Wendy (Columbus, OH) on 02/20/2019:

Over many years, I've been prescribed Cipro for recurring urinary tract infections (UTIs).

Five years ago, I tore my left hamstring simply taking one step from my porch into my home! It has never completely healed, although doing leg exercises has strengthened the surrounding muscles in my leg. Then, @2 years ago, the hamstring area directly behind my left knee "popped" again by just taking a small step up into a restaurant. My nutritionist back then let me know about the debilitating side effects of these particular antibiotics.

Recently, since my kidney transplant 3 years ago, and since my immune system is compromised due to the immuno-suppressants, I've been getting the monthly UTIs again. Docs put me on 3 different antibiotics over these past months, including Cipro, to stop the infection. However, after each 10-day course, I'd get another infection 4 days later! Turns out I had the klebsilla pneumoniae super-bug (most likely in my digestive tract/intestines), which is NOT killed off by the antibiotics, thus causing and allowing (IMHO) the UTIs to recur! I then did my research, and discovered the essential oil, Oil of Oregano, which is purported to kill off the super-bug.

I started taking it regularly and for the past 3 months have not had another UTI. Now, when I initially had a urinalysis done the superbug count (the klebsilla pneumoniae) was greater than 100,000!

Since then, I've had very minor UTI symptoms (I can spot them a mile away!), and each time have requested a urinalysis & culture only to find out that the results are clean. I attribute these current mild symptoms to "cheating" with sugar and "bad" carbs (for me, it's breads, pastas, ice-cream, caffeine, etc.).

Once I cleaned up my diet, and added the D-Mannose/Cranberry supplement (found at WF), I've had no symptoms whatsoever.

Also, anyone else suffering from recurrent UTIs, super-bugs, etc., please do your research and meet with a qualified health professional, including functional medicine professionals, keeping your primary doc in the loop! You need to be very careful ingesting/using new homeopathic remedies because everyone is different, and these remedies could affect different people differently!

Also, per the Oil of Oregano instructions, do not take it (capsule form or liquid form) longer than 2 weeks at a time, which is what I did. I took it for 2 weeks, then took a 1-2 week break, then only took it again for another 2 weeks IF I still had symptoms. Of course you really need to get both a urinalysis AND culture done (ordered by your doctor) to confirm exactly what bug you have.