Urinary tract infections (UTIs) can range from intense pain with sudden onset, a strong sense to urinate while passing only small quantities of urine, which may be bloody or ‘cloudy’ to only mild pain with an underlying urge.
There are many home remedies (i.e. cranberry juice, probiotics, Vitamin C), and you might want to consider a course of antibiotics.
But what if it doesn’t help, or if the UTI keeps coming back (recurrent UTI)?
In Chinese medicine, UTIs typically are considered Heat in the lower part of the body. Pathogenic Heat needs to be cleared with acupuncture and herbs.
And if your UTI is recurrent? In Chinese medicine, any illness that keeps coming back represents a deficiency of the so-called defensive Qi (energy). Due to this deficiency, even mild pathogens manage to invade the body. The focus in these cases will be to mildly clear the Heat (acute problem) and to strengthen the defensive Qi of the body (chronic problem).