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If you feel like you’re peeing flames, you might be dealing with a urinary tract infection (UTI), That’s a pain in the butt urethra as is, but making things doubly annoying is the fact that you have to see a doctor for antibiotics to clear it up—there’s only so much you can do sans prescription to put out the fire. We’d consider that all more reason to learn how to prevent UTIs in the first place.
After all, UTIs—which happen when bacteria wiggle into your urethra (the duct that carries urine from your bladder out of your body) and start multiplying—don’t always cause symptoms, but when they do, they’re incredibly unpleasant. You might experience that classic burning sensation, a need to pee all the time but only being able to expel a little (or none at all) when you try, and pelvic pain. Your pee may go all wonky too: A UTI can cause urine to be cloudy, strong-smelling, or even bloody. The infection can also spread and affect other parts of your urinary tract, including your bladder, ureters (the tubes that connect your kidneys to your bladder), and kidneys. The latter can turn serious fast, bringing on a high fever, nausea, and severe abdominal pain, and may even require hospitalization and an IV antibiotic to treat, Renita White, MD, a board-certified ob-gyn at Georgia Obstetrics & Gynecology, in Atlanta, tells SELF.
So it’s well worth some extra effort on the front end to avoid UTIs—and the complications they can bring. Read on to learn tried-and-true tactics for how to prevent a UTI, plus whether those natural remedies and supplements really work and how to deal if you still wind up stuck in a vicious cycle of recurrent infections.
1. Wipe from front to back when you use the bathroom.This tip makes perfect sense when you consider your anatomy. The opening of your urethra is pretty close to your anus, which may be teeming with gastrointestinal bacteria like E. coli. When you wipe from back to front, you risk carrying that bacteria to your urethra, where it can cause an infection, G. Thomas Ruiz, MD, an ob-gyn at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California, tells SELF. Wiping from front to back doesn’t totally eliminate the risk that infection-causing bacteria will make their way to your urethra, but it definitely lowers it.
2. Don’t hold your pee for hours when you need to go.It can be annoying to stop whatever you’re doing and find a bathroom, but you really shouldn’t ignore your body’s go-pee-now messages. When pee hangs out in your bladder for too long, it gives bacteria a chance to grow and potentially cause an infection. “By emptying the bladder as completely as possible, you are washing out any bacteria that might have been ‘pushed’ into the lower urinary tract,” David Kaufman, MD, director of Central Park Urology, a division of Maiden Lane Medical, tells SELF.
3. Pee after having sex.The mechanics of sex, however great it may be, can make a UTI more likely. All the movement and friction can jostle around the bacteria down there, shifting some of it from around your vagina or anus into your urethra. Folks with a vagina also have shorter urethras than people with a penis, Dr. White says, making it even easier for bacteria near the entrance to climb up into the bladder and trigger an infection there. It’s the reason why peeing after sex is sage advice. It can help flush out any bacteria that may have wrongly made its way into your urethra and ward off any issues, Dr. Kaufman says.
But what if you really have to pee before sex and then you don’t have much in your system when you’re done? Dr. Kaufman recommends drinking water to try to refill your bladder. The whole goal is to be able to pee “like a fire hose” to push out any bacteria, he says.
4. Don’t use anything scented on any part of your sexual anatomy.Scented powders, washes, and period products like pads could irritate your urethra, increasing your susceptibility to a UTI, Tanaka Dune, MD, a board-certified urogynecologist who works internationally, tells SELF. Not to mention, these fragranced personal-care products can screw with your vaginal pH (a measure of how acidic it is), throwing off the delicate balance of bacteria therein and allowing for overgrowth of the bugs that can cause a yeast infection or bacterial vaginosis (BV)—neither of which you want either.
As a reminder, vaginas are supposed to have a slight odor…and not one of daisies or roses or anything else you’d find in a perfume. To that end, you should also avoid using any body wash or other “hygiene” products internally. Not only is this unnecessary (your vagina takes care of cleaning itself by regularly expelling fluid and cells via discharge), but also it can mess with your pH and up your risk for the vaginal infections noted above. You can clean your vulva (the external parts), on the other hand, with plain ol’ water or, at most, a mild, fragrance-free soap.
5. Drink plenty of water.It’s not that water itself has magical UTI-busting properties. (If only.) It’s more about filling your bladder so that you can pee often and regularly flush out any bacteria in your urinary tract before an infection can set in, Dr. Kaufman says.
You don’t need to guzzle so much water that you feel uncomfortable. The eight-cups-a-day rule is actually a myth—how much is optimal for you depends on things like your activity level and the climate where you live. But as a benchmark, you’ll want to aim for 11.5 cups of fluids per day, including from beverages other than water and from foods. (For more intel, check out our full guide on how much water you should drink every day.)
6. Reconsider your birth control method.A couple things you’ll want to avoid if you’re trying to ward off UTIs: unlubricated and spermicide-treated condoms. Both items can irritate your vagina, which can cause pH changes that may promote the growth of bad bacteria, Dr. Dune says. These bugs can then make their way to the opening of your urethra and cause a UTI, she explains.
Diaphragms, or dome-shaped cups you insert into your vagina before sex to prevent pregnancy, can also increase your UTI risk. According to Dr. Kaufman, the ring of the diaphragm can put internal pressure on your urethra and even partially obstruct it. (This is more likely if the diaphragm doesn’t fit you properly.) Since you’re supposed to leave the diaphragm in for at least six hours after sex, that sustained pressure might make it harder to totally empty your bladder in those hours post coitus, allowing bacteria to stick around and possibly cause an infection. Plus, experts encourage using spermicide with a diaphragm to raise this contraception’s efficacy, which can cause the aforementioned irritation issues.
