I suffered with UTIs for 10 years – in Australia, doctors finally fixed it

One of the worst urinary tract infections (UTI) I’ve ever had – and I’ve had many, over the last decade – came, in comically tragic timing, the weekend my boyfriend and I were due to go camping. I’d only been living in Sydney for three months and we were supposed to be spending six hours on the road. For anyone unfamiliar with the particular hell of a UTI, imagine the incessant, desperate urge to go to the toilet, accompanied by searing bladder pain that doesn’t let up even when you do. Now imagine being stuck in a car for six hours, with a cockroach-infested toilet block awaiting you at the other end. Mercifully, a storm rolled in and put an end to camping. I spent 48 sleepless hours glued to the toilet at home instead. That particular UTI might have been an extreme one, but the panicked cycle of GP appointments, antibiotics and temporary relief that comes with each infection had become so familiar I’d started to accept recurrent UTIs as a sad reality of my life. I followed doctors’ advice (drink plenty of water, wee straight after sex, maintain good hygiene) religiously, carried my water bottle around like it was another limb – and yet the infections kept coming, each time rendering me unable to work, sleep or leave the house. There is something so cripplingly claustrophobic about being trapped in your own body. Sometimes, if I was suffering from another health problem, I would remind myself that at least I didn’t have a UTI. I remember one particularly sudden flare-up years ago while I was sitting in a hairdresser’s chair in Soho, London, a 40-minute tube ride from home; and another particularly cruel one on a cycling holiday in Mallorca. I’ve spent more nights than I care to remember curled up on the toilet, praying for the pain to subside.A few months after this camping incident – and after four UTIs in a single year – my Australian GP referred me to a urologist. That urologist suggested I start taking a preventative medication called Hiprex twice a day – something no doctor in Britain had ever mentioned to me. Better still, I could buy it straight off the pharmacy shelf, without a prescription or even speaking to a pharmacist. I remember walking straight to my local Chemist Warehouse – the Aussie equivalent of Boots – and looking at this unassuming brown bottle of white tablets, thinking it all felt too easy. Had a possible answer to years of misery really been sitting on a pharmacy shelf all along? This was a urinary antiseptic rather than an antibiotic, designed to help prevent infections by making the urine hostile to bacteria. A jar of 100 cost just $27.49 AUD (£14.51) – a small price to pay for something that might stop entire weeks of my life disappearing into a black hole of pain, antibiotics and cancelled plans. It made a remarkable difference almost immediately. Since taking Hiprex twice a day, the frequency of my UTIs has dramatically reduced. I still occasionally experience the telltale early symptoms, but far more often now they subside without developing into a full-blown infection that leaves me sofa-bound. Why, after almost a decade of recurrent infections in the UK, had it taken moving halfway around the world for someone to suggest a way of preventing them? Hiprex can cause side effects such as nausea, stomach upset and skin rashes – all of which, thankfully, I seem to have avoided. A 2022 clinical trial found it was a viable alternative to daily preventative antibiotics over 12 months, but longer-term evidence is more limited. As Dr Mohammad Bakhtiar, a London-based GP, points out, “evidence from taking a medicine for a year cannot answer every question about taking it continuously for many years”. NICE recommends reviewing treatment within six months, then annually. The frustrating thing is that Hiprex isn’t some revolutionary Australian discovery unavailable to British women. I’d spent years being prescribed antibiotics without anyone mentioning another preventative option. Yet methenamine hippurate, as it’s known generically, can be prescribed on the NHS, at the standard prescription charge of £9.90 per item in England. In December 2024 – around the time of that failed Sydney camping weekend – NICE updated its guidance to recommend considering it as an alternative to daily preventative antibiotics for certain women with recurrent UTIs. But knowing a treatment is available and actually getting hold of it are two different things. Before leaving Australia earlier this year, I’d stocked up enough Hiprex for two months of travelling. But when my supply ran out back in Britain, I suffered my worst UTI since discovering the medication. I found myself having to ask my new NHS GP for something I’d been buying off the shelf in Sydney. Despite my history of recurrent UTIs, it wasn’t suggested as an option: several conversations with a doctor and pharmacist followed before I finally got the prescription I was after. Had I not lived in Australia, I might never have known to ask. “Updating national guidance does not automatically mean that GPs will change their practice consistently across the board,” says Dr Shirin Lakhani, a women’s intimate health specialist. Awareness, prescribing confidence and local protocols can all influence whether a treatment is discussed, she explains. Bakhtiar says local prescribing policies can also create barriers. “Some allow GPs to start it themselves, while others require specialist advice or initiation,” he explains. NICE also recommends considering Hiprex only after other suitable preventative measures have proved insufficient. But whatever the obstacles, recurrent infections should prompt a different approach, says consultant urological surgeon Mr Giangiacomo Ollandini. “Once someone has had two infections in six months, or three in a year, it is worth stepping back and looking at the pattern rather than treating each episode in isolation,” he says. “Much of that can happen with their GP.” This wasn’t the only time I noticed a striking difference in the way my health problems were treated in Australia. Within weeks of arriving in Sydney, I’d seen a gynaecologist about debilitating periods and pelvic pain caused by adenomyosis, and had an X-ray for a suspected stress fracture. British friends had similar experiences: one finally had her PCOS concerns investigated in Melbourne; another was diagnosed with hypothyroidism after five years of unexplained symptoms in the UK. Of course, Australian healthcare isn’t the NHS. I paid upfront for appointments, receiving roughly half back through Medicare thanks to Britain’s reciprocal healthcare agreement. I spent thousands of pounds on appointments, scans and prescriptions during my 18 months there. B What struck me was the speed with which I could access care. Australia’s mixed public-private system, combined with potentially less pressure on healthcare services than in Britain, may help explain the difference. In my case, being able to pay upfront for appointments and investigations undoubtedly helped too. None of this is to suggest every woman with a UTI needs a specialist, or that Hiprex suits everyone. But I can’t help wondering whether I’d spent years putting up with something that might have been better managed. There are signs the conversation is changing. Labour MP Dr Allison Gardner, who has spoken about her own chronic UTIs, is campaigning for better recognition and treatment. Unlike my recurrent infections, chronic UTI symptoms can persist rather than clearing between episodes. The thought of living with that pain indefinitely is almost impossible to comprehend. This month, University College London researchers announced a trial investigating extended antibiotic treatment alongside methenamine hippurate for chronic UTIs. Experts are also working towards a proposed definition of chronic UTI in 2027, to help shape future clinical guidance and improve treatment pathways. Hiprex isn’t a miracle cure. But I spent almost a decade without knowing there was another way to prevent the infections that caused me so much pain. It shouldn’t have taken moving 10,000 miles around the world to find out.