If you've ever had a urinary tack infection, then you know how intensely painful they can be. If you are going through one right now, then you probably don't need me to remind you of this. Now for the good news, preventing a UTI can be accomplished by following some simple, basic, common sense ideas. In particular, the easiest and most natural way to prevent a urinary track infection is to simply urinate when your body is telling you to and to never hold it.

Always remember that you should never hold your urine when you get the feeling you need to. Each and every time you urinate, the bacteria gets expelled from the urethra. If you hold it too long you may be unknowingly allowing the bacteria to stay in your system longer. Without getting to technical, it should be obvious that the longer the bacteria is allowed to live in your body, the higher change that it will travel to the bladder and proliferate.

What you may have never heard is that holding in urine on a frequent basis causes your sphincter (the muscle that releases when you urinate) to become less and less flexible. This happens simply because your body must force it to stay in a tense state to hold in urine. If the sphincter muscle becomes imbalanced, it can cause incomplete urination, which in turn will cause more and more bacteria to live within your body.

This becomes especially important if you have children. It is important to teach them to never hold onto their urine. Of course this will be difficult at times. Especially when you are off at school all day. Its not uncommon for teachers to be strict with students and instruct kids not never use the restroom during classroom time. Whats worse is that there often isn't enough time between classes to use the bathroom. If you find that this is a problem, it might benefit the students if you write a letter to the teacher and explain the situation. It is quite common for teachers to be unaware of the fact that holding in urine can actually cause urinary track infections. As soon as they understand this, they should become more lenient with the children.

It probably goes without saying that most children are timid when it comes to asking their teachers for permission to use the bathroom anytime during a lesson or activity. This is simply due to the fact that they prefer not getting the attention, as well as the though that it might be misbehaving. Its important to instruct your children that there is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a break to the bathroom.

This may sound like something so simple that it wouldn't be beneficial, but I am here to say that it works. You should never overlook this idea because it seems so basic. This is fast paced world it seems hard to spare time for even the simplest tasks. Just remember that when the pain of a urinary track infection hits, you'll just wish that you took these preventative measures in advance.