45: What No One Tells You About UTIs After 40

What No One Tells You About UTIs After 40 - Body, Mind, Spirit

Have you suddenly started getting UTIs in your 40s or 50s and wondered why? You're not doing anything differently, but your body is. 

In this solo episode, Sheri shares her own story of having her very first UTI at 53, and breaks down exactly what's happening in the body, mind, and spirit when urinary tract infections show up in perimenopause and menopause.

This isn't just about bacteria. It's about estrogen, your pelvic floor, your emotions, and the deeper message your body may be sending you.

Why do perimenopausal women suddenly get UTIs?

As estrogen declines in perimenopause, the tissue lining the bladder, urethra, and vaginal walls thins and loses moisture. Thinner tissue means less protection — bacteria adhere more easily and the body becomes more vulnerable. At the same time, the vaginal microbiome shifts, allowing more pathogenic bacteria to take hold. This combination is why so many women who never had UTIs in their 20s and 30s suddenly start getting them in midlife.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why estrogen loss changes your urogenital tissue 
• Why post-sex UTIs increase significantly in midlife — and the shame spiral that keeps women from talking to their doctors or partners about it
• Why antibiotics for your last UTI may actually be setting you up for your next one
• What the emotional connection is to UTI's and the somatic expression of those emotions
• How examining the spiritual connection can give you clues to what's out of balance, not just in your body but in your life

What is the emotional connection to UTIs?

Somatically, the bladder is associated with release and suppression of what needs to be released. Sheri explores the literal and emotional meaning of being "pissed off," what it means to hold everything together for everyone else, and the pattern of putting your own needs last - including something as basic as going to the bathroom when your body tells you to.

What is the spiritual meaning of UTIs in midlife?

The bladder and urinary system are connected to the sacral chakra — the energy center that governs water, flow, pleasure, creativity, sexuality, and boundaries. A contracted, dried-out body may be pointing to a sacral imbalance. Perimenopause is also the life stage where we're biologically shifting from nurturing others to nurturing the self. For women who haven't made that turn yet - who are still pouring out without replenishing - UTIs may be one of the ways the body calls that forward.

This episode is for you if:

• You've had your first UTI in midlife and wondered why now
• You've been getting recurrent UTIs and feel stuck in the antibiotics cycle
• You're ready to look at what your body might be trying to tell you beyond the physical

We're accepting new members into the Midlife Red Tent! Find the details and join us here: Midlife Red Tent 

Resources Mentioned in this Episode: 

