A 28-year-old woman in the U.K., living with a rare and debilitating nutcracker syndrome, struggles to imagine a life without pain. After spending nearly a decade in "constant agony", she is waiting to get a complex surgery that would give her a chance to live pain-free.
Katie Shalka from East London has endured chronic pain on one side of her body since childhood. Around five years ago, when her symptoms became "horrendous" she started visiting doctors who initially dismissed her pelvic pain as just bad periods.
Since the pain persisted, she paid numerous visits to the emergency room, but doctors could not find any abnormalities in blood tests or an internal scan.
"I was in appointments all the time and they kept saying all the typical stuff to me. 'It's just your period. Are you sure you're not pregnant? It's just because you're a woman,'" Shalka said.
"It was so frustrating because I was in all this pain and no one knew what to do," she added.
After nearly a year of pain, discomfort, and unanswered questions, advanced scans finally led to Shalka's diagnosis of nutcracker syndrome. This rare condition occurs when the left renal vein is compressed between the abdominal aorta and the superior mesenteric artery. The syndrome gets its name as the renal vein caught in the grip of major blood vessels mirrors the action of a nutcracker crushing a nut.
The typical signs include blood in the urine, flank pain on the left side, pain during sex or while urinating, dizziness while standing up, anemia, and excess protein in the urine.
In some cases, the condition may present with mild or no symptoms that potentially resolve on its own, especially in children. However, if left untreated for a long time, it may lead to serious complications such as blood clots in the renal vein, kidney damage from prolonged pressure, infertility, and severe, chronic pain that can significantly affect the quality of life.
After her diagnosis, Shalka underwent numerous medical procedures to relieve her pain including a left renal vein transposition, and insertion of a large stent, but none of them could put an end to her suffering.
"I can't remember what it feels like to not be in pain," she said. "I have pain every single day. It's never not there. Sometimes, I have flare-ups, and it gets worse. But when those stop it just goes back to what it was before — a constant pain."
Shalka is campaigning to raise £50,000 ($62,866) for a complex surgery that could relieve the compression and end her pain, as the procedure isn't covered by the UK's NHS. "This is the procedure Katie needed from the very beginning, and it could finally give her the chance to live pain-free," stated her GoFundMe page.
