Woman left weeing through belly button after freak accident led to 15mg a day ketamine addiction
A woman had her bladder removed due to a ketamine addiction that developed after she was kicked by a horse, and now wees through her belly button.
In 2023, Liv McCaul's mouth was 'shattered' by a kick from her horse in an incident she described as 'traumatic', and she turned to ketamine to self-medicate.
She said: "I had a lot of pain relief and was addicted to opioids as well as ketamine but ketamine destroyed my body more than opioids.
“Then I started self-medicating after having PTSD and struggling with sleeping. I had night terrors because it was such a traumatic accident.
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“Ketamine helped with that so I kind of found a solution to a big problem – I was not sleeping and had facial things done, I was in and out of the dentist to have my teeth put back."
Saying that she took ketamine 'to be able to sleep through the night', Liv's addiction developed until she was taking 15g a day with her suffering from a range of health issues such as pain in her stomach (known as 'K-cramps') which resulted in the woman needing an operation on her liver.
Liv dropped down to six stone in weight and was twice admitted to hospital with sepsis, though doctors didn't know she was taking ketamine as she said she 'wasn’t honest about what I was doing to my body'.
"The hospitals weren't aware of my addiction and were treating me for UTIs and other symptoms rather than addressing the actual problem which is a big thing I talk about online," she explained.
“It’s hard coming forward and admitting you have a problem and I have numerous messages from people in the same situation of ‘how do I tell them?’
"There’s a fear of being judged. I was dismissed as a young woman with bladder problems. I wasn’t asked about ketamine because hospital staff, nurses and doctors were uneducated."
In May 2025 she was admitted to rehab and has been sober ever since, but while there she started passing blood clots the size of a finger and had serious bladder pain.
Liv spent a year going through various treatments including nerve therapy, attempted Botox injections and bladder stretching, but scans showed the damage was irreversible.
On June 6, 2026, Liv underwent an eight-hour robotic operation to remove her bladder and create an Indiana pouch using part of her bowel, until her operation the machine had only previously been used on cancer patients.
She empties it through a catheter in her belly button, meaning she wees through her belly button, and the Essex woman says the relief from bladder pain feels like it's saved her life.
"I genuinely think I’m one of the first, if not the first, to have this done in the UK," she said.
“They took out my original bladder, and it was described to me as if somebody had set fire to it and put it back in my body. It was so severely damaged.
“My belly button should go back to normal, and I can put a catheter in, poke it, wee, and pop it out and close it straight away.
“With my bladder pain, nothing was ever going to heal it. To not feel that pain and the pain I knew healed left me overjoyed, and I broke down in hysterical tears.
"I was going to get my life back and leave that part behind for a new chapter and feel well every day."
The 25-year-old's dad had paid for the surgery as it wasn't covered by the NHS, but her aftercare was and she recovered from the 'lifechanging' operation to remove her bladder at Southend University Hospital, with her being discharged from hospital on 12 June.
Topics: Health, Mental Health, Drugs
Joe Harker