Episode 63: UTIs and Possible Causes

Hi, I'm Suzanne Noble.

I'm Zoe Noble. We're already laughing.

Listening to Sex Advice for Seniors, and we're going to talk about UTIs today because I think, well, I think I've got one and I'm so bored of it and And I suspect that I've left it like a long time. And of course I started going down the Google rabbit hole, which then spiraled me into fear around like ending up with sepsis and stuff. And yeah, anyway, it's just, I just feel kind of crap really. So yeah. UTIs, urinary tract infections. Ever had one?

I'm not pro— I've, of course, I've had several, you know, and to varying degrees, you know, there are several different symptoms which we could talk about. But yeah, fortunately, I'm knocking on wood. It's not something that I'm prone to. And I do have several friends that really suffer with recurring UTIs and it's so miserable. It is.

Yeah. Suzanne Noble.

So the times that I've had a UTI, I get that feeling, of course, like an urgency, like I have to pee. And then I go and I sit down and it's like 2 drops.

Yep.

And it burns. Yeah. Well, that's on fire, right? Yeah. And then if it's really bad enough, then after I finish peeing, I get that like, like a pain, almost like a cramp in my bladder or something. It like, like the pain swells and then goes away. Yeah.

Yeah. Mine's not burning. Mine's like the frequency thing. Just like 6 times a night. I'll just get up, go to the toilet. Doesn't burn. It's not like cystitis. It's just this constant urge. But this one has come with some additional little bonuses. So which is my— I've got this kind of dull headache that's been following me around for a while. And I've got— I had some lower back pain for a while. And then now it's kind of moving more frontward somewhere. And yeah, and it's kind of— I mean, Sometimes it's— sometimes I feel like I have to pee all the time. And then recently it seems to be pass— I don't know if it's passing. I've been drinking huge, huge, huge amounts of water, which is of course what they recommend. I think not drinking enough water is definitely a humongous issue just for me and lots of other people I know just don't drink enough water. I mean, people tell you to drink enough water, but Like how many of us really do?

Right. Well, and then I read an article about how the amount of water that we're supposed to drink has been greatly inflated.

Oh, really?

Oh, that's interesting. I mean, you can actually cause kidney damage by drinking so much. I mean, there's like, you know, people drink a gallon a day or 2 gallons a day, and it's not, it's supposedly not great for you.

No. Well, I mean, I'm definitely not drinking a gallon a day. And the other thing is I've had like incredible fevers and woken up two nights in a row absolutely like soaked in my own sweat and all my bedclothes and everything are just like soaking wet and I'm kind of dripping with sweat. So Yeah, it's, it's not great. It's not great. But yeah, and apparently all of that fever stuff is, is also common. But, but I guess the thing about it is that I've recognized is that when you actually, you know, a lot of these things you can walk around with for a while, like people might have chlamydia for ages, right? And not know that they've got it. And they don't seem to be like massively impacted by it. But if you phone a doctor up and you say to them, oh, I think I might have a UTI, they're like, you need to deal with that because it can escalate. And that's, of course, now that I've gone down the Google hole, of course, I'm worried that I'm going to end up with dementia and, uh, and sepsis and, you know, and like tomorrow I'll be dead in the hospital.

So yeah, well, a couple things. Um, sepsis is horrible. I was, here we go. It's very hard for me to talk about, to give like one little piece of my extensive medical history, but I, in 2019, in this December of 2019, I was hospitalized for 2 weeks, Legionnaires' disease.

Oh my God.

Yeah. Which if you don't know what Legionnaires' disease is, it is a bacterial— Legionella is a bacteria that is generally found in like bodies of water. And the reason it's named Legionnaires' disease is because the Legionnaires, which is like a sort of a fraternity of veterans, they were for the bicentennial in the United States. They were having, which is 1976. They were having a convention in Philadelphia and a lot of them sort of fell ill and severely ill and died like many, many, many and many didn't. And so, and sometimes it was roommates. One would be 100% healthy and one would be dead.

Wow.

And it was some like crazy, um, infection like pneumonia that just killed them, and it, it progressed super fast, and it didn't— they couldn't figure out what to treat it with.

