I thought I would post an update here, for my own records as much as for anyone else’s benefit.

After Georgia Hunter responded that Nitrofurantoin usually only kills the undesirable bacteria, I stopped worrying and let it work on my behalf😊. I stopped Natural Calm magnesium supplement all the while I took the abx, as magnesium was to be avoided with this drug.

Normally, I couldn’t move my bowels without the mag citrate, but the abx kept me loose. I continued to have looser to normal BM’s for 6 days after finishing the abx and no mag citrate (longest streak in 5+ years). By the 6th day, I was straining and stool was getting stuck, so I had to get back on mag citrate.

As for the UTI symptoms, the Nitrofurantoin helped but did not completely resolve the issues and symptoms returned when the constipation returned. Then I was given 3 days of Fosfomycin Tromethamine (Monurol).

The Fosfomycin didn’t do much better for the UTI symptoms, only somewhat helpful. However, my bowel function worsened with it.

Then, I started Cystistatin supplement that has Uva Ursi and berberine and Garden of Life Urinary Tract + probiotics. After taking these for over a week, UTI symptoms seem to have stabilized! I still somewhat have frequency but not the pain, thank God! I went through a whole bottle of d-mannose that I started around the same time as the first abx. It did nothing. I read that it only works on E. coli.

So, Cystistatin and possibly the UT probiotic helped the UTI symptoms, while two abx were minimally helpful.

Looking back, I think the Nitrofurantoin actually HELPED my gut by killing off some bad bacteria. However, the science doesn’t seem to support my theory. In fact, I read that Nitrofurantoin “is rapidly absorbed and rapidly excreted renally. Plasma concentrations are very low (<0.6 mg/L),15 but high concentrations of nitrofurantoin (up to 250 mg/L)16,17 have been measured in urine.” I couldn’t find the original source I read, but it indicated that the majority of the drug ends up in the bladder. So, if it’s not going into the gut and excreted via stool, why did it affect my bowels so significantly?

Makes me want to take some more to clean out my gut some more.

Post Edited (WalkingbyFaith) : 2/27/2021 9:41:10 PM (GMT-7)