I wanted to comment here, since I suffered most of my life with recurrent bladder infections. When you listed all the stuff that your daughter is doing, it brought back so many memories of all my own rituals to keep them at bay. Now, on looking back, all were pretty innefectual, with exclusion of the cranberry and CS, which I didn't use then. By the time I reached my 40s I had developed something suprisingly similar to interstitial cystitis or basically weeks a month of irritation that felt just like an infection, but lab tests found no bacteria. It got to the point that I once had to visit the emergency room for a catheter in order to empty my bladder. During that time I had swithched to a vegetarian diet heavy in grains. I also read some disturbing information that indicated that standard treatments for bladder infections (various antibiotics, etc.) may be implicated in later development interstitial cystitis development-but it may just be that chronic infections means something is wrong that is just going to get worse with time. What fixed it for me was eliminating wheat and other grains. I have not had one bladder infection or irritation since. I was a celiac and didn't know it. I recently read an article on interstitial cystitis, a very painful bladder irritation conditon at <http://www.mercola.com/2003/apr/9/bladder.htm>http://www.mercola.com/2003/apr/9/bladder.htm (go to Dr. Mercolas comments at the bottom) where Dr. Mercola commented that the elimination of wheat helped the condition significantly.
Oh REALLY?! Wow, Interesting. I had thought perhaps it was milk products and we kept her off them for a while, but that hasn't seemed to make a difference. Can you tell me if there is a test for Celiac disease?
I'm off to check out that page - thanks! Sharon
Tish
