estradiol cream to prevent urinary tract infections

I have lupus and I use estradiol vaginal cream to prevent urinary tract infections. My lupus is in remission but I have been diagnosed with polymyalgia rheumatica and I have severe anemia. I am sticking with the estradiol because before it I had one continuous UTI. I received my prescription from a urologist after having a cystoscopy.

@luhealth and all... Absolutely, I as well use estradiol cream daily and it is helping reduce my UTI's. Last year I had 5 UTI, 4 with sepsis and ER/hospital visits followed by hospit, il rehab twice. It was quite a difficult year, with other issues caused by Oxympic creating havok in my muscles and body, sending my diabetes to coma levels...

I am thrilled to say this year I am now getting over the 1st UTI I've had! Only 1 so far. I really use the cream... This one was appearing to be pretty bad, but we caught it barely, I took 500 mg Cephalexin 4X daily! Pretty good dose this time and this was the perfect drug.

One supplement I take religiously, daily, D=Mannose, is a miracle worker as well. I suggest anyone with UTI issues take this supplement. I get it from NOW, at Swanson. altho it's on Amazon and Walmart, etc. I like Swanson and follow the sales to get better prices. This supplement causes the sides of the bladder to slough off the bacteria and whatever shouldn't be hanging around. It appears to work. I tripled the dose when I first began having symptoms and before the doc moved on the antibiotic. I am convinced it helped reduce symptoms and severity of the infection, kept me out of the hospital.

I have multiple autoimmune diseases so my immune s ystem is wonky. I'm also now tapered down to 14mg Prednisone from 20 mg last May for paralysis caused by the Oxympic I think interacting with my autoimmune diseases causing my muscles to fight the nerves. What a mess it was, but Prednisone did the job helping me move again. I have constant muscle weakness and some paralysis if I go below 14 mg, so I'm holding there now.

It's a joy to not have the constant UTI challenges, sepsis is quite concerning, especially several times within months. So, I am one careful 79 year old woman for sure...

Hopefully some of my suggestions will help you on your crazy health journey. Blessings.
Elizabeth

This peaked my curiosity. I used to get repeated urinary tract infections in my early 20’s. First I was on prophylactic antibiotics (Doxycycline) which I took whenever I needed to and that kinda worked. Then I had a procedure to widen my urethra - which gave me decades of disease free living. Both strategies made sense to me and the antibiotics probably tamped down, and saved my life from, undiagnosed Lyme disease.
What is the theory behind the estradiol? Just curious.

@aileenredding I have RA and also recently started using estradiol cream. My gynecologist, my urologist and my dermatologist all recommended it. My rheumatologist is accepting of this treatment. I have not had more flares. I have not super frequent UTIs, but the last one was worse than others. I have also recently started taking Jardiance for HFpEF and that can increase UTIs. I have microscopic blood in my urine, but the amount has been increasing over the years. I may need a cystoscopy in the near future. I had one 40 years ago, under sedation. My current urologist says they no longer use sedation, just numbing gel on the tip of the catheter instrument. Was that true for your procedure? If so, how did it go? The one I had in the past found polyps and they cauterized them, which caused a lot of pain.

@mayo99824 It's my understanding that the hormones in estradiol relieve vaginal dryness after menopause and repairs tissue that has thinned which can cause infection to enter the urinary tract. My hesitancy stems from the cautions on the box regarding lupus.

@ess77 Thank you for replying. I am beginning to feel better about using it as I have delayed filling the prescription for almost a year.

@aileenredding Thank you for replying. This makes me hopeful.

Thank you all for replying to my post. It was great to find a forum to get support and information about issues like this.