Yeah.

And so, um, I went to the hospital. I thought I had the flu. I ended up going to the hospital, and They said, you're septic. And I was like, oh my God. And they said, okay, we are like, we're— they hooked hydration up to me immediately and they're like, that's it, we're admitting you. You have double pneumonia and we're admitting you.

Oh my God.

And I was like, I don't even— I wasn't even coughing. It was crazy. I had no idea. I wasn't being stoic. I wasn't— I was like, should I go? I've had a fever for like— I'm on day 5 of a fever up and down. I should, I should go, shouldn't I? And they were— my husband and my kid was like, yeah, just go, just go. And I'm like, I'm not that sick. And they're like, just go. And so I went to the ER and I couldn't— I was like stunned. So that's the first thing I just want to say is that it's like you might be much sicker than you think you are.

Yeah, yeah.

Running a fever, you need to go. I'm speaking to everybody. We need to go.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then they said if you had waited like 24 hours, you might have had permanent organ damage.

Oh my God.

It goes quickly. So that's the other thing.

Yeah.

And, you know, I want to just give like some facts. So cystitis is a— is, is an irritation. It can be an infection, but it can also be caused by like irritation or inflammation. And then there's UTI, which is what some form of, you know, like there's an array of bacteria that, that can cause that. And then there's something called interstitial cystitis.

Oh, I heard of that. No, no, I didn't know about that one.

Yeah, it's a much deeper— it's an inflammatory disease of the bladder and it is quite painful. And it can lead to— it's less common and it can be like very painful. Like there, I have a whole sort of subset of clients that come to me and want to talk about pain, painful intercourse. And there's like a little group of them, a small percentage for whom that ends up being the diagnosis.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah.

My mother always referred to honeymoon cystitis, like when you have so much sex it can cause it. And I think, you know, most of us women, right, or people with vulvas, are taught to like pee before sex and pee after sex. Absolutely.

And I do try and stick to that. And I think that has saved me many times, the pee before, pee after. Um, but I also think, you know, I was, you know, I was reflecting on this with you. So I was reading like, you know, oral sex can cause UTIs. And in particular, this person that I sometimes am with enjoys the deep probing of my vagina with his tongue, right? Which I suspect he thinks I find really a big turn-on. But of course, all I'm thinking in my head is, is this going to lead to a UTI? Because, because you're now, uh, mixing your saliva inside my very delicate vagina, and I don't think that's going to work very well for my vagina. And, and, you know, depending on their saliva, right? It's just there's so many things where you just stick something a bit foreign up there and it's like, uh-uh, I don't think so.

No. Well, is it this— is it your partner's saliva, or is it the— is he so up in your business that he's like, you know, that he's put— putting pressure and friction on your urethra?

Possibly as well. Possibly. That's possible as well. Yeah, possible. That could be the case. I don't know. But I know that, like, his saliva and my vagina, I don't think it's— I don't think there's a good match there. No.

And yeah.

And then, you know, there's condoms, which generally, I think, should be okay. But then I do wonder with condoms, like, what stuff's on them that's, you know, that's being used, and how that's mixing with all the juices and stuff that are up there and things too. And then the final consideration— and God, you know, being a woman kind of sucks. I bet everybody's like, going, God, you guys have to put up with so much shit. It is that, um, you know, it's, it's not as resilient up there as when you're a younger woman, and the skin is more delicate, and it's much, much easier to contract these things. So, you know, like, I've started using vaginal estrogen, which is really helping, by the way. It's really good. I like it. It's good. Then you completely You know, and all of that, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the, that, that area is still very, very delicate and it doesn't take much to get to, to disrupt the harmony that usually exists there.

Right. Well, when the skin gets more thin and more brittle, you get micro tears, right?