So…what about cranberry juice or supplements to help ward off UTIs?You’ve probably heard at some point that drinking 100% cranberry juice or taking cranberry supplements can help stave off a UTI. You also may have heard that this whole concept is BS.
Initially, experts thought that the acidity in cranberries could help kill off bacteria that makes its way into your bladder. Once that was refuted, others raised the possibility that an active ingredient in cranberry juice and supplements—A-type proanthocyanidins—could help keep bacteria from sticking to your bladder wall. In reality, it’s not totally clear how cranberries may have protective benefits against UTIs, though a couple recent reviews of studies on the topic suggest there are potential upsides, particularly in liquid form (likely due in part to the added hydration benefit) and for folks with recurrent UTIs. But these findings are generally only supported with “low to moderate certainty,” and researchers point to the need for additional well-designed trials to confirm them.
Hence why you’ll see varying recommendations from medical orgs. For example, the Mayo Clinic still recommends drinking cranberry juice as a way to prevent UTIs, while the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases doesn’t.
If you’re still tempted to try out cranberries for UTI prevention, talk to your doctor first. Drinking cranberry juice may cause an upset stomach or diarrhea (or just be hard to handle taste-wise, since you’d be going for the tart 100% stuff). You also shouldn’t drink cranberry juice if you’re on a blood-thinning medication like warfarin, since it may interfere with the drug’s ability to work. Additionally, keep in mind that cranberry supplements—like any supplements, for that matter—aren’t regulated by the FDA, so it’s tough to know with total certainty what you’re getting.
The same lack of regulation applies to other supplements commonly marketed for UTI prevention, like probiotics and D-mannose (a type of sugar found in many fruits). For years, it was unclear whether consuming probiotics (a.k.a. healthy strains of bacteria) could do anything to ward off UTIs—though the idea of helping populate your vaginal microbiome with the good guys seemed like it had credence. A 2024 study found that taking probiotics containing Lactobacillus (either vaginally or both vaginally and orally) may indeed help prevent UTIs in people with a history of recurrent ones. But as with cranberry supplements, you’ll want to talk to your doctor before adding any probiotic to your routine, again given the fact that these supplements are not FDA-regulated. D-mannose, by contrast, is unlikely to have much benefit; it’s thought that it might keep bacteria from sticking to your bladder, but there’s scant clinical evidence that it actually helps prevent UTIs.
Even if you’re doing everything right, there are a few reasons why you might still wind up with repeat UTIs.Much like with recurrent yeast infections and recurrent BV, plenty of the risk factors for repeat UTIs aren’t exactly things you can control—meaning you could get stuck with infections no matter what preventive measures you’re taking.
For starters, some people might just be genetically predisposed, based on the way bacteria can latch onto their cells or how their immune system functions. Speaking of, having an autoimmune condition or being immunocompromised for any reason could make you more prone to getting any kind of infection, UTIs included, Dr. White says. “Your body may just have a harder time clearing even a small amount of bad bacteria,” she explains. People with less-than-usual amounts of vaginal estrogen—whether due to menopause, breastfeeding, or using certain types of birth control—may also get walloped with repeat UTIs because of how a dip in estrogen can alter the levels of good and bad bacteria in your vagina, Dr. White says.
Some aspects of just having a vagina might be in play here too. As mentioned, the anatomical setup of folks with a vagina makes it easy for bacteria to migrate from the anus into the urethra and upward—and perhaps your anatomy especially facilitates this movement. For that reason and others we still don’t understand, certain people will get a UTI every single time they have sex, even if they diligently pee afterward, Dr. White says. By a similar token, it’s possible that having a heavy period requires you to frequently change menstrual products or leads you to do some extra cleaning down there, either of which can inadvertently throw off your bacterial balance and increase your UTI risk, Dr. White adds.
If you’re dealing with frequent UTIs, it’s important to see your doctor.A medical professional like an ob-gyn can help you sift through all the potential risk factors and figure out what’s at the root of your particular UTI onslaught—and what to do about it.
Dr. White’s first step would be to make sure UTIs are actually to blame for your recurrent symptoms using a urine culture, or a test that checks the microbes in your pee. The reason? Plenty of other conditions like pelvic floor dysfunction, interstitial cystitis (a.k.a. painful bladder syndrome), and yeast infections can be easy to confuse with UTIs.
There’s also the possibility that what you think is a series of UTIs is actually just the same infection that’s only getting partially resolved with the antibiotics you’re taking before rearing its head again. To check for this scenario, Dr. White would prescribe the usual antibiotic (typically Macrobid or Bactrim) and then have you come back after finishing the course to get another urine test. If she could still spot evidence of infection, that would be an indication that the strain of bacteria causing your problem is resistant to the meds you’re taking—and you need a different or more powerful antibiotic to fully squash it.
Particularly gnarly cases of recurrence might require taking a preventive low-dose antibiotic daily for up to six months. But because doing so can actually increase your risk of winding up with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, some docs will suggest just taking the drugs each time you have sex or whenever you suspect a UTI is coming on. You might also get some relief via topical estrogen if low levels of this hormone are making you extra-susceptible.
And if nothing seems to be helping? Your primary care doctor or ob-gyn can also refer you to a specialist like a urologist or urogynecologist who can assess whether something bigger might be going on, Dr. White says. It’s unlikely, but perhaps you have an abnormality in your urinary tract like a bladder stone that’s setting you up for constant infections, she points out. Ultimately, the sooner you pay your doctor a visit, the quicker you can get to the bottom of what’s going on and help your bladder or urethra chill out, for good.
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Can You Have Sex With a UTI?Why Does It Burn When I Pee After Sex?11 Possible Reasons You’re Peeing All the TimeGet more of SELF’s great service journalism delivered right to your inbox.
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