00:00 – Dr. Girard: So we did a very robust herbal protocol with her and she was able to resolve that infection.
00:23 – Melissa: Is it safe and possible to treat a UTI without antibiotics? Dr. Girard: Yes, it is. It is most certainly.
00:32 – Herbs have the ability to eradicate some of these urinary pathogens, especially in an acute,
00:40 – not necessarily a chronic case, very good success with using the appropriate herbs at
00:46 – the appropriate dosages and for the right duration. Unfortunately when we have patients
00:51 – that are recurrent cases, it of course as we see amongst all the therapies, they start to lose
00:57 – effectiveness and then for those patients that are experiencing chronic, it doesn’t mean to say
01:03 – that it’s still not a viable treatment option, but it becomes more difficult to treat those patients,
01:08 – and that’s likely because our chronic urinary tract patients are more of a multifactorial
01:14 – patient. They have potentially chronic inflammation, their hormones are
01:19 – not in a good state. We have to look at their whole picture, their immune system. So
01:25 – that’s something that, it is again, it’s going to depend on the patient but
01:32 – I know another question was treating a UTI during pregnancy, and unfortunately that’s something that
01:40 – will need to be treated with an antibiotic. We have robust research that indicates that there is a
01:46 – risk of miscarriage with any sort of infection in the pelvic region, so even if we detect an
01:54 – infection but a patient doesn’t have symptoms, we would still advise that the appropriate
01:59 – treatment include that, so what we do in those situations is we move more towards prevention.
02:05 – Once that infection has occurred, then we start as robust of a prevention strategy as we can
02:11 – in order to prevent the need for antibiotics during the pregnancy going forward.
02:17 – Melissa: Okay, that makes sense. Can you share an example of a patient who has been able to get well from a chronic UTI
02:24 – not using non-antibiotic methods? Dr. Girard: Yes. Well a lot of my patients come to me having already
02:30 – done multiple rounds of antibiotics and that’s not solving the issue. And a good example, I had a patient who had done
02:41 – a few rounds, three rounds of antibiotics. She was an MS patient and she unfortunately had not gotten better. She was,
02:48 – her quality of life was extremely poor at the time.
02:52 – And we, with her it was that typical story of she stopped culturing, she started to be,
03:02 – they started to be concerned about bladder pain syndrome, which is what we call IC here now
03:08 – in Canada. However when I looked at her labs, it was very clear that she still had that infection
03:15 – going on and the cultures were just missing the infection, the most recent cultures. So we did
03:22 – a very robust herbal protocol with her and as well as supporting, again, those other individual
03:29 – facets that were likely not well supported, her vitamin D was very very low on testing,
03:36 – and she was able to resolve that infection and get back to a much better quality of life. We did some
03:43 – bladder healing for a couple of months afterwards and she has stayed infection-free since
03:50 – the spring so far. Melissa: Amazing.
03:52 – Dr. Girard: Yeah and I mean I have so many cases where
03:56 – it’s a similar story, yeah. And some patients are good with follow-up and some aren’t, and I’ll
04:02 – check in with someone maybe months later and I’ll say, how did that herbal treatment work?
04:06 – And “oh yeah, I’m so much better.” But that’s not to say that it’s one or the other.
04:12 – You can take pharmaceuticals, you can take antibiotics and do herbs. We actually do have some
04:18 – research that shows that taking garlic extract, for example, with macrobid actually enhances the
04:24 – effect overall and people have a better chance of becoming symptom-free at the end of
04:31 – treatment, so there’s things like that as well. Melissa: That’s interesting.
04:36 – Dr. Girard: Yeah there’s, it just…
04:39 – There’s so much, there’s so many different scenarios. I had one patient who had
04:47 – a c-section, so with a catheter, and she developed symptoms, that low-grade urinary urgency
04:55 – and frequency and burning. Not extremely severe, but no culture was showing positive. Nothing
05:02 – was showing up, but we expected that it was likely something she picked up on the catheter, and
05:08 – we started a herbal regime that was targeted. I believe we did do Microgen at that point and
05:13 – she had enterococcus and she was able to get 90% better. And here in Canada, we unfortunately
05:20 – do wait a long time to see a specialist and by the time she got into the specialist, he decided
05:25 – to prescribe an antibiotic low dose for a month, and she wanted to do that therapy which is
05:33 – absolutely fine. She wanted to become, you know, symptom-free like we all do and she achieved
05:39 – that. And a year later, again, so I checked in with her and she had still remained symptom-free.
