I had suffered repeated attacks of cystitis and infections which damaged my kidneys. ‘If you don’t take these antibiotics, you won’t live to be forty,’ my doctor had warned me, and talked about kidney transplants.The antibiotics made me feel sick all the time, didn’t prevent the attacks and probably set me up for irritable bowel symptoms later on. I stopped taking the medication, changed my diet and never had another attack. I had noticed that red wine and citrus seemed to cause my attacks although my doctors ignored this observation. ‘Your condition resembles analgesic abuse,’ commented one specialist. I had rarely taken painkillers but I had eaten a diet very high in salicylates which are part of the same family as aspirin. – from Fed Up by Sue Dengate