Sarah

Age at interview: 68
Brief Outline:

Sarah experiences chronic urinary tract infections (UTIs) and previously struggled with urinary incontinence. After an unsuccessful anterior repair surgery (a procedure performed to improve urinary continence), her incontinence was fixed through a tension free vaginal tape (TVT) procedure. She currently manages her UTIs by keeping antibiotics on hand.

Background:

Sarah is a retired deputy head teacher of a secondary school. She lives with her husband and has two grown up children. She describes herself as White British.

Conditions: chronic UTI, urinary incontinence

More about me...

Sarah remembers having occasional urinary tract infections (UTIs) as a child. At the time she found them confusing and painful, but she was able to “just get on with life” once they cleared up. After her second child was born in the 1980’s, she developed stress incontinence which “got worse and worse”. This limited her active and sporty lifestyle, and she found having to wear pads “embarrassing”. While she tried physiotherapy, the exercises “didn’t make a blind bit of difference” to her condition. Three years after the onset of her incontinence, Sarah had an anterior repair surgery for vaginal prolapse. She felt that this “didn’t do very much” and her incontinence continued to get worse.

Seventeen years later, Sarah met with a consultant, who advised that she have tension-free vaginal tape (TVT) inserted. Sarah underwent this procedure, and found that it “worked so successfully” and she “immediately stopped having problems”. This was a huge relief as her incontinence had been “horrendous” and “just the worst thing ever”. Looking back, she thinks she “would have done anything to have it solved”.

Following a vaginal polyp removal a few years later, she started to get UTIs which “never seemed to really go away”. Sarah’s UTIs flared up every three to four months, causing her to seek further medical advice. Her physician performed investigations and tests that showed no issues with her TVT or bladder. While having a general check-up for a lung condition, a urine test showed bits of blood in the sample. The tests once again suggested that there weren’t any issues, so Sarah has proceeded with managing her UTIs through hydration, local oestrogen therapy, and antibiotic courses.

Sarah currently takes seven-day courses of nitrofurantoin, which she finds “really does knock it on the head”. Her physician has allowed her to keep a supply at home, which lets Sarah feel more relaxed when she is out of the house or going on holiday. Sarah isn’t convinced that cranberry juice “makes much difference” but drinking lots of water has been helpful. She has also tried taking D-Mannose at a friend’s recommendation, although she’s “not sure” if it helps. Sarah has had issues with false-negative UTI tests, so she hopes that future research will help make tests more accurate.

Sarah has had to “insist” about getting same-day appointment as UTIs need “dealing with immediately otherwise it just develops into something horrendous”. Throughout her urogynaecological treatment, Sarah has made use of private medical services. She has found this to be more convenient, and she feels that it is helpful in order to keep her “dignity” and privacy in the tight-knit community that she lives in. Sarah would “desperately love to see” healthcare become more efficient.

Sarah thinks it is a “great thing” that her daughter’s generation are more open to speaking about sexual health. For years, she felt “embarrassed” and had to navigate around work, exercise, and parenting while managing bladder problems. She appreciates having friends who are willing to talk about their experiences with similar issues. She advises women to “talk about it and take action” and hopes that doctors will become better at listening to patients in the future.

Sarah gets a “bit of an ache” when a UTI is setting in.

Sarah gets a “bit of an ache” when a UTI is setting in.

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You sort of get a feeling like you probably want to wee and you know you’ve only just been that’s, that’s the most, that’s the strongest feeling, you sort of, and actually sometimes in the night if I get up and go to the loo and I go back to bed and about half an, and I don’t sleep terribly well, about half an hour later I think ‘I want to go again’ and if I can actually go and have a good wee I feel so relieved because I’m thinking if it’s just a few dribbles I think ‘Oh it’s started.’ It’s a sort of, you know, it’s a sort of funny sensation like a, just, it is just like you, you’re pretty sure you’re going to want to go to the loo and it’s a bit of an ache as well, and then when I go to the loo if I, if it doesn’t have a good pour then I know it’s starting to, to come.

Sarah was in “total agony” when she had a UTI flare up while taking her students on a field trip.

Sarah was in “total agony” when she had a UTI flare up while taking her students on a field trip.

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I mean you just, you just make sure that you take, I’ve got my antibiotics with me all the time, I mean I have them in my handbag and I have them in my bag that I take when I go away another set, so I’ve got two sets, just so that I know I’ve always got them and I know immediately if it’s starting to come and, and if I can take them quickly I’m fine, if it goes on, once I was on a field course with some kids, because I’ve obviously been a teacher I was with a load of sixth formers and I didn’t have my, any tablets with me and I was away for seven days and it started about day three, well by day seven I was in total agony it was really, really bad and you couldn’t look after the kids, I had to but it was just unbelievably difficult, and you can’t, don’t feel you can talk to people, because they were male staff so you don’t want to say well actually, you know I can’t, can’t be doing this I just want to go to bed, you can’t do that when you’ve 20, you know, 16/17 year olds rampaging about. So that, that wasn’t good.