Not Done Yet: A Podcast For Midlife Women with Rachel Perry

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Transcript

Sheri 0:00

Welcome. This is the Midlife Rising podcast. Most women are totally shocked when I tell them that I've never had a UTI. At least that was true until this past November when I had my very first one and got my first taste of what that is actually like. And UTI, by the way, just in case you've never had one either, is a urinary tract infection. This is actually a very common symptom of perimetopause and menopause. And it's one that a lot of people don't realize is linked. So for today's episode, I am going to get into exactly what is happening in the body, the mind, and the spirit when you get a UTI. So if you've been getting them, or if you've had one since you hit perimenopause, then keep on listening. You're a woman over 40 who spent your life being the one who holds it all together. But now your body's changing and your soul is done pretending everything is fine. Welcome to Midlife Rising. We're your hosts, Sherry and Jen, twin sisters and modern medicine women, here to help you rewire your stress response, balance your hormones, and reclaim your feminine power. Every episode is a rebellion against the rules you never agreed to and a return to yourself. Join us where midlife isn't a crisis, it's a catalyst. Welcome back. And welcome if you're a first-time listener. I am so grateful that you are here. It's Sherry, by the way, and I'm doing a solo episode today on a symptom that probably doesn't get talked about enough, and definitely not as a symptom of perimenopause or menopause. And it's also one that is pretty typically just treated as okay, here's some antibiotics. You go home, you take them, and then you wait until the next one arrives. So recurring UTIs is a thing. Many of you will already know that. And if that's the case, and this is definitely an episode for you, but even if you haven't had one yet, I think you're gonna find this fascinating because you probably know somebody who has. And this is gonna be an episode that you can pass along. And I hope you do. Okay, so let's get into it. I want to talk about the physiology first. That's usually where I start when I think about or when I when I start talking about a perimenopausal symptom. What is actually happening in the body when you begin to hit perimenopause? So if you're in your 40s, you are probably already there. Even if you don't know it yet or haven't had any symptoms yet, your fertility is definitely already declining. Your hormones are already shifting. So what happens normally, or let's say before you hit your 40s, estrogen keeps the urogenital tissue, meaning the bladder, the urethra, and also the vaginal walls. It's estrogen that keeps them, keeps that tissue thick and lubricated and resilient. So this might also apply to you if you are feeling some vaginal dryness. What happens when estrogen begins to drop, that tissue thins. And when you have thinner tissue, you have less protection against bacteria. The bacteria can stick more easily to thinner, I guess that's the easiest way to put it, to thinner tissue. The other thing that happens in midlife is that the vaginal microbiome shifts. So that's your the healthy bacteria in that whole area. We think of probiotics or healthy bacteria living in our gut, but it actually lives like throughout our bodies. We even have bacteria, healthy bacteria that live in our skin. So what can happen is that that what tends to happen, what happens for most women, is that that that vaginal microbiome shifts. And that means that more pathogenic bacteria, the kind that cause problems, can take hold. So what we hear a lot of is, you know, drink more water, drink cranberry juice. I think for some people, and maybe in younger women, that works. For a lot of them, I still know that it doesn't, because a lot of women get UTIs even in their 20s and 30s. And even younger, actually. Um, I know of teenagers and young children who can get them. So this isn't just a perimenopausal thing, but they can really ramp up. And water and cranberry juice, that's not going to be enough. There are additional things that are going on that cause, that cause physiological changes in midlife. So your urinary flow changes. And especially women who have had vaginal births, incomplete bladder emptying becomes a lot more common. And there's pelvic floor dysfunction, which I also don't think we talk enough about, but that means that residual urine can sit longer. And bacteria, they like warmth and they like moist. So when you have residual urine sitting there inside your bladder, then bacteria are going to like that. And then those gut microbiome changes and the vaginal microbiome changes, those are going to just also impact the urinary ecosystem. As I said, some women I know get recurrent UTIs. It's maybe rarer among my friends at least and and clients that one off UTIs. I'm a maybe an anomaly there. I've only ever had one. But the knowing the difference matters. So if you've had one and they're not coming back, then you probably don't need to worry too much. But if you're getting a couple of them every year, then it's worth investigating and really doing some ramping up of like some replenishing of the gut microbiome. And also there are things you can do to increase the tissue. You might notice actually, even I find that even my skin is dry, my nose gets dry, like the mucosal membranes inside my nose become kind of irritable. So this is actually, it's not just, I think you probably heard of vaginal dryness, but there's actually dryness throughout the body when estrogen begins to drop. So that's something to just pay attention to. Okay, so there are, I mean, the typical course of action, if you go to the doctor, you're gonna get some antibiotics and you're gonna go home and take those, and then you're gonna hope that you never have one again. And you know what I mean. If you've had one before, it was definitely one of the worst things in my life. What the doctors aren't talking to you about, or many of them don't, I suspect, is how to replenish your body after you've had one and after you've been on the micro, on the antibiotics. So that is something that we teach inside of the midlife red tent is how to actually really get your body in good shape to replenish the tissues, to get them nice and thick and moist and resilient again, and to also replenish and rebalance the microbiome, those probiotics, the healthy bacteria throughout your body. One of the things that traditional doctors, Western doctors, are not likely to talk about the lifestyle and lifestyle triggers for UTIs. So one of the things that you are probably aware of is, as I said, the vaginal dryness. So we're getting into some maybe TMI here. Vaginal dryness causes obviously intimacy changes. So you have less natural lubrication, you have thinner tissue, this can cause micro-tears. You might already know that that sex