Geordie Shore's Marnie Simpson opens up about chronic UTI on Channel 4's Leeds-based Steph’s Packed Lunch
and live on Freeview channel 276
On today's broadcast of Steph’s Packed Lunch on Channel 4, which is filmed in Leeds, the Geordie Shore and Geordie OG star spoke with Dr Javid Abdelmoneim.
She said: “When I’ve been at my lowest, I’ve just thought there’s no point in even going on.
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Hide Ad"There’s nothing more scary than being in a situation like this where you’re really ill, it’s restricting every aspect of your life, you’re in so much pain and no doctor can help you. I get anxiety, it affects my work life.”
Ms Simpson described how she was aware of her painful bladder while being interviewed.
She said: “I can feel my bladder, yeah. I’ve got bladder awareness. [I have] an irritated burning feeling. It’s like a four out of 10 and when it’s really bad it will go to 10 out of 10 and that’s when I’m bedbound.”
Mother to 11-month-old Rox, Ms Simpson also told Dr Abdelmoneim she does not know if she will have any more children as a result of her condition.
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Hide AdShe said: “I want to have more kids, I don’t know if that will ever happen. I can’t. I think there’s only one thing worse than being in this pain and it’s being in this pain pregnant because the amount of stress you put your body through with a baby, I wouldn’t be able to.”
Ms Simpson has been living with a chronic UTI for the past four years.
She said: “I’ve always suffered on and off with UTIs my whole life and then in 2016 I got one, and I took antibiotics and this time it just didn’t go. I was going to loads of doctors, I was getting loads of checks and they were checking my urine, they were saying there’s nothing there, it’s fine.”
Dr Cat Anderson, a specialist in women’s health and recurrent UTIs, told Ms Simpson Marnie and Dr Abdelmoneim: “Some studies have shown the quality of life impact of having this disease is equivalent to crippling rheumatoid arthritis, terminal cancer or end-stage renal failure. That’s quite a shocker.”
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Hide AdAsked why so many diagnoses are being missed, Dr Anderson said: “You’ve got to ask yourself, is it something to do with it being women’s health…?”
Ms Simpson added: “It’s frustrating because if I’d been treated properly in the beginning, I wouldn’t be in this position now.”
She was speaking as part of a recurring strand on Steph’s Packed Lunch, ‘Celebrity Surgery’, in which the show’s resident doctors help patients who are known to the public in their quest for better health.