Exactly. Exactly. And, and so, you know, we need to be really careful about all of these things. And recently, like, I've gone for years without anything at all. And then most recently, I've just had a whole spate of just, just this kind of thing, which is just really starting to get boring, not least because I have to keep taking antibiotics. And I hate taking antibiotics, so it's just kind of sucks. And yeah, I suspect a lot of older women are like, this is why I don't have sex anymore, you know. And my girlfriend yesterday was like saying she had a hysterectomy and it's really delicate and it's really painful even to have like an internal examination. And so we start, and she's doing vaginal estrogen, and I started talking to her about this Ceteal lubricant that Joe recommended, which is actually really nice. Um, but that's, you know, like, it's every time you do something down there, you're like, okay, is everything organic? Is everything, you know, because every time you introduce new things down there, just feels like there's just a possibility that you might end up with something. Introduce new things like, yeah, or lubricant, or a different brand of condom, or someone's dick, or whatever, right?

Any non-native entity. Basically, yeah. Any— yeah, coconut oil. I mean, you can't use it with condoms, but if you are with a partner that— for whom you don't need a condom, I love coconut oil.

Yeah, it's the best. Yeah, I mean, Sam's view on that was that it's depending on how it's stored. If you— if air gets to it, it can start getting bacteria inside it, and then you just, you do need to be careful. So I don't know if you can buy coconut oil in a tube, for instance, but if you're sticking your fingers in a jar, I suppose there is some degree of bacteria and stuff, right?

It's always putting our hand up there, you know, like, yeah, me, me, me, I stick my fingers in a jar and Sucking and fucking and all kinds.

Yeah, it doesn't work with condoms though, that's for sure. Same with almond oil, none of it works.

No, no, no, no oil-based lube. No, it dissolves latex and your condom will get a hole in it and then it can, you know, create more bacteria and whatever.

Yeah, so that's it. Yeah, but you know, the, the, the, as you said, the escalation of a UTI and why these things do need to be taken seriously and why hopefully I'll get my results back of my urine sample very shortly, um, is because it can progress to worse things. And then, you know, you're not just dealing with, with a little urinary tract infection, you're dealing with much more serious stuff, and that's— you really don't want that. So yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's not good.

It's not good.

It's very, very, very boring as well. Very boring.

And it makes you depressed. In the United States, we don't use the word boring the same, the same way. You guys have a, like, a colloquialism that we just didn't we're missing. I love it.

Yeah, what would you say?

Well, I— we might— boring is specific to like, it's not holding my interest. But I— there's a— there's like, it, you know, English people, people in the UK say, um, boring almost like, like it's like annoying, or like I'm kind of fed up with it, or like I got no time I got no time for this. Do you say that? I got no time for this.

Yeah, no, that's very, very true. I do have no time for it. Unfortunately, it feels like it's occupying all my time at the moment.

Yeah.

And as a result of that, I'm not getting any sleep. It's making me feel quite depressed and just generally unwell. And I am really quite sick of it, very sick of it. Yeah. So, you know, we've got the problem here. I don't know what your, you know, like, your health service is like, but here I thought I will get an emergency appointment at the doctor. So I phoned up at the exact— she said that you want your emergency appointments, it's at exactly 2 o'clock. So I like set my, my my phone at exactly 2 o'clock. I phoned, it was like, you are number 2 in the queue. I was like, excellent. And then she said, oh yeah, the doctor will ring you at 5:45. And I went, oh, I thought the doctor will like see me. But no, we don't get to see a human being anymore. We just get to have a conversation during which we go through all of this kind of stuff. And then she'll say things like, oh, tomorrow morning, why don't you come in and give us a urine sample? And you're thinking, What if I'm dying now? I mean, oh my God, what happens now? So I just said, fuck that. And I just walked. My doctor's surgery is 5 minutes walk up the road. I just literally walked up the road. It was almost dark inside. There was nobody inside. The receptionist was washing the cups from the day, the mugs.

And I went, hello, not the specimen cup. No, no, no.

