Women are calling out the doctors who didn't take their UTIs seriously
If women had a pound for every time we were told to "pee after sex" or "drink cranberry juice" when we get urinary tract infections (UTIs), then we'd all be rolling in a massive pile of cash.
Twitter user @FloozyEsq chimed in to the "We need a Disney princess with..." conversation—that turned into a viral meme this week—with a comment that many women will relate to.
"We need a disney princess with chronic UTIs who goes to the doctor and the doctor tells her to always pee after sex and the princess says she's already doing that and the doctors says well that's all the advice I have," she wrote.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Per the NHS, UTIs are "common infections that can affect the bladder, the kidneys and the tubes connected to them." Anyone can get a UTI, but they happen to be "particularly common in women" and some women experience them regularly. This is because women have a "shorter urethra than men" so bacteria are "more likely to reach the bladder or kidneys" causing an infection.
UTIs can be painful, uncomfortable, and "can potentially cause serious problems if they're allowed to spread." The NHS website has a list of UTI prevention tips—one of which is urinating after sex—but it also notes that "you can't always prevent UTIs."
The tweet seems to have struck a chord with other women who've experienced the same thing. One woman tweeted that her doctor had told her to pee after sex before she had "even ever seen a penis."
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Another woman tweeted that she had just been to Urgent Care and had the very same conversation despite not having had sex in the past year.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Some women shared some of their infuriating experiences of receiving advice like "drink cranberry juice."
Per the NHS, "there is very little evidence that drinking cranberry juice or using probiotics reduces your chance of getting UTIs."
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
One joker tweeted a rather excellent suggestion for the title of this UTI-suffering Disney princess' movie: The Princess and the Pee.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Genius.
Topics Health
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
