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Chronic UTI's led my 8 yr old to have to take daily antibiotics. She developed sensitivities to the antibiotics and one of antibiotics the Dr. switched her to caused her to get nerve damage in her arm. Thankfully we caught it early enough and it reversed itself- but it made me even more worried about depending on antibiotics to control the problem. I did a lot of reading about D-mannose and ordered some. It does work to kick UTI infections. In case this helps others, I wanted to share what I learned about D-mannose. Obviously you'd want to check with your Dr. to make sure what I'm saying is safe for you to try, because everyone has different health problems. Here's what I learned: Basically D-Mannose is an indigestible sugar that gets filtered out into the urine by the kidneys. The main side effect of D-Mannose over-dose is some diarrhea. It's important to drink lots of water with D-Mannose because it only works by flushing out the bacteria out of the bladder in the urine. Avoiding sugary foods and drinks is important. Also, D-Mannose works best if the urine is alkaline. The reason for this (from what I've read) is that the bacteria that cause the infection can sort of "circle the wagons" and encapsulate themselves while under stress. When they are encapsulating- they aren't attaching to the D-Mannose and they won't flush out. You want relaxed, unsuspecting bacteria- because those are the ones that attach to the D-Mannose and flush out of the bladder during urination. But- if they are in defense mode (e.g. when the urine is acidic)- they don't attach to the D-Mannose and don't flush out of bladder. So- it won't work well if you drink cranberry juice or eat lots of blueberries- because these things acidify the urine. My daughter seems to just normally have acidic urine, so by taking 0.5 a Tums tablet every few hours, she can usually raise her urine pH (unless, like yesterday, she's been chowing down on blueberries :). As soon as a UTI hits, I give her 3 D-Mannose capsules and a half tablet of Tums. Then, every 2 hours, I give her 2 D-Mannose capsules and a half a Tums. She constantly drinks water all day. We keep that up while she's awake for 2 full days, then ease up to every 3 hours for the next 3 days. Because we've been dealing with chronic UTI for years, I always keep Multistix 10 SG Urine test strips on hand and have used them to follow the results. Now I also keep a full bottle of D-Mannose capsules in the cupboard so we can whack back infections as soon as they start. We prefer the D-mannose capsules because the D-Mannose powder has a weird aftertaste. Hope this helps!