Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: What'S worthwhile healing Mind, body and spirit. I'm Ramsey Zimmerman. I choose peace of mind, vitality of body, and joy of spirit over stress, exhaustion, or overwhelm. Together, let's explore and pursue the many ways to build holistic health and wellness.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting, isn't it, because it's actually the most common bacterial infection globally. So it is a really, really common occurrence. It's not like this should be a specialist or niche area of health.
A UTI is an infection of the urinary tract and it does predominantly affect women. But that might be why, despite the fact that it's a common health occurrence, it's not well researched, understood and treated.
So I'd really like to see a lot more funding, a lot more research going into these conditions, but like I say, just more conversations. Like women feeling like it's okay and it's acceptable to talk about their health. I'd really love to see doctors start to take patient reported experiences more seriously.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Hey there, it's Ramsay here. That was Saoirse Nashville.
Saoirse is the director of Liveuti Free, an international women's health research and patient advocacy organization.
She's also a natural health coach.
We talked about the fact that urinary tract infections are often not adequately addressed and how many women just think of them as an annoying fact of life, when in fact they can be both effectively treated and Prevented.
Sirsha and LiveUTI free call for better testing and use of antibiotics, as well as more open conversation in terms of prevention. It's all about promoting a healthy microbiome through nutritious eating, stress reduction and good hygiene.
While they're probably still not the best dinner table conversation topic, UTIs are widely experienced and often misunderstood.
So let's talk about them.
Hey, Saoirse, how are you doing today?
[00:02:14] Speaker A: I'm doing really well. The sun is shining. It's been really warm over here, so that definitely boosts the mood.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: That's great. Where is over here? Where are you?
[00:02:22] Speaker A: So I'm in County Cork in the south of Ireland, and we don't get a lot of sunshine here, so it's glorious when it comes.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I hear you. I'm in the Pacific Northwest in Washington state in the usa and that is basically the same deal. We don't get a lot of sun either, except for like two months out of the year, and then we just have non stop sun.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: We don't have non stops on here. It's very, very intimate and very hit and miss. So you might have two days and then rain for two weeks, even in the summer. So it's. Yeah, you've got to grab it where you can.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Well, that is great. Hey, thanks for, thanks for joining me today. You are a women's health coach, a yoga teacher and the director of Live UTI Free, which is an international women's health organization for those who are fortunate enough not to know what is a.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Uti and you would be very fortunate not to have experienced it, at least as a woman.
A UTI is an infection of the urinary tract. You can have upper urinary tract infections and lower urinary tract infections.
So your urinary tract consists of the kidneys, the ureters, the bladder, the urethra.
It's very common, it seems to be the most common to have lower urinary tract infections of the bladder or the urethra.
It's usually a bacterial infection, but there can be other causes for bladder infections or similar symptoms.
Very, very common condition, but not well treated, not well understood.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: So we can't just easily and quietly just knock that out with antibiotics. Is it just, it's not just a part of life, you know? Clearly, clearly I expect you to say no, but how do you dispel that, that attitude which seems really prevalent?
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting, isn't it, because it's, it's actually the most common bacterial infection globally. So it is a really, really common occurrence. It's not like this should be a specialist or niche area of health and it does predominantly affect women. But, but that might be why, despite the fact that it's a common health occurrence, it's not well researched, understood and treated.
In theory, if we had decent testing methods and if we took patient symptoms seriously and we prescribed antibiotics for an appropriate length of time, then perhaps it would be as simple as going to the doctors, being tested, getting your antibiotics and going home. But the problem, at least over here, I don't know about in America obviously, but in Ireland and the United Kingdom, the patient experience is maybe not given as much weight as it should be. The testing methods aren't fantastic. They miss a huge percentage of infections due to inaccurate testing methods.
And often the course of antibiotics that are prescribed is too short. It's kind of standard to get a three day course when actually what seems to be the most effective would be something between seven to 10 or even 14 days.
So yeah, in theory, something that should be quite easily treated is actually is not well treated. And that is the case that a lot of women I've spoken to have found that that's the case for them too, you know.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
So this, why is this a really personal issue for you? Why are you so passionate about it?
