- Women, in particular, feel that they have a urinary tract infection, and often it's really not infection.

It is inflammation.

My name is Susan Gray.

I am a nurse practitioner here at Nashville General Hospital in the Urology Clinic.

The major symptoms that we see are pain with urination.

Dysuria is the word.

Frequency, urgency.

You put your key in the door, and you've gotta go.

The other word we use frequently is nocturia, and that is how many times you get up at night.

People think they have UTIs all the time, but in fact, what happens when they go to walk-in clinics, ERs, primary doctors, we're not getting at the cause, the root cause of what's going on in the bladder, particularly women.

And often, it's an inflammatory process, not an infectious process.

For optimal, your bladder health in a woman, water is your number one best friend.

We recommend half your body weight in ounces.

That's a lot of water, but the goal is to keep your urine clear to light yellow.

The whole concept about diet modification in bladder health is to avoid foods and drink that cause inflammation.

Food and drink with acid in them.

Orange juice, tomatoes.

Carbonation, sodas and beer.

Coffee and tea.

We stress avoiding spicy foods such as barbecue, pizza, spaghetti.

That all has a tomato base, and tomato is acid.

So we say to patients the don'ts, but I like to follow that up with the dos.

And what we tell patients is to eat as clean and whole as you can.

Chicken, fish, vegetables, salads, pasta, potato.

I equate it to heartburn of the bladder or angry bladder or irritated bladder.

If patients are willing to do the work, we find great success.

I'm Susan Gray.

Thank you so much for joining us "For Your Good Health."