Chronic UTIs made sex so painful it almost destroyed my relationship. Then an exercise regime change and probiotic plan finally ended my agony for good

Hannah Evans was 18 and in her first serious relationship when painful urinary tract infections began to take over her life.

She says almost every time she was intimate with her partner, the same debilitating symptoms would follow – an overwhelming need to empty her bladder and a burning pain so severe that, when she she did, it felt like ‘passing razor blades’.

Before long, the infections were so frequent that Hannah barely seemed to recover from one before the symptoms returned.

Sex became such a reliable trigger that she began to dread it and, eventually, largely avoided it altogether.

‘I was in so much pain that I felt constantly anxious when I was away from my flat,’ says Hannah, now 27 and living in Southampton. ‘When I went to the toilet, it felt like it was on fire.’

Hannah had suffered occasional UTIs since childhood, but says it was only after starting university and becoming sexually active that they became a real problem. At its worst, she says, she was developing symptoms at least once a month.

The constant need to find a bathroom began dictating where she went and what she did. But perhaps the greatest toll was on her relationship.

Sex had become so closely associated with the pain that followed that Hannah began to dread it.

‘It wasn’t an enjoyable thing for me,’ she says. ‘My partner at the time was lovely and he never made me feel guilty about it, but of course I did.

‘At that age, it’s your first relationship and you want to be able to have sex.’

Eventually, the couple largely stopped having sex altogether. Today, though, Hannah is virtually UTI-free – and enjoys a healthy intimate life. 

She credits this transformation not to a new drug or medical treatment, but to a radical overhaul of her diet, exercise and lifestyle.

So could the changes she made really have helped – and could they offer hope to other women plagued by recurrent infections?

UTIs occur when bacteria enter the urinary tract, which includes the bladder, urethra and kidneys. They are particularly common in women because the urethra is shorter than in men, making it easier for bacteria to reach the bladder. 

Around one in ten women experience a UTI each year, and women account for about four in every five cases.

Sex can be a trigger because the activity can move bacteria towards and into the urethra.

Typical symptoms include burning or pain while urinating, needing to urinate more frequently or urgently, cloudy urine and pain in the lower abdomen. More serious infections can cause fever, chills and pain in the back or side and may require urgent treatment.

For years, Hannah says, she repeatedly sought help from her GP and was prescribed ‘countless’ courses of antibiotics.

For most women with a straightforward bacterial UTI, this is the standard treatment – and it usually works. Depending on the drug used, studies suggest antibiotics successfully clear the infection in roughly 80 to 95 per cent of cases.

The problem is that successfully treating one infection does not necessarily stop another from developing.

Around one in four women who suffer a UTI will experience another within six months. Doctors class the problem as recurrent UTI when a patient has at least two infections in six months, or three within a year.

At this point, treatment may need to move beyond simply prescribing another short course of antibiotics each time symptoms appear.

For women whose infections have a clear trigger – alongside sex, these include dehydration and not going to the toilet frequently enough – doctors can prescribe a single preventive antibiotic dose to be taken around the time of intercourse. 

Those with frequent infections may instead be offered a daily low-dose antibiotic for several months, while a urinary antiseptic called methenamine hippurate can also be used to prevent recurrent infections in some patients.

These approaches can dramatically reduce the number of infections while treatment continues. 

But they are not a permanent cure: infections can return once preventive treatment stops, while repeated antibiotic use can encourage bacteria to become resistant to the drugs.

For Hannah, the cycle continued. By the end of 2018 she was desperate for another approach. On her mother’s suggestion, she visited a naturopath – a practitioner of complementary medicine – and began making sweeping changes to her diet and lifestyle.

She introduced probiotic foods, which contain live bacteria thought to support the body’s community of beneficial microbes – known as the microbiome – and prebiotic foods, which contain types of fibre that help these bacteria grow. 

She also temporarily cut out sugar, gluten and dairy and began taking a range of supplements and herbal preparations, including high-strength garlic, and dramatically changed the way she exercised.

Hannah had previously believed a workout only counted if it left her sweating and exhausted. She swapped intense sessions for yoga and long walks outdoors and began practising breathing exercises.

‘I was very much the type of person that thought, “If I’m not sweating, then it doesn’t count,”‘ she says. ‘Even if it’s an enjoyable workout, if you’re pushing yourself to the max all the time then it’s stressful for your body.’

Dr Philippa Kaye, a GP and Daily Mail columnist with a special interest in women’s health, says there is some scientific rationale behind the idea that probiotics might help chronic UTIs.

‘Probiotic bacteria called Lactobacilli are part of the healthy vaginal flora, and some studies suggest that probiotics containing these bacteria, particularly when used vaginally rather than taken by mouth, may help reduce recurrent UTIs.

‘The idea is that they help create an acidic environment in the vagina which makes it harder for infection-causing bacteria to thrive.’

However, the evidence that taking probiotics actually prevents recurrent UTIs remains uncertain.

A Cochrane review of nine studies involving 735 people found no statistically significant reduction in recurrent UTIs among those given probiotics compared with placebo. However, researchers said the studies were generally small and of poor quality, meaning a benefit could not be ruled out.

And, says Dr Kaye, it is particularly difficult to know what helped in Hannah’s case because she made so many changes simultaneously.

‘When you change lots of things at once, it’s very hard to know which, if any, made the difference,’ she says.

‘What we do know is that staying well hydrated can help prevent UTIs. If Hannah was exercising very intensely and sweating a lot, it is possible that reducing her exercise meant she was less dehydrated, and that may have contributed to the improvement she experienced.

‘I would also be cautious about unnecessarily cutting out whole food groups such as gluten or dairy. Restrictive diets can mean you miss out on important nutrients, and carbohydrates are an important source of fuel for the body.’

For Hannah, at least, the changes she made proved transformative.  Gradually, flare-ups became less severe. Then they became shorter. Eventually, they became less frequent.

The last episode she describes as part of her chronic problems occurred in 2023. And, as the physical symptoms receded, something else changed too.

For the first time in years, Hannah stopped approaching sex with the expectation that pain would inevitably follow.

The difference has been so profound that she describes the experience as discovering sex for the first time all over again.

‘I feel like a 16-year-old losing my virginity again because I’m actually able to enjoy sex,’ she says. ‘That’s so alien to me because for a long time it was so scary.’

She did develop an acute UTI again three weeks ago, she says, but this time did not experience the same spiral of persistent symptoms.

Her experience ultimately changed the course of her career. Hannah now works as an intimate-health naturopath, advising other women who experience recurrent urinary symptoms.

She argues that women whose standard urine cultures repeatedly come back negative should not simply dismiss persistent symptoms.

However, urinary symptoms can have a number of causes, and experts advise that persistent or recurrent symptoms should be medically assessed rather than assumed to be an infection.

For Hannah, simply reaching the point where a UTI no longer dominates her thoughts has been transformative.

‘I’m no longer scared if I get a UTI,’ she says. ‘I know what to do, I can deal with it and then move on with my life.’