[00:05:56] Speaker A: So, yeah, I've really struggled with the UTIs. I used to get a lot of acute UTIs when I was in my teen years. So by acute I mean, you know, I would get the symptoms. They would kind of come up over the day and then maybe two, you know, well, one to two days later the symptoms would be gone. So it was an acute episode. You know, I would be, I would be in a lot of pain during that time, but it would be short lived. And I would get maybe 2 to 4 UTIs a year again, because there's not a lot of education around UTIs. I didn't realize that that was unusual, that that was something to be worried about. I thought exactly as you said a moment ago, it's just part of life. It's just what happens, you know. And especially as a woman, you hear of a lot of other women having uti. So it is, it is normalized, you know. And then when I was about 24 years old, I started developing UTI symptoms that just never went away. None of my usual, you know, treatment methods were working. I used to just increase fluids and use bicarbonate of soda to alkalize the.
And then I started getting this UTI that wouldn't go away. I went to my doctors. Luckily they actually found the UTI on a test at my doctor's. But as I say, I was prescribed three days of antibiotics which was nowhere near enough for what I needed.
And then it kind of developed in. I was just sent home from my doctors. Essentially they were like, we'll put you on the waiting list for a urologist, but that could be three years off you go in the meantime.
And when you have a health experience like that, it's incredibly scary, but it's incredibly motivating, at least for me and you know, for a lot of other people.
That's kind of what has made me feel so passionately about this because I've really experienced the acute symptoms, but also that kind of, that experience of living with a chronic health condition, chronic daily symptoms that aren't going away.
And that's kind of what's made me really passionate about working in this area, educating people in this area, supporting women who are going through this.
I ended up having to find a clinician in England. And that's actually how I found liveuti free. I was doing a lot of Googling at the time, a lot of, you know, how do I get rid of.
And I came across the LiveUTI Free website, which had so much information already.
But I contacted them, I sent them an email and Melissa, the founder, responded to me. She sent me a list of clinicians. There are no specialist clinicians in chronic bladder infections in Ireland, so I had to go to England.
Um, but I did, I found a clinician in England who I went to see. And then we had telephone or, you know, video call consultations after that.
And she put me on a course of long term antibiotics. I was on antibiotics, you know, for a year, two years, for a long, long time. It took quite a while for the antibiotics to make a dent in my symptoms. It's different for every person, but it took quite a while for me.
So, you know, that experience really kind of motivated me to, to learn more myself, to support other people. It's just. There's nothing more motivating than going through it yourself.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. And you know, having, having chronic illness, chronic symptoms has a way of kind of taking over your focus, taking over your life. Right?
[00:09:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: You know, and it's, whether it's a UTI or any, any other form of chronic illness, it really sort of gets in there and it's hard to, to think about anything else.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: So apart from, you know, year long sessions of antibiotics, how can people get ahead of this, get in front of this and you know, things like UTIs and other things as well, you know, in, in terms of living healthy lives and maintaining equilibrium and you know, not getting unwanted infections in the first place. What do you, what kinds of things do you recommend?
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. And it's, you know, it's a holistic approach, right? It's a whole person approach. It's mind and body. There's no silver bullet. There's no one simple solution. If you want your body and your mind and your mental health to be in good condition, then you kind of have to approach it from all areas.
But you know, specifically in terms of infection and immunity, it always comes back to gut health. You know, 80% of your immune cells live in your gut. So if you really want to boost immunity and that, you know, includes UTIs and other infections, then you really need to look at gut health. But again, gut health isn't just about what you're eating. Um, stress really negatively impacts gut health. It slows down motility, sort of impacts absorption and digestion.
So again, you kind of have to look at the body as a whole. You have to look at your Diet, you have to look at your movement and your exercise. You have to look at your stress levels.
It's, it's really, you know, it's like, I'd love to have like just one or two suggestions for people. It's like if you do these two things, you'll be great, but it's not, it's really like a whole person approach.
