Woman, 31, left peeing 40 times a day due to chronic bladder condition

A woman was left peeing 40 times a day because of a chronic bladder condition.Melissa Frost, 31, started getting severe pain after going to the toilet at age 16.She started needing to pee almost twice an hour, 40 times a day, and was given antibiotics for a potential urinary tract infection (UTI) six times in eight months.Melissa was diagnosed with bladder pain syndrome – a chronic condition characterized by pain in the lower tummy and back and needing to pee frequently – at age 16.She spent the next nine years taking painkillers before she underwent an operation to have a bladder pacemaker fitted in July 2022.The device interferes with signals between her bladder and her brain, so now she only feels the need to pee 15 times in 24 hours.Melissa, who had been told it might be hard for her to have a baby, gave birth to her son, now two years old.Melissa, a support worker from Bolton, Greater Manchester, said: “It was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced, worse than childbirth, I can’t even explain it.“It would last for hours.“I was weeing up to 40 times a day.”Melissa initially struggled to get a diagnosis – and her pain was dismissed as UTIs.She told Talk to the Press: “I was young and a lot of my internals were done by men, the whole experience was very traumatizing.“But I got a consultant who is amazing and I still see her.”As a teenager, she missed a lot of school and couldn’t go out as often as her friends.Melissa said she couldn’t have sex because the pain was so bad.At its worst, she would go to the toilet 30 times a day and ten at night.She said: “I had a very supportive boyfriend, but it was really hard.“I lost years of my life.It was heartbreaking.”In July 2013, she was diagnosed after a cystoscopy – an examination where a camera was put inside her urethra – and a uroflowmetry test, which measures the volume of urine released per second.But she was told the lining in her bladder was cracked and sore, like eczema.Melissa...