05:44 – So sometimes it’s a combo and sometimes it’s, you know, it’s just herbals.
05:49 – So it all depends. It really depends. Melissa: Yeah, it’s really good to hear stories of success like that
05:54 – because one of the things that often happens is that when people get well, like they do when they leave as
05:59 – patients and don’t check in again, they leave the groups online so nobody gets to hear the stories
06:04 – from the people that got well and left, and it’s really important to know that it is possible
06:09 – to recover. Dr. Girard: I’m someone who has recovered as well, right. So a lot of
06:17 – my practice is supporting patients and giving them that hope that they can get better. I had a decade of recurrent
06:25 – urinary tract infections and then developed a particularly bad one that wasn’t culturing,
06:31 – was then termed IC, this is back in 2013. And it took me a year to get better. But I
06:38 – only used natural medicine. I was lucky enough to be at school so I had lots of professors and
06:45 – resources to – Melissa: That’s helpful.
06:47 – Dr. Girard: to utilize. Very helpful. And I know that healing is possible and it doesn’t necessarily mean that there
06:56 – aren’t small relapses, but as you learn what maintains the health of your body, then it empowers you to be able to manage yourself,
07:06 – you know, with sometimes very minimal intervention in order to keep yourself well.
07:11 – Melissa: I think gaining back a feeling of control is really important in that situation, and
07:15 – understanding what’s happening and knowing that you have options if you do have a relapse
07:21 – are really important. Dr. Girard: Exactly, yeah. And everybody’s
07:24 – recipe for what helps them get well is different.
07:28 – And I’m sure your community knows that quite well. Melissa: We try to make that obvious, I
07:33 – think because I mean everyone that we hear from that has recovered has a different story of how
07:38 – they got there, so it’s very clear amongst our own community that it is different for everybody.
07:43 – Dr. Girard: Yes, and that’s why I like to stay within the communities. I’m not one of those people
07:47 – that have left because I see new things coming up all the time, how an individual was able to
07:54 – get better and I really look at that and see, you know, what’s the potential,
08:00 – why was that, where was that particular combination, you know, the combo that healed that patient.
08:06 – So it’s important for practitioners to keep learning and to keep gathering more
08:12 – treatment options because, yeah. Melissa: Definitely agree with that.
08:16 – Dr. Girard: Not every treatment works for every patient. Melissa: That is for sure. There was a question, before we
08:21 – move on to more about the herbal treatment, about whether a naturopathic approach addresses inflammation as
08:27 – well as clear infection?
08:29 – Dr. Girard: Yes, yeah, absolutely. Inflammation is the breeding ground for infection, so if that’s
08:34 – not addressed, especially within the urinary tract, then we’re just going to potentially see
08:40 – a resistance to treatment or treatment failure or recurrence. And of course that inflammation can
08:46 – come from many different parts of the body, whether it’s the gut or the fact that their
08:50 – adrenals are under stress and they aren’t able to support that system, because our
08:57 – cortisol actually is a wonderful anti-inflammatory, when we have enough of it, right. So there are,
09:04 – that has to be part of a treatment plan always in order to help patients get well.
09:11 – A good example was, I had a patient who after every time having intercourse, they would get an
09:16 – infection, and I know that’s going to resonate with a lot of patients. Melissa: So many.
09:20 – Dr. Girard: So many. And the first,
09:22 – the first treatment plan that we created was more targeted on a chronic infection
09:29 – and that treatment did not resolve her issue, she still developed an acute UTI
09:36 – after she had intercourse again. And then we moved to focusing on inflammation, and
09:44 – she’s unfortunately someone I’ve lost to follow up, but last I heard she was able to
09:50 – have intercourse five times before she had had an infection. Melissa: That’s great.
09:55 – Dr. Girard: Yeah, so obviously- Pardon me? Melissa: It’s a big improvement.
10:00 – Dr. Girard: It’s a big improvement. It’s not perfect, but at least we were making progress.