And I do find it really interesting, the connection between the mind and body. Like, you have to, you can be eating as well as possible and moving as well as possible. But if you, you know, are chronically stressed, if you're holding on to a lot of trauma, then you're still fighting an uphill battle. So it's really. Yeah, mind, body connection is a big thing.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: Well, it's all the stuff that I'm interested in. What an amazing coincidence. And it's all the same stuff. So let's talk about a bunch of it. So gut health, you mentioned gut health.
What are some ways to, you know, really promote gut health in terms of, you know, providing a, a real nice environment for the, the good friendly bacteria that we want versus the ones that are much less friendly to us?
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So when it comes to gut health, diet is really, really important. And so much of the modern day diet is made up of processed foods. And on one hand you might have foods that are just lacking in nutrients, so they're not feeding you, but on the other hand, you might have foods that are actually requiring nutrients in your body in order for that food or that chemical to be excreted. So they're actually depleting you of nutrients, you know.
So for gut health, you really, really have to focus on a whole food diet and you really want to focus on fiber. Fiber is found in plant foods and it feeds the good bacteria in your gut. So like you say, in terms of like feeding that environment and keeping it healthy, you really want to focus on including fiber, whole foods, plant foods, lots of veg, also focusing on prebiotic foods. So foods that feed the bacteria that are already there. And then probiotic foods. So those are foods that provide you with good bacteria. That's, you know, probiotic foods are things like kefir and kimchi and sauerkraut and things like that.
So a big part of it is diet, but like I say, a big part of it is also stress. So if you are chronically stressed, that can increase intestinal permeability. So what we call leaky gut.
And then you're getting, you know, particles and chemicals from the food, the undigested Food in your gut being leaked into your bloodstream that can cause all sorts of symptoms like brain fog and fatigue.
So you kind of really need to focus on your, your stress and reduce.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: How does the, how does the stress directly impact sort of the digestion? Let's, let's unpack that a little bit because I think a lot of people don't necessarily think about that. But how does, how does stress directly impact digestion?
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Yeah, so, yeah, so the first thing that comes to my mind is when we're stressed, the body's releasing more cortisol to prepare us to fight or flee from the perceived danger. Cortisol causes a release of stored glycogen. So it's like a, like glucose from the liver so that your cells have fuel in order to fight or flee. But that causes blood sugar dysregulation. Okay. So then you're getting things like, you know, fatigue, cravings, you might be snacking more. So in that sense, being stressed and having this extra cortisol and this glucose in your bloodstre altering your eating habits, you're more likely to snack, you're more likely to snack on bad foods as well. You know, bad foods, high sugar, processed foods.
And then again, like I say, then you're getting into this whole, you know, it's not providing you with nutrition, possibly it's depleting you of nutrients, so there's that element to it.
But being stressed also kind of slows down motility in the gut. So the movement of food through the gut. Because when your body is perceiving itself to be in danger, it kind of, you could say it sort of turns certain systems offline that it doesn't think are super necessary right now to escape from that danger. So digestion is not super necessary when your body's preparing to fight or flee. Neither is reproduction, you know, so these systems kind of, they're shut down a little. And that's the problem with chronic stress. It's totally normal to experience acute moments of stress. That's totally fine.
But if you are chronically stressed or you have a job that you don't like, or you're in a difficult relationship, then these systems that are necessary for you to feel good and be healthy, like your digestive system and therefore your immune system and as a woman, your reproductive system, these systems are kind of chronically long term shut down, you know, not functioning 100%.
And so over time, that's going to lead to all sorts of symptoms. You know, not in the first day, not in the first week, maybe but, but you know, weeks, months, years of that, then you're really going to start to see some, some pretty intense health symptoms, you know.
[00:15:56] Speaker B: And what are some better, some good ways to deal with stress, do you think, and that you recommend to clients and people?
[00:16:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's tricky, isn't it? Because of course it's not realistic to say, remove stress. You know, we're alive, we're living.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: That's boring. That sounds really boring. Who would want to not have any stress?