I was like, hello, I said, hello, I'm here to give urine sample. She's like, oh, we don't have a form for you yet. And I went, oh, okay, do I need a form? And then she said, oh, well, there is a doctor here. I'll get her. I'll get her to do the form. So I got her to, so she gave me the bag as if she was expecting me to go away. And I was like, the toilet. And she went, oh, you want to do this now? I thought, when else would I want to do this? And I could see, I could see that the hallway was dark, like she wanted to close up, this woman, right? And yeah, so she let me into the toilet, took 30 seconds. I gave her back the bag of very dark yellow urine. It was quite disgusting. And she then, she then took that away. And I just thought, yeah, I'm not waiting till tomorrow morning because You know, I mean, this whole kind of you have to wait. I just— no, no, there's times where you really shouldn't be waiting. And one of them is like if you're dripping in sweat and you have this urgency to pee and you've got lower back pain, like all the symptoms of something that might have progressed past the, oh, I'm just not, you know, I'm just peeing a bit too often stage.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. We, yeah, we have a whole different system here that is equally infuriating and dysfunctional in different ways and requires like stealth advocacy to be able to, you know, navigate your way through without death.

Yeah, for sure. So, so yeah, that's the other thing is like they tell you don't, don't wait, come, you know, oh, this is really important. And then when you don't wait, they're like, why aren't you here tomorrow morning? Like, because you told me not to wait. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I didn't. Yeah, I don't know. The whole thing's weird. But yeah, I mean, I think for those of you out there who may think, you know, like there's, there's any risk at all that you might have a UTI, then don't hang around. Go and see a doctor. And if you're a guy who thinks it's really cool to stick your tongue all the way up a woman's vagina, like, can I tell you, like, no woman I know— like, we may get a lot of responses to this, like, I love that. I'm just telling you, no older woman I know is asking for that.

No, and I don't think young women are either. I really don't. I mean, there might be a few. Yeah, I, I, you know, I, I think that, yeah, whatever.

Yeah. And I think, you know, that kind of— we can very quickly touch on it, but it did, it, you know, it did cause me to reflect, like the number of times that somebody will do something where, you know, it's not painful. You're not, you're not going, ouch, that hurts, please stop. It's just not particularly enjoyable or not enjoyable. It just is what it is. It's not pushing any buttons. It's not doing anything remotely interesting. They might be getting off on it because they saw it in a porn show somewhere that some guy went all the way, you know, tried to see how far he stick his tongue and, and thought, oh, that looks really cool. But for the most part, for the most part, a lot of that stuff is purely for the benefit of men to just wank over. So, right, you know, like, if you're gonna do stuff that just doesn't sit within the normal realms of what we know to be pleasure, which is you know, uh, touch my clitoris in a way that I like and, and fuck me without it like pounding the hell out of me so I feel like my insides are a tumble dryer.

Well, yes, I mean, this, this brings up— I mean, we— this is a— deserves its own episode really, but just to name that With pornography as the de facto sex education, it's really, it's just such a shame because it's not the men's fault. I mean, the men behaving badly is a real thing. And, um, you know, I mean, what are they being taught? They're being taught that when they do, when they try to stick their tongue all the way up you know, and like lick a woman's cervix, for crying out loud, that she's gonna like just, you know, explode in ecstasy because that's what she's doing, right? So it's not their fault, you know.

Yeah, but you know, before you do those things, just say, is this something that you like? Or 'How does this feel?' Or, you know, which is difficult because if you know— I mean, look, I'm like super confident and I know that even for me, if somebody's like in the middle of doing that and they're, you know, and then they're like, 'Oh, did you like that?' I'm really bad at saying, especially in that period of post-coital happiness, yeah, not really.

It's very hard. It's very awkward, right? It is. I, I, you know, I think for me, if I'm gonna like really focus on me going through more casual, um, encounters, you know, with people that are not, you know, my one regular person, um, This is all in the past now because I'm married and we only have sex with each other.

Um, I can see the benefit of that, purely that your vagina gets used to a certain person's saliva and probably, probably just goes, you know, you start to see the benefit of monogamy purely from, uh, oh, I don't have to worry about condoms, and if I, you know, if I don't want to, and I don't have to work, you know, it'll get used to that person's saliva and I can, you know, and they'll know that I don't like to be pounded and all of this sort of stuff, right? But, you know, for me, the flip side is, but fucking hell, it gets boring. But that's, that's it.

Yeah. Yes. It's all of it.

But, you know, but people can be creative. I just, I've just never met anybody who was creative enough over the long term, but I'm sure they exist.

Just, yeah.

