TV presenter Cherry Healey shares her decades-long struggle with chronic urinary tract infections, the dismissive attitude of the medical system, and the urgent need for better awareness and treatment.
Standing in the middle of a Brussels sprout field in Norfolk, I felt a familiar twinge of pain. Immediately realising what was happening, I cursed quietly to myself.
I knew there was nothing I could do. I was filming my TV show, Inside The Factory, and I had to get to Oxford for a friend's wedding. There was no question I urgently needed antibiotics, but it was a weekend, I was miles from home, and there was no access to a GP. Once again, I had a urinary tract infection, or UTI, that was about to ruin my week and - on this occasion - almost kill me.
My entire life has been punctuated by the agonising pain of UTIs. My first one was apparently aged three, and during adulthood they have reared up around four times a year, sometimes more, sometimes one after another.
Now aged 45, I have found a solution that is working for me, and I am finally speaking out about the subject because I cannot believe how women are simply left to suffer, completely dismissed, needing antibiotics time and again, ending up in hospital, or even - and this is not hyperbole - so driven to distraction by the pain and frequency, they try to take their lives. A 2021 Australian study showed almost one in ten patients with a chronic UTI had thought about suicide or even planned or made an attempt.
I joke about UTIs, calling them an annoying lifelong friend. But in reality there is nothing at all funny about them. We have always been taught that the relevant body parts should stay hidden, but the cursory dismissal and the shame that women are made to feel about UTIs makes me rage. Besides, I am so used to them that I am just not embarrassed any more.
A UTI generally occurs when harmful bacteria - usually E.coli - enter the urinary tract. If you have had one, you will know that symptoms include that classic sensation of peeing daggers, the desperate need to pee, lower abdominal pain and a feeling of general unwellness. They are staggeringly common. Around half of all women in the UK will have a UTI at least once in their lifetime, and up to 1.7 million suffer with chronic or persistent infections.
By the age of 16, one in ten girls and one in 30 boys have had one. The female body has a shorter urethra, making it more prone to UTIs than the male body. Incontinence increases with age, especially during perimenopause and beyond, when hormonal changes affect the vaginal microbiome and the skin thins.
In older people, a UTI can be very dangerous; in 2022/23, there were almost 150,000 hospital admissions with a UTI - more than half of them over 65. They are the leading cause of sepsis in women. There is a myth that they are linked to poor hygiene, but a UTI is not caused by being dirty - I am extremely clean!
It is true that we need to be aware of the importance of wiping front to back, but there are many reasons for developing them, and I do everything to mitigate the risk, like drinking lots of water and wearing natural fabrics. One of my first childhood memories - or perhaps it is a series of memories blurring into one - is being in my nightie in our house in Suffolk, terrified to go to the loo because it was so painful, and telling my mother.
I was sent for tests, but as far as I am aware there was no obvious cause, so I was just sent on my merry way. The message has always been that it is just a UTI, and to put up with them. From then on, the severity and occurrence has ebbed and flowed, increasing as I headed into my 30s. On average, I have had one every three months for 40 years.
I am also a working mother of two children. I am freelance and often juggling five or six projects simultaneously, frequently filming for hours at a time in locations where it is not possible to be constantly drinking lots of water. In fact, my entire lifestyle - filming, travelling and attending events - is not great for my natural biology.
I can be standing at a party, having had a few drinks and suddenly realise I have got an infection on its way. For me, UTIs are at best inconvenient and painful, at worst life-threatening. The only thing that has worked are antibiotics, which I must have taken well over 100 times. This is troubling in itself; they are not great for your gut, and there is increasing concern about antibiotic resistance, which is, of course, extremely serious.
On the occasion mentioned before, when I was 28, I finished filming and went to Oxford. I drank loads of cranberry juice - said to head off an early UTI if you drink enough of it, though in fact that is not true - lots of water, and took painkillers. Nothing worked, and I could feel it getting worse
UTI Chronic Infection Women's Health Antibiotics Cherry Healey
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