[00:16:17] Speaker A: So it is, it's really hard and I guess it's really, really individual. Right, because some people have more bandwidth, have more ability, have more influence, you know, with things that they can change. Other people don't, you know, say if the source of stress is your job, but you can't leave your job, well, then you need to find other ways. So like there's kind of, you know, it's a two pronged approach. There's, can you, can you remove the source of stress or some of the source of stress. But the other approach is, can you manage your response to that stress? You know, if there's going to be a stressful thing in your life that you can't remove, then how can you alter your response to that so you're not constantly in the state of fight or flight?
And that's things like, you know, yoga, breathwork, meditation, grounding exercises, creative expression, movement, dance. There's so much, there's, you know, a huge list of things that you can do or that you can like start trying out and see what things work for you. You know, like yoga was a big one for me. That really does help with stress. And oftentimes with yoga, you're doing breathing practices and you know, breathing intentionally and especially slowing down your exhale and making that a little bit longer helps to get you into that parasympathetic nervous system state so that rest and digest that not stress state.
So yeah, that's what I would do with my clients. Like I have a whole big list of things that they could try and I provide them with that list. I talk through that list with them and then it's on that individual person to go and read the list and figure out what they're drawn to and what feels good for them and what they can do in their lives, you know.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. Well, I mean, if you get back to it, sort of the, the way that our bodies react is like the stress response, like you said, is the fight or flight. But these days we often don't have the opportunity or don't Take the opportunity to do either one as a result of stress. It's like, you know, the days were much simpler where you could just go ahead and fight the dang saber tooth tiger, but now it's like, you know, the tiger's on the other side of a screen screen. You can't reach it.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: And so, but just when we do get stress, probably the, what I think is often the best stress reliever is just get some exercise, you know, get out there and do what it is that you like to do. Like, I'm, I'm a big runner. I like to go running.
And that's a, that's a great way to do it. But like you said, you know, whatever it is, the movement that or the activity that you really enjoy doing, great to do that.
And then, you know, you also described ways to sort of process and physically process and work through the stress. So it's either like burn it off or work through it and sort of get past it, I think, with stress. But, you know, just, you know, raging and picking up a coffee cup and throwing across the room, probably not the best, but maybe, I don't know, it's worth a shot if you're really into chucking coffee cups across the room.
And let's see, what are some of the other things too.
Let's talk a little bit about hormones, because hormones getting out of balance, out of whack, I think that is a big contribution.
Right. And how can we try to sort of be aware of what our hormones are doing and encourage them to stay in alignment?
[00:20:04] Speaker A: Again, education is key. Right. Because what most people think, or at least I can speak from a woman's perspective because I work with women and not men. But what most women think of as hormones are estrogen and progesterone, which is accurate. They are hormones. But you have so many more hormones. Cortisol is a hormone. Insulin is a hormone. You have thyroid stimulating hormone, and your thyroid governs your metabolic processes in the body, so converting food into energy.
So I think education is really important because if you think of hormones solely as your sex hormones, you're missing a trick with the rest of your system.
And by the time your sex hormones are showing symptoms. So for women, PMS and irregular cycles and things like that, by the time you're experiencing those symptoms, there's likely, you know, things are off in the rest of your hormonal cascade.
So it's really, really important to educate and to understand that hormones are much more than just your estrogen and your progesterone I think two of the really important hormones are insulin, which helps to lower your blood sugar, and cortisol, which does many things in the body, but one of which is it raises blood sugar when you're stressed.
Because if you're, if those hormones are off, if you're, if you're, like I say, chronically stressed or eating a diet that's really, really high in processed simple carbohydrates and sugar, that insulin and that cortisol, your blood sugar is going to be off and that's going to mess up all of the rest of your hormones. You know, even if, even if you're doing other things right in your life, if you're eating a poor diet or you're chronically stressed, your hormones are going to suffer.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: You know, so we talked, we talked quite a bit about stress and cortisol. Let's talk about insulin for a while. What really drives insulin? It's blood sugar. Right? So, yeah. How do you, how do you manage insulin levels? Well, you know, apart from, and maybe we're talking, talking about, we're not necessarily talking about diabetes and type 2 diabetes. I mean, we could be. But even those who are pre diabetic or, you know, just in general, let's talk about ways to sort of manage blood sugar in order to manage insulin.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So insulin is the hormone that, it's kind of like, think of it as a key for your cells. So it opens up the cells and lets them receive the glucose that you've eaten in your meal and in order to use it for energy. So that's a, that's a great system when it's working correctly.
