Why does alcohol make cystitis worse?
Alcohol can make cystitis worse by causing dehydration and making your urine more acidic. Alcohol is also a bladder irritant and can cause inflammation. Alcoholic drinks often contain sugar and make us more prone to eating inflammatory, unhealthy foods. This can hamper our immune system and prolong a urinary tract infection (UTI).
5 reasons why alcohol worsens cystitis
Let's take a closer look at why alcohol can make cystitis worse:
1. Alcohol causes dehydration
When you are dehydrated your urine becomes more concentrated, which means it can irritate your burning urinary tract and make the pain of a UTI worse.
It also means that less water can pass through the kidneys, bladder and urinary tract. You may have heard the advice that you should drink lots of water to "flush out" a UTI. The idea is that the water can help to get the infection out by diluting the urine and getting everything moving. If we are dehydrated due to alcohol, the opposite happens. More concentrated urine is irritating to the urinary tract and the bacteria causing the infection also becomes more concentrated. Win-win for your infection!
Hydration is so important for our health, and a study in the JAMA Internal Medicine peer-reviewed medical journal showed that women who drank 1.5 L of water daily in addition to their normal fluid intake had fewer episodes of cystitis and used fewer antibiotics compared to the control group. (1)
2. Alcohol makes your urine more acidic
Alcohol has a double whammy effect of dehydrating you (see above!) and making your urine more acidic, and thus more painful! This happens because the body starts to retain more sodium and more excess acid when we are drinking. One way to make your urine less acidic and more alkaline is to eat lots of greens, reduce sugar intake and, of course, avoid alcohol!
Try a sugar-free cranberry mocktail by simply adding some fizzy water to Biotta's cranberry juice, if you want a treat on a Friday night.
3. Alcohol irritates the bladder
Alcohol is a known bladder irritant. It can cause inflammation in the bladder, which can lead to increased pain. With the urine is already more concentrated and more acidic, the irritation on the inflamed tissue can trigger an infection if you are prone to them, and can certainly make a present infection last longer and feel more painful.
You know when you've had a few drinks and you feel like you need to pee all the time? Your bladder is irritated, not necessarily full, and certainly not hydrated! This gives us a false sense of security: we can hardly be dehydrated - we've been to the ladies' room so many times! When in reality, our bladder is irritated, excreting whatever fluid we have got from the alcohol and in turn making us more dehydrated.
Our urinary system is designed to remove waste from our bodies. And alcohol contains a lot of waste. In fact, it is mostly waste that needs to be expelled when it comes to alcohol, as it doesn't usually contain much nutritional goodness. This puts a lot of pressure on the kidneys and the bladder and can add to the irritation of the already infected and sensitive tissues if you decide to have a drink during an active bladder infection.
Metabolising alcohol also requires B vitamins, so our levels of this vital group of nutrients can become depleted, as can levels of vitamin C, making us more vulnerable to further infections – and making us feel rubbish the next day!
4. Alcohol contains a lot of sugar
Many alcoholic drinks are high in sugar. This can also contribute to alcohol's negative effect when it comes to UTIs.
A diet high in sugar can have harmful effects on your immune system. (2) This means that if you have cystitis, eating a lot of sugar can prolong an infection because your immune system won't be able to work as well to fight off the infection. It also means that if you regularly eat a lot of sugar, you are more likely to get recurrent UTIs.
5. Drinking alcohol can lead to unhealthy food choices
Chipper at the end of a night out, take-away pizza instead of healthy home-cooked dinner following a couple of after-work drinks, churros at 6am if you're partying in Spain! We've all been there! Alcohol helps to get rid of all good sense when it comes to food (and plenty of other things too!).
Eating healthy food when you are sick is often counterintuitive (thanks, comfort food cravings!) but the wonderful healing phytochemicals in fruits, veg and wholegrains is exactly what is needed to support our immune system to kick out infection. The inflammation and digestive powers needed to digest heavy, fatty and sugar-laden food can all prolong an infection and potentially make it worse.
The type of alcohol that is good for a UTI!
Herbal tinctures are alcoholic extracts of medicinal plants and have been used as medicine for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Uva-ursi tincture is a well-recognised treatment for cystitis, and Echinacea tincture can be a great support, especially when these two are taken together. Because there is only a small amount of medicinal alcohol in each dosage, along with wonderful healing phytochemicals, this sort of alcohol is actually very good for cystitis!
The herbal helpers
Uva-ursi, or bearberry, is a traditional herbal remedy for treating UTIs. It's fast-acting and has an antibacterial effect directly in the urinary tract. Unlike antibiotics, it does not trigger thrush.
It is recommended to take Uva-ursi for one week, and symptoms should improve after just 4 days of use. If symptoms do not improve it is important to see your doctor, as a bladder infection can become a kidney infection, which can be quite serious.
Echinacea is a great antibacterial and anti-inflammatory herb which is used to treat many infections. It is well-known as a remedy for colds and flu, but it is also effective in treating urinary tract infections. Its antibacterial properties help to fight the infection, and its anti-inflammatory and immune-supporting properties will help prevent a reoccurrence.
A note on alcoholism
Please note that if you are a recovering alcoholic, or on a recovery journey, it is best to avoid even the small amount of medicinal alcohol found in herbal tinctures. Opt for tablets, teas, juice or powders instead. Cranberry tablets, cranberry juice (make sure there's no added sugar!), Echinacea tablets, Uva ursi tablets or powder, goldenrod tea and D-Mannose tablets may be helpful for you to try instead of herbal tinctures.
If you think you have a problem with alcoholism and can't stop drinking, even when you know it is best to avoid it when you have, or are prone to cystitis, please seek appropriate support from a qualified counsellor or go along to a free Alcoholics Anonymous meeting near you. The 12 step programme is a wonderful resource that millions of people have found life-changing.