becomes, can become painful. And so it's easier for bacteria to enter. And post-sex UTIs tend to increase significantly in this life stage because of that change to the tissue. But something else around lifestyle and nervous system is the shame spiral that keeps women from talking about this. Their bodies are changing. They're maybe even don't feel as sexually motivated as they did before. They might not want to talk to their partner about that. They might not want to talk to doctors about it. This is something that I see coming up more often in the menopause Facebook groups and here and there on Instagram, it might come out. But it's it's generally a pretty intimate thing to admit and to talk about. So it's it's something that kind of ends up flying under the radar screen and doesn't get treated. There's a couple of other things that have to do with lifestyle that I that are really important to bring up here. So besides sexual activity, there's that pelvic floor dysfunction that I mentioned earlier. This has been normalized in our society. There's lots of jokes about, you know, you sneeze as a mom, that's just it's normal to pee a little. I was just listening to my friend Rachel's podcast, and she talked openly about being squeezed and peeing. And she talks about that on her podcast. So I'm thinking it's fair game. I also just recorded a podcast episode with her. She's over at We're Not Done Yet with Rachel Perry. But I love the story because it just is funny and we joke about this, but at the same time, this is actually not normal. Pelvic floor dysfunction is actually a dysfunction. It tends to happen to when you've had a vaginal birth, but it is entirely, almost entirely fixable by a pelvic floor physiotherapist. So if you have that, go see a physio that can actually be fixed. And then you're not going to get the incomplete emptying that that residual urine in the bladder. And you're also going to be a lot more comfortable in public. Like drop the whole depends and wearing a pad or something just in case you have to sneeze or you dance or you laugh unexpectedly. Like that's gosh, I don't have that because I didn't have a vaginal birth. But oh my gosh, it breaks my heart to know that women are going through life like this. Okay, this other thing is really important as well. Hygiene products, skincare products. This stuff actually can genuinely wreck the vaginal ecosystem. So things like um bubble baths with um like sulfates and phthalates and toxic fragrances, those things disrupt the microbiome. Most women, I think these days know that douching can disrupt that as well. All of the like the soaps and cleansers and cleaning products that we use on our bodies anywhere, let alone down there, are going to affect that vaginal ecosystem and the microbiome. So beginning to use, if you're not already, natural products on your entire body, like start doing that now if you're not already doing it. And then antibiotics is kind of ironic, but your your previous UTI treatment with antibiotics actually sets you up for the next one because antibiotics, of course, disrupt your microbiome as well. It pretty much cleans out all of those healthy bacteria that help keep you healthy. But those are cleared out and they don't just regenerate overnight. They can take years to regenerate if ever. So that needs that needs proper attention, proper replenishment. Okay, let's get into some other fun stuff, which is the link between the mind and UTIs. This was so fascinating to me. Jen actually said this first to me. And by the way, when we talk about symptoms, things that go on in our bodies physically, there's almost always like almost a litter, a literal link to what's happening. So the first thing that Jen said to me one time, I had a cold sore. And she said, Oh, what are you beating yourself up about? And literally, it looks like I'd been beat up. I had like my lip was swollen and had a like a big lesion, coldsar on it. And when she started talking about UGIs, she said, What are you pissed off about? Literally, like, what are you pissed about? So the bladder in if you think about this somatically or psychosomatically, it's associated with the release. It is a release. When you urinate, it is a release. And so it's associated with release of urine, but also release of emotions. So if you're trying to suppress something, like you're pissed off and you're trying not to show it, or you're like shoving it down the way that women do when we're angry until we hit perimenopause and it comes out unsolicited. But what might you be pissed off about? It is there's also so when we hit our 40s we often reach a point where we are just tired of holding everything together for everybody else, logistically, emotionally. We just we're literally holding everything together. And when you get a UTI, it may be an indication that you have some fear around letting go. There's that release again, that fear of release. UTIs are also a way of forcing your body to stop. So when I had mine, I couldn't go far. And I had to listen to my body. You know how you sit at your desk or you're in the middle of doing something and you have to pee and you just keep saying, nope, not yet, not yet. I'll like it's such an inconvenience. I'll go in a minute. And by then you have to go so bad. When you're a UTI, you cannot do that. You have to listen. So it's actually a way of your body forcing you to stop, to listen, to go to the bathroom when you have to. You just you simply cannot just push through. Okay. So just summing that up, some emotional themes that you may want to explore if you have a UTI or if you've had them in past is actually, and even what's what's kind of interesting, what can be fun, is to if you especially if you've had one recently, go back and think about where was I in my life at that point? What happened during that time? Like what was I pissed off about something? Was I pissed off at someone? Was I holding on to resentment or anger that I wasn't allowing myself to express? There's also something around putting your needs last. So we don't go pee when we have to because we're usually putting someone else first. A client, students, if you're a teacher, this happens all the time. Teachers don't get to go to the washroom in the middle of class. But even if you're in sitting in the workplace, you know, you're either sitting in a meeting, you don't want to interrupt, or you just want to finish the meeting before you go. There's all kinds of people, people's needs that we're putting first and putting ourselves and our need, our needs last. So is that happening, or was that happening when you had a UTI? The last thing around the emotions, there could be some fear around intimacy or unc because it's uncomfortable. So personally, I have had this for sure, because the vaginal dryness definitely kicked in for me. And it can be like I avoided being intimate with my husband because I'm afraid of how it's gonna feel. But there also might be like