And like you say, I won't maybe talk about a medical condition, but talk about the average person who's eating a really standard modern western diet.
Those diets tend to be really high in glucose, all sorts of different types of sugars. And like there's regular sugar and then there's honey and maple syrup, but then there's processed sugars and corn syrups and.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: All of these fructose and fructose. High fructose corn syrup.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: Yum.
So there's so. And then obviously there's also, you know, we associate sugar with sugary sweet foods, but obviously other carbohydrates and starches contain glucose as a molecule and that will raise your blood sugar as well, which is again, not an issue. In theory, if you're raising your blood sugar appropriately with good whole foods, fine.
But again, if you're eating like a standard Western diet, then you're eating A lot of nutrient deficient foods, lots of high sugar, high processed carbs, which causes continuous spikes in blood sugar. And after a while your cells can become like insulin resistant because they're essentially, it's like they're fatigued. They're being bombarded by glucose and insulin all the time. And it can start to happen where they don't respond to the insulin anymore.
So that glucose is then in your bloodstream and it's causing, you know, dizziness, fatigue, like feeling like you need to snack, weight gain, you know, stubborn weight gain, weight gain that you can't. And then as you say, that can lead on to being pre diabetic or developing type 2 diabetes.
So really, blood sugar can be managed really well with diet. You know, it's about eating whole foods and trying to reduce your processed sugars and your processed carbohydrates. I'm not against carbs at all, but you really want to be eating good whole food sources of carbohydrates. You also want to be eating adequate fat and protein to kind of, if you're eating sugar alone or starches alone, that will raise your blood sugar really quickly. Whereas if you have a meal that includes fat, protein, fiber and that glucose source, that will slow the raise of your blood sugar. And so, yeah, it's, it's, it's manageable through diet. Definitely.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. No, I am sort of working through a nutritional therapy practitioners program right now, so definitely learning all about this stuff. And it's, it's amazing to see what effects, you know, blood sugar have, has. And I used to always have major blood sugar issues.
I'm doing better, though.
We were talking about, we mentioned fiber earlier in the conversation. The fact that it feeds our microbiome in, in the gut, but it also sort of slows things down and is, you know, getting fiber along with your starches and things like that is also a good way to sort of buffer your blood sugar.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: And really, you know, sort of building your diet around protein. So starting with protein as kind of the base and then adding fats and carbohydrates in appropriate levels, sort of based on your own metabolism and sort of your own goals for eating, really makes a huge difference. And yeah, to keep that insulin and you know, that the idea of insulin resistance, it's like, I find it so fascinating because people, in terms of personality, like, if you nag somebody all the time about the same thing, then it's going to be like, oh God, at some point I'm just going to start ignoring you.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: And that's, that goes all the way down to the cellular level. Yeah, like our cells actually do that too.
Oh my gosh. I just always find that so funny.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: That's a great analogy as well.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, it sounds like, you know, staying UTI free has lots to do with sort of all the basic kind of fundamental health issues. But are there any sort of more specific things that your organization recommends to, to live UTI free?
[00:26:48] Speaker A: So we don't recommend specific things. We're kind of like an advocacy information platform and we're also involved in research, but we're not dealing one to one with patients and making recommendations, you know, via the website, via the platform. But something else that I think would be valuable for us to talk about in terms of bladder health is.
So a lot of women do tend to report that they get UTIs via sexual contact.
So they're not STDs, they're not classed as STDs because you can develop a UTI without sexual contact. But it is a risk factor, you know, because there's skin on skin and you know, hands. Are your hands clean.
So I think it's really important to kind of highlight that element to it as well. Because a lot of women I've spoken to, especially when they have a new partner, a new relationship, they find that they're suddenly, you know, developing UTIs kind of more regularly.
So it's always a tricky part of the conversation to have because I in no way want to imply that you're dirty for having a uti. That's not at all, that's not at all the point of the conversation. But there is an element of hygiene. I think, especially with your partner, it's really important that you're both clean, that hands have been washed.