I'm still waiting for them to turn up in my life. There's a few on TikTok. One guy, one guy in Australia who seems to think that I'm just going to pop over in an Uber.

Yeah, so funny.

Funny look, you know, he's kind of quirky looking, but I just keep thinking, what's wrong with you guys? Like, you know, I live in London. Yeah, weird. But anyway. But yeah, back in your casual sex days.

Yeah, I think I just felt like it was much easier to, um, like have those conversations up front. Yeah. Or like so that by the time you actually get in bed, you're— there's a familiarity, you know. But that takes hanging out together for a while, and there were definitely people for whom like it wasn't about hanging out.

No, no, no.

And so you have to just kind of know that there's just going to be some stuff that's like amiss, you know?

Yeah, completely.

Yeah, completely. Sometimes it clicks and it's great. And every once in a while it's like, yeah, no, this will be the last time. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. Oh, speaking of, actually, I was thinking we'll just end here because it's so funny. So, um, so I— this guy popped up that I, I used to hang out with like 15 years ago, like maybe longer than that, and on this website. And I thought, God, yeah, he was a handsome guy and we had some fun. So I got in contact with him and he just lives local, so I thought, oh, you know, like maybe I'll reintroduce him into my life. So, um, he turned up at my door And he, and I, he was, I have to admit he was much better looking than I remembered, but then it had been a long time. Yeah. And we did this, the do, and it was fun actually. And, but there were some elements of it that, and then as we were laying there, I was like, why did I, why did we stop hanging out together? And he was like, I don't, I don't know. 'Why did we stop hanging out together?' And I said, 'Oh, I don't know. I thought maybe you were a bit flaky or something. I seem to recall you used to promise me things like, oh, I'm going to Monaco next week, you should come with me, and then just like not really mean that, you know.' Yeah. And he was like, you know, like a very wealthy guy and, you know, drives— now drives a Tesla, of course. But I also suspect that part of the reason was that he's quite, he's quite fond of like porny dirty talk. And, and, and, and I, and it was fine for the one-off experience because, you know, um, you know, the, oh, you're such a dirty bitch and all that. And I thought, um, you know, um, yeah, of course, like why else are you here? I mean, obviously I'm here, you're here for a very specific reason. But it was really funny to, you know, it was like this kind of memory flash where I went, that's why.

That's never my thing.

That was never my thing. And I just remembered that. And then, you know, he was like, oh, we should do that again. And I was like, yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe we will. Maybe.

I love that. I love the opportunity to like flash forward, you know.

I know it was so— how often does that happen? Like never. It was really those funny little experiences where I just went, okay.

No, I, I, I've had a couple of those experiences. I, a couple of them come to mind, um, and one of them was like decades later, and it was, it was like being with someone completely new.

Oh, was it?

Yeah, he said that to me too, like it had been so long and it just felt like Like, God, I don't even— like, I don't even remember your body. Like, I don't really remember you.

Yeah, yeah, his body was much better than I remembered it before, but it was— I think he was always in really, really good shape. And, um, yeah, and you know, there was a lot about it that was fun. And also the thing I wondered was whether I ever had an orgasm with him before, because I thought that Previously, like 15 years ago, I seem to recall that he used to come too quickly for me, and this time he didn't. And so that was good for me. And yeah, whatever happened to him, I don't really care. And that was fine. But yeah, that was— so that was, that was quite refreshing and nice. But yeah, the dirty stuff, it's like, uh, no.

Yeah, no, no, no, no.

Anyway, we can close it off there because I can feel my fever start to build. Um, it sounds like a song, but it's not. It's, it's real. Yeah, I hope that the doctor calls me back about this UTI or whatever else that happens to be. Maybe it's just the flu, who knows.

Maybe.

Well, Anyway, next week we are talking to Paul Evans from Joe Divine about toys for the boys. I'm really excited about that because I think there's going to be a lot of curiosity about stuff in that area because, yes, a lot of guys just think there's a flashlight and probably nothing else, but Paul knows better.

Oh boy. So that's gonna be a real treat. That's gonna be really fun.

That's gonna be really fun. All right, so you have a lovely evening. I have a lovely morning.

Yes, feel better, Suzanne Noble. I will too.