\n
“It’s a searing pain every time you go to the loo” said Gardner, 60. “It’s just like hot needles being inserted inside you and just burning, burning, burning.”<\/p>\n
She told the BBC she had felt “gaslighted” by medics and had been told to “wipe yourself better” after describing intense pain. <\/p>\n
She was even told by one consultant to give up sex because it can cause a flare up. <\/p>\n
“You’ve got to fight all the time just to get treated sensibly and [not told] you’ve got anxiety, depression or are attention seeking,” Gardner said. <\/p>\n
The pain and lack of answers about her condition eventually led her to a very dark place.<\/p>\n
“It got to the point where [I thought] ‘if this is how my life is going to be, I can’t carry on’,” she said. <\/p>\n
She was so desperate she even considered selling her house to pay for private surgery to have her bladder removed.<\/p>\n
It was around that time three years ago that she discovered Dr Cat Anderson, a Staffordshire-based GP who works in private practice and for the NHS. <\/p>\n
She was the first to identify that Gardner’s symptoms were related to the menopause and prescribed her Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). <\/p>\n
“I had two years free of UTI – I just had my life back,” said Gardner. <\/p>\n
Asked whether going private went against her Labour principles that healthcare should be free, Gardner said: “You’re stuck with a choice aren’t you?<\/p>\n
“You either suffer or you go private… so I don’t judge.” <\/p>\n
She added that she believed everyone should have access to the healthcare they needed.<\/p>\n
Anderson specialises in challenging UTI cases, and is leading a group of medical experts to develop a medical definition of chronic UTIs to differentiate it from other conditions.<\/p>\n
The panel hope that an official definition will pave the way for better diagnosis and treatment. <\/p>\n
Persistent infections, Anderson said, could “ruin a patient’s quality of life” – limiting their ability to work or do something as simple as pick their children up from school. <\/p>\n
She has also seen people “who are quite literally driven to suicide” due to “awful” symptoms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
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