I know that, you know, it can be quite helpful for some women to pee before and after having sex because that helps to flush out the bladder and the urethra. So any bacteria that might have started to ascend the urethra into the bladder get flushed back out.
So I think, yeah, having conversations around that as well. And that can feel quite intimate for people that can feel quite uncomfortable to have that conversation because it's, you know, an intimate part of your life.
But it does seem to be a risk factor for a lot of women. So again, education on how to be clean, how to keep yourself and your partner safe, and little self care practices that you can do afterwards, like, like I say, peeing afterwards.
I know some women like to take probiotics that are specifically designed for, you know, the bladder and the urinary tract. So that can be useful to do sometimes after sex as well.
So, yeah, it's just like I say, because it's such an intimate and uncomfortable part of the conversation, people tend to talk about that area less. But it's actually really important, and it's really common. Again, if we can just normalize it, it's a. It's a risk factor. It's quite common. Risk factor. Doesn't mean anybody's done anything wrong. And here are the ways that you can keep yourself and your partner safe, you know, So I think that's definitely something to add.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: Well, again, it's. It's kind of basic hygiene stuff. It's like. So that's good. But it's also absolutely not something you talk about very often. Yeah, I certainly don't talk about it maybe ever.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: Yeah, and it's just a funny thing, isn't it? Because, again, it's education. Right. If you, you know, you. You might need to be taught, understandably, the connection between hands, hands that haven't been washed, but how bacteria lives on the skin, how that can transfer from one place to another. That's not information you necessarily inherently know, and there's no problem if you don't. But that's why we need to have the conversation so that you learn and then you protect yourself and you protect someone else, you know.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: Do you think that those conversations have been happening more or less often? Like, what kind of. How have you seen attitudes maybe change or develop over the last, you know, five years or however long? What. What do you think?
You know, has there sort of been any change there?
[00:30:16] Speaker A: I think it's slow. I think it's like change in women's health is really slow.
But there has been change. People are having these conversations more. And there are, you know, organizations like LiveUTI Free that are providing unbelievable resources and conversation around these topics, you know, education.
I know that, you know, it's becoming more acceptable to have these conversations even as a woman, with your friends, you know, socially there. So there is a change, but it's slow. It's, you know, women's health is a bit of a taboo subject. I actually recently read a book called Unwell Women by Eleanor Cleghorn, and she kind of talks through the last 2000 years and the attitudes towards women in medicine. And it really, really explained clearly why women's health has been such a taboo subject and how we've spent 2,000 years creating this environment.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: So what are some of those reasons?
[00:31:10] Speaker A: Oh, my God. It's, there's a lot, it's quite in depth. It's a lot to get into, but it's. It's essentially, you know, in that sort of patriarchal environment, women being viewed as lesser, you know, less important, especially, you know, when you're talking, when you're going back like a thousand, two thousand years, all sorts of crazy attitudes towards women's bodies, thinking that women's bodies don't behave the same way as, you know, male bodies or human bodies. Like, there's. So it's been such a long history of devaluing and to an extent, dehumanizing women, women's bodies, women's health, that have gotten us to a point where, like I say, it's uncomfortable to have these conversations. Nobody wants to talk about women's bodies or women's health. It all feels a bit taboo and a bit icky, you know.
So, like I say, that is changing a little. And that's why, you know, conversations like this are so important, because we need, we need to be talking about it. We need to see women talking about it. We need to see men talking about it.
So, yeah, there is change, but it's slow. There's a long, dark history there. So it's, it's going to be slow, but it's happening.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: As you, as you look ahead, as you look at the future, what do you see? What do you hope for women's health and for conversations, how would you like to see it be different?
And, you know, how. And what are you working towards with your work with this organization and also just your work as a, you know, professional?
[00:32:42] Speaker A: Oh, so much. Yeah, I think I'd really like to so live UTI free. Yeah, like a lot of their work, what they're championing is removing that inequality in medicine. The way that we research, you know, typically male conditions versus typically female conditions. I think we really need to remove the stigma, remove the taboo and kind of, you know, remove that inequality in terms of research and funding, you know, the money that goes into other conditions versus female health specific conditions. So I'd really like to see a lot more funding, a lot more research going into these conditions.
