BBC News, West Midlands
An MP has described the “debilitating and excruciating” experience of living with a chronic urinary tract infection (UTI).
Allison Gardner, the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent South, made an emotional speech in a Westminster Hall debate on the condition, which she said had at one point led her to consider having her bladder removed.
Speaking through tears, Gardner called for better recognition of and treatment for chronic UTIs.
“I do believe that this is yet another case in point of how women’s medical conditions continue to be misunderstood, under-researched and underfunded,” she said.
UTIs are bacterial infections which can affect the bladder, urethra or kidneys.
Gardner said she had frequently relied on bags of frozen peas to relieve the pain but said some women at the debate had described pouring scalding water on their legs to distract themselves.
“It’s really unpleasant,” Gardner told the BBC. “You get burning, stinging when you urinate.”
Allison GardnerGardner said while most people knew what a UTI was, severe and chronic infections made sufferers feel like they were “on fire”.
“There’s something strange about the pain because it also gets to you mentally,” she explained.
“You just can’t think and it becomes all-consuming. It gets to you that badly that you think you can’t carry on.”
The MP has suffered from menopause-induced UTIs for more than a decade but said the “dipstick” test usually used to diagnose an infection was not sensitive enough.
Only when someone has a “raging” UTI, she said, was action taken and, even then, the antibiotics prescribed were not enough to fully clear it.
“So you’re in this loop of infections, where eventually it becomes embedded and chronic,” she added.
‘Medical misogyny’
Gardner herself was not diagnosed as a chronic sufferer until 2023.
At one point, she thought she would no longer be able to work or even have a relationship because UTIs made sex painful.
She said the lack of understanding around the condition in women was an example of medical misogyny, with male patients often prescribed longer courses of antibiotics.
“You would never say to a man who has erectile dysfunction: ‘Well, you’ll just have to give up sex.’. Yet this is what happens with women all the time,” she said.
While a cocktail of medication now keeps her infections – mostly – at bay, Gardner still suffers from flare-ups.
Her daily life is still affected, she added, as she can no longer enjoy tomatoes, grapes, wine, whisky or even baths because they might trigger an infection.
Gardner is now hoping to launch a cross-party parliamentary group to look at chronic UTIs.
She is also calling on the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to recognise them.
“If I can get NICE to provide guidance, that is a huge win,” she said. “That would be phenomenal.”
A spokesperson for NICE said it had updated its guidance on prescriptions for recurrent UTIs in December.
“We regularly review and update our guidelines, particularly if there are any significant changes to the evidence base,” they added.
