Treating a UTI or urethritis with reflexology

Reflexology might sound like hocus pocus, but if you have nothing else in the world and need to deal with your urinary tract infection (UTI), you can use this awesome UTI trick.

Even if you do have other options, reflexology for a UTI works, but it isn’t super fun. It hurts. However, with a convoluted program of sitting on the toilet drinking gallons of water, you can have it gone in half an hour. It’s true! Not always, but if you have nothing else or are sick of antibiotics, try it.

#1. Drink water

Get a big bottle of water and start drinking. Don’t stop until your infection is gone, at the end of the process. Drinking all this water has a two-fold action:

• it constantly washes the germs away;
• it provides the clues you need as your treatment starts to work, and;
• it diminishes that unfulfilling ache and burn when you pee.

Once your reflexology starts to work, you will feel the change in what it feels like to pee. When you can pee properly again, like really properly, you can stop. This is your measuring stick of how your treatments are working. It usually takes about 10 minutes of working on your feet for you to start noticing the difference when you pee. KEEP GOING!

#2. Relax, you’re in for the long haul

Plop yourself down on the toilet, bath or an outside chair with a hose and settle in. If it’s really cold or too many other people need the bathroom, swap this for a hot bath you can pee in, or even a towel on a large plastic bag if you were really desperate. Whatever you choose, you want to pee as if you had on a nappy, whenever you need to.

This is a mere comfort factor, because getting up and down all the time is annoying, and wiping yourself with toilet paper all the time can make your poor vulva a bit raw, adding to the discomfort. Don’t wipe. It’s fine. Just sit and dribble to your heart’s content. Nobody needs to know.

#3. Do some fancy footwork

Get one foot in your hands and start working on your bladder, ureters and kidney points. If you aren’t able to just use your thumbs, an eraser, or rounded, proddy object will do. Push in deep and firm. The most tender, sore spots are the bits you need to focus on. Reflexology is truly a classic no pain, no gain scenario.

KEY: You will push on spots on these points (which will hurt your foot) that will ease the UTI sensation in your urethra for as long as you push on it, like a magic button. Hold – bad feeling goes away – release – bad feeling comes back. Try it.

You’ll need to hold for about five seconds for the sensation to disappear/appear. This sensation of disappearing, then returning when you let go, is a real one. This is how you know you’ve got the right spots.

Keep working these areas, and the areas on the foot map. As you work these areas, the feeling will continue to abate until it disappears for good (in theory).

If you can feel anything at all when you pee that is abnormal, keep going – you’re not done. When you can pee freely and without issue, you’re done.

Drink plenty of water throughout the day and keep your eye on things. Sometimes in severe cases this process can take a little longer, but that is unusual. Persist!

Warning: If there is blood or severe pain, please go to the emergency room or see a doctor.