A mum who treated her chronic UTIs with cranberry juice has spoken out about using the method after she said she ‘nearly ended up dying in front of my mum and daughter’.
Carol Hadley was no stranger to water infections, and for three decades, she revealed she had a tried-and-tested self-treatment care plan that hadn’t let her down until it nearly cost her dearly.
The 47-year-old explained she never visited her GP for her urinary tract infections (UTI) and instead bought cranberry juice and cystitis sachets when she felt the symptoms of burning when peeing and frequent toilet trips.
But while the NHS claims some people do in fact use these methods as a preventative against UTIs, that doesn’t mean they are effective in treating them.
Carol Hadley says she was left ‘scared’ and ‘dying’ (Kennedy)
Carol, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, said: “I’ve had UTIs all my life from being a teenager, as young as 13 or 14. It tended to happen a lot after I’d been drinking – going out at weekends with my friends.
“I’ve had them on a regular basis for the last 30 years, I hadn’t really been to the doctors about it.”
Sadly, in July, the mum-of-three would go on to experience near-death and was left in an induced coma after mistaking UTI symptoms as a normal part of her 30-year process.
Hadley said she put down symptoms of multiple headaches and eventually UTI symptoms as her being ‘busy at work’.
Carol said: “Over the next couple of weeks, I started getting the symptoms of a UTI. It was burning while I pee, I was getting a fever, I just thought it was a normal UTI.
“I was also having back pain, but I genuinely thought it was because I’m on my feet all day. I now know it was my kidneys.”
But on August 23, her month-long ‘UTI’ turned out to be much worse.
In fact, Carol said once she was rushed to hospital after feeling feverish and becoming ‘incoherent’ at work, doctors revealed her UTI had developed into a kidney infection, E.coli and sepsis.
According to the NHS, a person’s kidneys can become infected if bacteria from the UTI travel to the organs.
If the bacteria reach the bloodstream, that’s when sepsis is a dangerous possibility.
“My temperature was fluctuating and my oxygen levels were low so they rang an ambulance,” said Carol as she added: “My daughter said when she got to the hospital I wasn’t making any sense. My words were coming out slurred like I’d been drinking.
“Apparently I was very incoherent, I was put into the critical care unit two days later.”
She has urged people not to treat UTI symptoms at home (Kennedy)
They also told her that her headaches were because her brain had started to swell, and after being rushed to hospital, she was placed into an induced coma and remained in hospital for three weeks.
Despite recovering, Carol has been left with long-term damage to her kidneys after having experienced 30 per cent kidney failure, and urges others to seek medical advice if they experience UTI symptoms instead of attempting to self-medicate.
Carol said: “I was scared. [When they told me I had] 30% kidney failure [I thought] ‘am I going to die?’ I was scared and I was emotional.”
“I just thought of my kids and granddaughters, I didn’t believe it had happened,” Carol added. “It always cleared up with the cranberry juice and sachets within a couple days.”
But now, she said of her future plans if she experiences a UTI again: “If I do get a UTI in the future, my first port of call will now be the GP because my kidneys are still damaged. I’ll never ever ignore a UTI again, I nearly ended up dying in front of my mum and daughter.”
She then urged others not to make the same mistake she did, adding: “My advice is don’t take them for granted because you’ve had them frequently. Get to your GP straight away and demand to be put on antibiotics.
“Skip the cranberry juice and sachets all together.”
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