Kidney Infection

There are two types of kidney infections.  If a person has low resistance to infection, bacteria from the bladder can travel up the ureters to the kidney, and cause an acute kidney infection. 

Acute kidney infections start suddenly with severe symptoms, then come quickly to an end.  Chronic kidney infection develops slowly, and grows worse with time. 

Chronic kidney infections can lead to kidney failure.

Home Remedies For Kidney Infection:

Flush Your System:

If you think you might be getting a kidney infection, or you think you have a urinary tract infection that you don’t want to turn into a kidney infection, the first course of action should be to try to flush the bacteria out of your urinary tract and kidneys.

  Avoiding carbonated beverages, which aggravate kidney infections, drink much more fluid than you normally do.  Some good choices are water and cranberry juice. 

Cranberry juice is bitter on its own, and normally even the cranberry juice cocktails are loaded with sugar, so if you are a diabetic (diabetics are prone to kidney infections) be sure to choose a sugarless variety or one sweetened with an artificial sweetener.  Some cranberry juice drinks have very little cranberry juice in them, but if you read labels, you can find a brand that contains a good percentage of cranberry juice, even if it is a juice blend. 

There are also cranberry pills, available at health food stores, but it is often believed that they are not as effective as real cranberries.  If you choose the pills for your kidney infection, just be sure they contain natural ingredients such as, catechins, triterpenoids.  Cranberries contain an unknown factor that prevents, or counteracts bacterial agents called adhesions, which are thought to prevent bacteria from getting a foot hold in the urinary tract and kidneys.

The recommended dose is approximately ten fluid ounces a day.  Now, keep in mind that if your juice is only 50% cranberry juice, you will need to drink twenty ounces a day.

Beer And Wine:

Drinking a beer or a glass of wine a day, is said to be a good preventative to urinary tract or kidney infections.

Herbal Remedies:

Agothosma betulina, or buchu, is a urinary antiseptic and possesses diuretic properties.  Early Dutch settlers used buchu to make a brandy tincture called Boegoebrandewyn (buch brandy) which is still used today to treat many disorders.

Arctostaphylos uva-urisi, or umbabazane, has been known to kill bacteria in urine. Avena Sativa, or hawer, is a restorative and nutritive tonic, and a diuretic, which will flush the kidneys and urinary tract.

Hypericum pertaroatum is used to treat bacterial and viral infections.