At one point, my GP tried to put me on antidepressants to deal with the mental distress of living in chronic pain. I was starting to doubt my sanity.

The only treatments I was offered by the NHS were invasive and painful, including bladder stretches, cystoscopies and bladder instillations. After trying some of these and experiencing no respite, I concluded that no help was coming. I was just going to have to live with the pain.

I became a ghost of my former self. My relationship broke down, and everything that I took for granted and saw as part of my identity – travelling, socialising, exercising, dancing, intimacy, building a career – was cruelly ripped away.

Some days my pelvic congestion and inflammation were so pronounced it was hard to walk, and when I did manage to walk, it felt like I was prolapsing. I’d constantly leak – even at work. In the end, I had to let go of my career and leave the home I had built with my partner to move back in with my parents.

You lose all dignity with this condition. My parents have had to put me in the shower, prepare my meals, dispense my medication, sort out my finances. My dad had to take early retirement so he could be my carer, which isn’t a job any parent should have to undertake. They’ve seen me in states where I’m writhing in agony, and they’ve been powerless to do anything.

“I lost my career, home and relationship to chronic UTIs – why is there still no help for women?”