No UTI but symptoms after finishing antibiotics (please help)
Hi! I'm a 20 yo female and I've been dealing with recurrent UTIs for the past year and a half now, but I've figured out why and will hopefully not be getting any more in the future. I've had them since I was a kid, but my parents never let me get treatment for them when I was younger because they said that I was too young to get them, so I only started treating them in college (I got much fewer UTIs as a kid tho!).
I'm currently treating a UTI with Keflex and I'm on the last day of antibiotics, feeling much better but not 100%. This has happened to me with my last two or three UTIs where I finish antibiotics but still have general discomfort and urgency for months after. The only thing that helps is drinking a copious amount of water. It helps with the discomfort but makes me pee like once every 30 mins... so not an amazing solution.
For my last UTI, after finishing antibiotics, they retested me and found nothing. They also did a urine culture and found nothing again. The antibiotics obviously cured my UTI, so what's wrong with me?? I'm scared that these symptoms will never go away. I've been looking into it and seeing things about interstitial cystitis (IC), and I'm really scared I've given it to myself, and I'm stuck with it for the rest of my life.
I start a new job tomorrow that requires me to be on my feet from 8am-5pm with only a one-hour break and if I've somehow developed IC I don't know what I'm going to do. If anyone has any advice, similar experiences, or ideas of what I could do, please please PLEASE let me know. This is genuinely my last resort; I can't really go to a doctor right now. Thank you so much.