Using Honey still got a UTI

Hi Bobby,

I’m sorry to hear you’re dealing with UTI. We can only talk about this subject in very general terms.

The microbiology of the body is extremely complex and I doubt anyone - scientists, herbalists, doctors, naturopaths - could describe it precisely.

I have been asked over and over how long does it take for vaginal honey to “work”.

The answer is, I really don’t know. However, nature gives us clues based on other natural systems.

The most obvious is making sourdough bread. If you put a bowl of flour and water in a warm place in your kitchen, feed it a 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of warm water morning and night, in seven days you will have Lactobacillus-rich sourdough starter.

It seems plausible that the vagina/bladder would culture within a similar time period. However, there must be a multitude of other factors that come into play.

I can only assume you have been previously treated with antibiotics, “yeast tablets”, and “antifungal creme” if you’ve been susceptible to UTI.

Just like you are experiencing now, with antibiotics most of the pathogens are killed and your symptoms improve. However, those microbes hanging out in skin folds and crevices are able to avoid the antibiotic and have probably been morphing into species with greater and greater resistance to the drugs.

E.coli is a perfect example. Virtually all older women have E.coli in their bladders, which do not produce symptoms because their immune systems do not react to the bacteria. However, at least one strain of E.coli has become a very pathogenic “superbug” that easily ascends into the ureters and kidneys.

Researchers tell us that some people who have spent years culturing sulfur-reducing species of bacteria in their gut by eating high meat, low complex-carbohydrate diets are having great problems healing inflammatory bowel disease. It seems that simply changing the diet is not curative and its not clear at this point whether there is a cure. I don’t know whether something similar could happen in the bladder after rounds of antibiotic treatment.

You say you are using a “little dab” of honey once a day. Is that enough and are you putting it high in the vagina where it can be cultured? Why are you using Manuka honey instead of something more local (if you are not in Australia)?

If it were me I would look very closely at my diet. Migration of species from the bowel must still be a factor in the older woman, regardless of honey application. I have verified for myself that drinking strong tea in the afternoon causes vulva-burning/itching - I believe because it somehow makes my fluids more alkaline and therefore susceptible to candida. Does your diet include a high percentage of prebiotics to feed beneficial species? Do you make your own fermented foods? Are you careful to avoid sugar?

How about putting citric acid in your bath water? I never bathe without acidifying the water, which helps my entire skin stay healthy and free of fungal species. Before doing this I was plagued with “contact dermatitis” from washing dishes, which I’m now convinced was just a matter of soap and chlorine alkalizing my skin and making it more susceptible to fungus.

Working with the microbial ecosystems of the body requires a completely different mindset from what we were raised with in this culture. The body is a garden, with berry patches here and corn rows there. You wouldn’t throw a little fertilizer in one corner and expect the whole garden to thrive.

I have no way of knowing whether vaginal honey will help you. I do know that round after round of antibiotics are causing a cycle of bladder pain and ulceration that all too often ends in cystectomy, or bladder removal.

We all have to become our own Physicians.

Wishing you well,

Christine