feelings around what's happening, what it looks like down there. Your sense change, like your body odors and pheromones change and the way you look. Like there may be, you know, especially if you have this is what I hear the most, at least, is gaining weight and you no longer feel like yourself again, like yourself. You no longer feel sexy. So there could be some fears around intimacy, fears around or um shame around that. And that can also be connected to UTIs or things going on down there. Okay, now lastly, I want to talk about the spiritual layer. And uh a couple of weeks ago, I did an episode on the hips, which are linked to the sacral chakra. And so are, so is the bladder. The UTIs are also linked to the the sacral or the second chakra. That is the womb chakra. It's also called that. And that chakra, it governs water, flow, pleasure, uh, creativity. So that is where we create life. It's also where we create ideas, it's where shame tends to sit as a emotion, and of course, sexuality and boundaries also in the boundaries kind of are a sacral thing and as well a third chakra, power, your power center chakra. So UTIs and bladder issues, they may point to an imbalance in that sacral chakra. If you think about it, and so uh let me stop there for a second because the hips are also related to, as I said, to the sacral chakra. A block in the sacral chakra can show up in a number of different ways. And you're gonna hear me talk about more symptoms on future episodes that link to the sacral chakra. So for every person, they manifest blocks in the sacral chakra manifest in slightly different ways. For some women, they might get hip issues, for some women, they get UGIs. For some, they might get ovarian cysts or vaginal dryness or night sweats are also linked to second chakra. So there's they manifest in different ways. So the way that I think of this, you know, talking about our bodies kind of drying, dry skin, dry vaginal walls, dry urethra and tissue within the bladder, a body that's feeling contracted, dried out, worn out, it may be pointing to a sacral imbalance or a block. Okay. And then one last thing on that, the with the sacral chakra, perimenopause and menopause, this is a time when our bodies are changing. And so our relationship with pleasure and desire and ourselves, our identities, that's all changing. And that can manifest in a UTI. Okay, a couple more things that may come up that are related to the spiritual component is the nurturing. So our relationship with others and ourselves is changing. As your fertility declines, you move from nurturing of others from a life stage of nurturing to a life stage of nurturing the self. So that is actually supposed to happen. I wonder, I have a little theory that I have not tested or looked for studies on, that I wonder whether there are more UTIs coming up for women now because we're having children later in life. So a lot of women are beginning perimenopause when they still have, or even in it, in menopause, when they still have young children that they're caring for. So they're still nurturing others when their hormones are actually shifting them to a place of nurturing the self. And if you resist that, if you still are trying to nurture others, even if you're if you don't have kids or if you, if your kids have moved out of the house, a lot of women will resist this because it feels like shifting their identity. They grieve the loss of that identity. I feel like this is a whole other podcast episode. But that's something that can be happening if you have a UTI. This could be your body's way of saying you need to nurture yourself right now. And those UTIs might more often arrive for those women who haven't made that turn yet. They're still pouring into other people, children or others, and they're not replenishing enough themselves. Okay, wrapping this up, the last thing that I want to say is that whenever your body is displaying a symptom, we think of it as betraying, as a betrayal. Our body is, we're we're fighting something. There's a lot of warrior language around the body. We're fighting a UTI. We're battling with our body. It can start to feel like our bodies are the enemy when they're not cooperating, when they're not doing what they're quote unquote supposed to do. But if your body is showing symptoms of a UTI, your body's actually doing exactly what it is supposed to do because it's been invaded by some bacteria and it's trying to flush it out. So a UTI, the symptoms of that are not actually a betrayal. It's your body signaling to you. It's your body doing its job trying to flush out a bacteria that has invaded. So your body actually has a lot of wisdom. We just need to listen to it. And sometimes that listening is not just listening to the physiological signs, but also looking for those emotional and spiritual connections that might tell you what's might give you some, you know, even if you don't want to think about this as a link to the the specific physiological UTI, think of it as a as intuition. It's a way of tapping into your intuition. What's my body trying to tell me right now? What's going on emotionally for me? It's a it's an opportunity to look at the emotion and the spiritual connections because they might give you some insight as to what needs to be what needs attention emotionally and spiritually in your life. So in closing, I want you to know, I've just given you kind of the background on UTIs, body, mind, spirit. There's lots now that you can do to shift the body physically, emotionally, and spiritually in a way that's going to bring it back into balance so that you never get UTIs again. And that is all we talk about all that stuff inside of the midlife red tent within actually all of our offerings. And this is how we look at symptoms within our world. This is why Jen and I call ourselves modern medicine women, because we we look at the physical, but we also look at the emotional and the spiritual, which that holistic approach is what is going to change your entire life, not just the symptom and not just your life in perimenopause or menopause. So we've got the midlife red tent open right now. It is the lowest price that you could start at ever. We're never going to be at this price again. So if you're interested and curious about what that's about, there's a link in the show notes, midlifewomenrising.com slash red tent. And we would love to have you inside of that program. So go check it out. And come back next week for another episode. And if you found this particular episode helpful, valuable, and you know somebody else who gets CIs in midlife, share this with them. It could be life-changing for them as well. And we would be forever grateful if you did that. Also, we would love it if you followed, subscribed, left us a review if you're on Apple Podcasts. That would be so helpful, and we would absolutely love that. So thank you once again for being here with me, and we'll see you next week for another episode.