The Battle Continues!

If you've been following my Blog, you know I have been battling chronic UTI's due to severe retention which requires I self-catheterize. Both of these things make me susceptible to infection and I'm on antibiotics as I type this for UTI #14 this year. It's been very frustrating for me, but also for my doctor and his nurse as well. They want to help me, but everything we have tried has failed to prevent me from getting these repeated UTI's.

But what I love about my doctor is his never give up the fight attitude. He is always looking for ways to help me and has never once told me there was nothing more he could do for me - in 11 years he has never given up!

One of my challenges is that I can't take anything for pain; I'm allergic to absolutely everything. But, for me, we have found an instillation cocktail that I love and before all these infections, I was even doing them myself at home. They really help my pain and so I've been going to the doctor to get them since this infection issue came up. So, my doctor's latest recommendation to try to fight off these chronic UTI's is to add Gentamicin to my instillations. Gentamicin belongs to  a class of drugs known as aminoglycoside antibiotics. It works by stopping the growth of bacteria. I just got home from getting my second instillation with the Gentamicin in it. I currently have an infection and I am taking Ampicillin for it, but the doctor wanted me to go ahead with the special cocktail and I am game. I have scheduled a series of instillations over the next few weeks and am hopeful this will break the cycle of infections. The one I have now I got before I began these instilaltions, so I figure this one doesn't count.

So, full speed ahead with this new treatment plan. I am still taking the high dose of Probiotics and plan to keep up with that for the long term. I am willing to try new things and my doctor is always working to find treatments we haven't tried in an effort to help me. I will keep you all posted on how these work. I need to keep self-catheterizing because my retention is so severe, and if I don't, I'll get an infection and doing the cathing can also cause them. So it's like being between a rock and a hard place. But, I won't give up the fight and as the title of this post says, The Battle Continues!

May you all be well, peaceful and happy!