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I could really do with some advice, please help...
Hi everyone,
First off, I'm not sure I suffer from IC as my symptoms are much milder than everyone's on this board. I do, however, suffer from what I can only assume is recurrent cystitis which is driving me absolutely crazy. I hope someone will be able to take the time to read my long winded ramble below and give me some advice, although I know compared to everybody else here my condition isn't bad at all.
I'm 22 and I develop cystitis-like symptoms every pretty much without fail every time I have two or three days of sex. I never get cystitis apart from after sex and the sex itself isn't painful, just the aftermath.
I've been with my boyfriend for three years and have never slept with anybody else. It's a long distance relationship and when I first met him I wasn't working full time so I'd go up for perhaps a week at a time. We'd have sex every day, weren't overly stringent with cleaning, and I never had a hint of cystitis.
One visit, he had epididymitis, a condition he'd had every so often for a few years. We had sex anyway and that, as I remember, was the first time I got cystitis-like symptoms. They weren't that bad - I had an uncomfortable burning sensation in my urinary tract and urinary urgency although my bladder wasn't very full. I drank a lot of water and the symptoms vanished after a couple of hours.
Since then, the incidents of cystitis having been increasing. I now work full time so can only go to see him at the occasional weekend and I develop symptoms normally as I'm returning home. For a while they were very bad. I'd be in extreme discomfort (not exactly what I'd call 'pain', although it did hurt, but just this feeling of intense discomfort which for me is worse than pain), have urinary urgency, and on a couple of occasions blood and bits of skin in my urine. Antibiotics always helped very quickly. On less serious attacks I could luckily get away with just having a short course of those cystitis sachets from Boots and drinking a lot of water, and the symptoms would subside after a couple of days.
Lately the attacks haven't been so bad and are back to lasting just a few hours so long as I do nothing to exacerbate the situation. My boyfriend and I now wash carefully before and after sex with specially formulated washes (Nirena), I take cranberry tablets every day, I try to urinate straight after sex, all the normal things. But although the infections seem milder at the moment I still can't stop them from occurring no matter what I do. The sensations always feel to me to be around the entrance to my urethra and the urethral tract, not my actual bladder. I may be mistaken on this though.
My boyfriend and I plan to move in together soon and I'm so afraid that when we're together for longer periods and have more sex then the infection will really flare up and damage my bladder and possibly lead on to IC.
My boyfriend has also recently discovered that epididymitis can hang around even when no inflammation and pain is present unless an aggressive course of antibiotics is taken (which is what he's going to do). Do you think, therefore, I could have been developing cystitis due to infection in him being passed to me? It does seem strange that we are prone to these similar infections. He does a lot of weight lifting which I know is bad for epididymitis.
Also, do you think I could have the cystitis infection latent in me the whole time and sex makes it flare up and maybe I should go on a long course of antibiotics too to try to get rid of it once and for all?
Any sort of advice would be greatly appreciated. Again, I know that this sounds so tame compared to what you guys have to deal with but it really is making me depressed and anxious and I can't properly enjoy sex because cystitis is always on my mind.
Thank you!
Jenny
First off, I'm not sure I suffer from IC as my symptoms are much milder than everyone's on this board. I do, however, suffer from what I can only assume is recurrent cystitis which is driving me absolutely crazy. I hope someone will be able to take the time to read my long winded ramble below and give me some advice, although I know compared to everybody else here my condition isn't bad at all.
I'm 22 and I develop cystitis-like symptoms every pretty much without fail every time I have two or three days of sex. I never get cystitis apart from after sex and the sex itself isn't painful, just the aftermath.
I've been with my boyfriend for three years and have never slept with anybody else. It's a long distance relationship and when I first met him I wasn't working full time so I'd go up for perhaps a week at a time. We'd have sex every day, weren't overly stringent with cleaning, and I never had a hint of cystitis.
One visit, he had epididymitis, a condition he'd had every so often for a few years. We had sex anyway and that, as I remember, was the first time I got cystitis-like symptoms. They weren't that bad - I had an uncomfortable burning sensation in my urinary tract and urinary urgency although my bladder wasn't very full. I drank a lot of water and the symptoms vanished after a couple of hours.
Since then, the incidents of cystitis having been increasing. I now work full time so can only go to see him at the occasional weekend and I develop symptoms normally as I'm returning home. For a while they were very bad. I'd be in extreme discomfort (not exactly what I'd call 'pain', although it did hurt, but just this feeling of intense discomfort which for me is worse than pain), have urinary urgency, and on a couple of occasions blood and bits of skin in my urine. Antibiotics always helped very quickly. On less serious attacks I could luckily get away with just having a short course of those cystitis sachets from Boots and drinking a lot of water, and the symptoms would subside after a couple of days.
Lately the attacks haven't been so bad and are back to lasting just a few hours so long as I do nothing to exacerbate the situation. My boyfriend and I now wash carefully before and after sex with specially formulated washes (Nirena), I take cranberry tablets every day, I try to urinate straight after sex, all the normal things. But although the infections seem milder at the moment I still can't stop them from occurring no matter what I do. The sensations always feel to me to be around the entrance to my urethra and the urethral tract, not my actual bladder. I may be mistaken on this though.
My boyfriend and I plan to move in together soon and I'm so afraid that when we're together for longer periods and have more sex then the infection will really flare up and damage my bladder and possibly lead on to IC.
My boyfriend has also recently discovered that epididymitis can hang around even when no inflammation and pain is present unless an aggressive course of antibiotics is taken (which is what he's going to do). Do you think, therefore, I could have been developing cystitis due to infection in him being passed to me? It does seem strange that we are prone to these similar infections. He does a lot of weight lifting which I know is bad for epididymitis.
Also, do you think I could have the cystitis infection latent in me the whole time and sex makes it flare up and maybe I should go on a long course of antibiotics too to try to get rid of it once and for all?
Any sort of advice would be greatly appreciated. Again, I know that this sounds so tame compared to what you guys have to deal with but it really is making me depressed and anxious and I can't properly enjoy sex because cystitis is always on my mind.
Thank you!
Jenny
is the trigger for me, perhaps you may see a pattern and perhaps go a little more gentler in those positions.
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