But like I say, just more conversations, like women feeling like it's okay and it's acceptable to talk about their health. I'd really love to see doctors start to take patient reported experiences more seriously.
And again, I think it would be fair to say that that is already happening a lot of the time for men. But I can certainly say as a woman going into a doctor's clinic with very, very clear symptoms, I was still not taken seriously. Like, the issue with the test that you're offered for UTIs at the doctors is that it's inaccurate 30 to 50% of the time.
So if that test comes back as clear, the patient's experience is not being valued despite the fact that they may be presenting with very clear symptoms. So I think for me it's probably those two things like doctors taking patient experience more seriously and removing some of that inequality in research and care.
[00:34:17] Speaker B: What do you think it would take for the doctors to take it more seriously and to have better discussions?
And also, you know, there we're seeing more and more women doctors. Right. And certainly if you look back over the course of the last 10, 20, 40 years, there's clearly a lot more women's women doctors.
Is that, you know, a good trend for that? Is that an important, significant step?
[00:34:49] Speaker A: I think it might be a good, good trend for women, for female empowerment, if you want to call it that. But I can say that most of the doctors I've seen are women and I, and most of them have not been very helpful even with, you know, female specific conditions. Like anyone can get a uti. But it is predominantly a female health issue. I've also got endometriosis and that is a female health issue.
And I have, I've struggled to find a female doctor even that really takes that quite seriously. So it's, it's a funny little irony, or maybe not so funny.
I think it would really require, I think patients need to keep going in and being direct and making requests and sort of standing up for themselves in the doctor's surgery. But that's, that's really hard, you know, but I think on the ground that's what has to be done.
But I think that's why I talk about research and funding. I think doctors training needs to, to be up to date with women's health. Right. But that's only going to happen if we're doing studies and we're getting information and we're then teaching it to doctors. So I think, I think that's a really vital element. Like patients could do as much work as they can going into their doctor's surgeries and presenting them with all of this information and standing up for themselves. But if doctors training doesn't catch up with what patients inherently know, then it's going to be an uphill battle again, you know, so.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: Yes, well, you and your organization are doing great work to educate people and help them learn about these issues.
How do they find that. What resources do you have available? How can people find you, get in touch with you, that sort of thing.
[00:36:31] Speaker A: Yeah, so LiveUTI Free has so many resources. There's the website, which is liveuti free.com and there's so many articles, so much information on that website.
But they also have a YouTube, which is great. So they've got interviews with specialists and all sorts of information if you like to watch it in video format, you know, and they also have an Instagram and a TikTok, so you can find them at liveuti Free. And there's like, you know, shorter form content that will often direct you back to the longer form content like the article or the, the video on YouTube. But honestly there's so there's so much information and it's not just on bladder health, it's on all areas of female pelvic health, you know, so definitely, if you're a woman with pelvic health conditions, issues, symptoms, check out the website, check out the YouTube.
I'm on Instagram, I'm the whole health coach. So I kind of provide short form content again, but informative. I try and pack some decent information into the caption.
And you can also book a discovery call with me there as well if you wanted to discuss your own health personally. So yeah, you can find us there.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: Well, Saoirse, thank you so much for talking today.
It's important, like you say, to bring up and normalize in conversations issues like these that really impact everyone, but it's not something that we kind of just talk about at cocktail parties or whatever.
So appreciate your time. Thank you so much for your work and yeah, have a great rest of your day.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you. It was a great conversation. Thanks.
[00:38:07] Speaker B: Yep.
Where to go from here? Visit whatsworthwhile.net to learn more about me, Ramsey Zimmerman and please reach out to me and let me know what you think. I don't want this podcast to be some message in a bottle thrown out to sea. I want to hear back from you. Please send me a message or an email or hit me up on X, LinkedIn or Instagram. And please leave a rating and review for the what's Worthwhile podcast on Apple, Spotify, Iheart or Amazon. Thanks.
