TheraCran^®

Our standardized, high-potency cranberry supplement formulated to support and to maintain normal urinary tract health.* TheraCran is the only cranberry product that is independently certified by NSF International for proanthocyanidin and other flavonoid content.

(For preferred customer pricing, enter your Provider Referral Code (PRC) on the next page.)

* This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

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Treatment for Urinary Infections

We're sorry to hear you've got a bladder infection. This page contains information that will help you take the necessary steps to get rid of the bladder infection.

Your infection requires a visit to the doctor. Your doctor will ask you for a urine sample, which is used to answer the following three questions:

1. Is there a bacterial infection?
2. Which bacteria is involved?
3. Which antibiotics will be effective against those bacteria?

So what about those home remedies?

The issue is reliability. None of the home remedies have been tested in clinical trials, and so their efficacy has never been proven. Remedies such as drinking lots of water, taking d-mannose supplements, or even drinking cranberry juice have never been shown to cure an existing bladder infection. No cranberry supplement can support a claim to treat or cure an existing bladder infection.

Next Step: Obtaining a urine specimen

You may be asked to give a clean-catch, midstream urine specimen, which avoids contamination of the urine with bacteria from your skin. This involves cleansing the area around the urethral opening and collecting a mid-stream urine sample, preventing bacteria in the genital area from contaminating the sample. Adult women and older girls will need to cleanse the area around their urethral opening gently (but completely) using a sterile wipe or soap and water, and then catch the urine midstream. For some women, catheterization (inserting a tube into the bladder) may be the only way to obtain a sterile, uncontaminated specimen. For men and boys, a sterile specimen can usually be obtained with a midstream catch. Uncircumcised males should retract the foreskin and cleanse the area before urinating. In infants and young children, either catheterization or a needle aspiration method is generally used.

If you cannot produce a urine specimen or are unable to follow instructions for a clean-catch specimen, your healthcare provider will obtain a urine specimen by catheterizing you. This involves briefly inserting a thin, plastic tube (catheter) in your urethra to drain urine from your bladder.

Testing the urine specimen

There are actually two tests that may be done with your urine sample. The first is called a urinalysis; the second is a urine culture.

The urinalysis is usually done right there in the doctor's office, and the result is available within minutes. This test checks the urine for the presence of certain abnormalities like blood cells, sugar and bacteria. While a urinalysis can provide a quick indication if infection is likely, the only definitive test for infection is the urine culture. However, if the urinalysis indicates a probable infection, your doctor will usually start you on an antibiotic.

The urine culture will usually take 2 to 3 days. Your doctor's office sends the urine out to the lab, which then incubates the urine on agar plates to see if bacteria grow. Normally, urine contains no bacteria. If the culture shows the presence of bacteria, sensitivity testing is then done in which several antibiotics are tested against the bacteria to see which ones work—and which ones don't. Occasionally, sensitivity testing may show that the antibiotic your doctor initially gave you (based on the urinalysis findings) is actually NOT effective against the bacteria. If so, your doctor's office may call you to switch you to a different antibiotic.

Treating the Infection

Your doctor will prescribe anywhere from 3 to 10 days of antibiotic treatment. How many days of antibiotic you need depends on type of bacteria, the severity of the infection, and whether or not any complicating factors are present. It is very important to completely eliminate the infection by taking all of your prescribed medication. Incomplete treatment can lead to resistant bacteria that survive and create a worse infection in a few days or weeks.

Follow-up:

Follow-up urinalysis is performed after treatment to make sure that the urinary tract is bacteria free. People recovering from uncomplicated lower urinary tract infections should be seen 7 to 10 days after completing their course of antibiotics. Occasionally, the infection does not go away with the first treatment. If you are being treated for an infection and have any of the following, call your healthcare provider promptly:

• Fever or pain with urination that is not gone after 2 days of antibiotic treatment.
• You cannot keep the medication down or it has severe side effects.
• You are unable to keep foods, fluids, or medication down because of nausea or vomiting.
• You develop signs of kidney involvement (such as flank pain, shaking chills, high fever).
• Your symptoms are worse rather than better after 2 days of antibiotics.

After taking an antibiotic, you may want to take probiotics to replace the good bacteria in your body that are important in immune function. Probiotics should be taken for about a month after any antibiotic treatment, because it takes much longer to rebuild the proper balance of flora in your digestive tract than it does to kill all the bacteria, good and bad.