Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

1

Every time I go into ketosis for more than I a week or two, my bladder gets irritated and I experience UTI-like symptoms. The last time I experienced this in ketosis, I ended up doing a round of antibiotics (big mistake), seeing a urologist, and getting my kidneys checked via ultrasound. The antibiotics didn't cure the discomfort, the urologist couldn't even find bacteria in my urine, and my kidneys checked out fine. The only thing that finally helped was when I discontinued my all meat and fat diet and took a month off from tea. I suspect that my bladder is just getting irritated by the ketones. Has anyone else experienced this? Any idea how to treat this?

flag	asked Nov 8 2011 at 1:23 Olga 1,926●2●15●35

3

Not to sound like a smartass, but it seems to me the obvious way to treat this would be to stop going into ketosis and start eating more (paleo) carbs. Not everyone does well on a VLC diet. – Kewpie Nov 8 2011 at 1:28

If she wants to do VLC, at least go into it gradually. – Bread-Eating Beelzebub Nov 8 2011 at 1:34

1

Kewpie, that's like the bad doctor jokes of the form: Patient: "Doctor it hurts when I do X!" Doctor: "Then don't do X." – Ambimorph Nov 8 2011 at 1:35

Ambimorph · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-08 01:30:57Z UTC

3

It sounds like simply dehydration to me. Ketosis has a diuretic effect, and it's important to get enough fluids. Have you tried just drinking more?

answered Nov 8 2011 at 1:30

Ambimorph
19.6k●18●66

1

This is exactly what happens to me - I don't drink a ton of water and if I'm pretty deep into Ketosis I get an irritated bladder from dehydration. – none Nov 8 2011 at 4:30

You both were absolutely right! I didn't realize that I was dehydrated because of the diuretic effect, which I thought meant I had plenty of water in my system. The UTI symptoms have 99% gone away. Thanks so much for the advice! – Olga Nov 12 2011 at 14:35

I'm so glad, Olga! – Ambimorph Nov 12 2011 at 16:08

Mandy · Answer 2 · 2012-06-07 14:59:22Z UTC

It sounds like you may have Interstitial Cystitis. I have it, and going into ketosis always causes it to flare up. You may want to talk to a urologist about it--preferably a gyno-urologist or a doctor who specializes in IC. It's not an infection if the doctor didn't find bacteria.

henny · Answer 3 · 2011-11-08 05:28:42Z UTC

3

The best advice I ever got for UTI's was "drown the little buggers", which translates to "drink lots of water and don't let them get started".

answered Nov 8 2011 at 5:28

henny

Bread-Eating Beelzebub · Answer 4 · 2011-11-08 01:27:43Z UTC

I've had this before to. I think the Perfect Health Diet theory jives with my experience:

Low-carb diets, alas, impair immunity to fungal and protozoal infections. The immune defense against these infections is glucose-dependent (as it relies on production of reactive oxygen species using glucose) and thyroid hormone-dependent (as thyroid hormone drives not only glucose availability, but also the availability of iodine for the myeloperoxidase pathway). Thus, anti-fungal immunity is downregulated on very low-carb diets.

It's annoying because I once though ketogenic diets solved UTIs/vaginal yeast infections. But every winter I have to be careful going into my winter diet by reducing carbs gradually or I will get one or both.

Ketosis and UTI-like symptoms

4 Answers