I know what it’s like to have invisible pain. The kind that torments you but no one else can see. I felt alone. I felt hopeless. I felt as if I was thrown off to the side. I felt completely and utterly unimportant. If you feel this way, know that you are not alone. There is hope and you are important.
I was desperate to have someone acknowledge the pain I was enduring. I am going to take this opportunity to acknowledge you and the fact that you are in pain. I hear you, I see you, and I feel your pain.
How My Invisible Pain Began
I didn’t think it was a big deal when I got my first UTI. It was more of an inconvenience. If I am to be completely honest with you, it took me a while to get to the doctors because I didn’t really understand that I had one.
This was the first time in my life I was having sex regularly, so I didn’t quite understand what was happening. I also ignored it because I was in school and had finals. My GPA seemed more important to me than my own health.
“I thought I just didn’t have time to take care of myself. Little did I know I didn’t have the time not to take care of my health.”
When I went to the CVS minute clinic, they did a quick dip test and sent me home with antibiotics within 20 minutes. The first day I took the antibiotics I was so sick from them that I had to go to the emergency room late that night. I wanted the ER doctors to change my prescription because my body was not handling them well. I could barely stand. I was so nauseated and dizzy.
No, I’m Not Pregnant. Yes, I Am On My Period
I waited for hours to be seen because my pain was not an imminent threat to my life. The pain felt pretty imminent to me, but I understand as they do the best they can in evaluating who to see first. When I was finally seen, the medical staff looked at me sideways because they couldn’t understand why I was there.
I told them I needed to switch the antibiotics I was on because my body did not like them and something was wrong. Instead of trying to figure out why I was in so much agony, the nurses and doctor repeatedly accused me of being pregnant. I told them I was on my cycle and that had nothing to do with how I was feeling.
The medical staff kept asking me if I was pregnant as if I didn’t just say I was on my period. They insisted that I take a pregnancy test and when it was negative, they just sent me home with anti-nausea medication. They did not change the antibiotics like I had asked.
I felt absolutely defeated and unheard. I walked away with more pain and frustration than I had entered. That ER visit also cost me more than $1,500 out of pocket, just for them to give me anti-nausea medication that I could have easily gotten over the counter. I felt as if I grossly overpaid them to accuse me of being pregnant. I was sick for days, and taking the rest of those antibiotics had ruined my overall health at the time.
My History Of Antibiotics
I was already wary of antibiotics because I struggled for over 7 years with recurrent vaginal yeast infections and candida overgrowth in my gut. This probably had something to do with a year-long treatment of antibiotics I had to take as a child following a surgery.
When I was younger, I did not know and was never told to take probiotics with antibiotics to lessen the effects on my microbiome. As I got older, I avoided antibiotics when I could, but still took them when necessary. This time, I knew it was necessary but they didn’t get rid of the infection or the pain.
My body was screaming at me. I wasn’t fully listening and I had no idea the UTI journey I was about to embark on.