Sarahd (Spain) on 01/11/2016:

I started with alkalising salts (carbonates of sodium, magnesium and potassium) - quite high doses of around 6-8 teaspoons per day. I also took buffered Vitamin C (sodium ascorbate) - about 20-30g per day in 3-5g doses at a time. This combination kept the pain at bay but it did NOT cure the infection.

So I went out to buy some other remedies including D-Mannose, probiotic and grapefruit seed extract. I took the D-Mannose in high doses (about 800mg x 5) and the probiotic about 400 million cultures x 4 per day). I took the recommended 15 drops grapefruit seed extract about an hour after I'd taken the probiotic and took this 3 times a day.

Nothing really changed but on day 6 I read that clove oil could help so I added 3 drops in a capsule to try out one morning and decided to up the dose of the GSE. This actually seemed to have an effect - the UTI reduced for a few hours but came back with a vengeance later in the day.

Sadly, after 3 days of taking the really high doses of D-Mannose and probiotic I ran out of both although neither seemed to have made any difference to the UTI - it was still quite painful.

However, one thing I realised was that the combination of more GSE and clove oil seemed to have been effective. So now, left with only the alkalising salts, Vitamin C, clove oil and grapefruit seed extract, I decided to go all out for it with the GSE and clove oil! So I upped the dose to an intuited 40 drops about every hour or two and ignored all advice about limiting the clove oil and took 3 drops every 2 hours.

I drank a HUGE amount of water along with the alkalising salts (about 6 litres) but I do drink a lot of water regularly so this was only 2 litres more than I would drink on a summer's day. Anyway at the end of the day, I got a result!

UTI was MUCH better and hardly any pain. I took a load of water to bed and some alkalising salts and another clove oil capsule and when I woke up to pee (too much water! ) I drank the glass with the salts and clove oil. In the morning I almost felt normal.

Today is day 7 and I have drunk about 4 litres of water and taken much less of the alkalising salts as I feel I don't need them. I'm still taking the GSE and clove oil but can tell that I'm healing and should be clear in another day or two. I'd gone from pain of 8 out of 10 to 2 out of 10 in one day (with the extra GSE) and then today I have no pain, just a little feeling in my bladder that is not even discomfort - just that it feels a bit different and tells me I need to keep taking the GSE and clove oil.

The downside of taking so much Vitamin C is that it makes your stomach a bit uncomfortable. The clove oil does not taste that nice and the GSE may taste a bit sour to some but I drink the juice of 4-5 lemons a day anyway so for me it was OK. The upside is that with all the alkalising, Vitamin C and water my skin looks amazing - it's glowing, plumped and I look at least 5 years younger than last week! So good comes out of bad and I will always keep GSE and clove oil just in case, in 5 years time, I get another UTI after Christmas champagne!