mariais

(edited out) ...in essence it's about R.K. an NP who herself was afflicted by IC over a decade ago, who now has her own practice in Washington D.C mostly helping people with IC. She is an extremely sought after person and does phone consults that are very expensive. In an interview about how she overcame this illness, she said that in her experience, she has seen a large majority of ICers, though not everyone, get well after they get their yeast under control, as part of the complete treatment (which addresses opportunistic bacterial infections, probiotics, and other supporting therapy)

In my opinion, it's not a good idea to go after the help of someone that is too famous and too busy. but if this is the only option you have, i say go for it. A urologist is not the only person that can help you with this problem. Some ICers have struck luck with pathologists, gynecologists, their own primary care doctor, and NPs. Most of them will just recite what they have been taught in med school and tell you there is no cure, no known cause, only symptom treatment for life). I got lucky with my urologist though, even though he recited me his med school bs on IC. I told him, I think I have an infection after all, and I told him that based on my months and months of reading that I'd like to give long term atbs and long term atfs a try, because it's the only thing I know of that has helped so many people stay IC symptom free for years without a relapse. I turned down his elmiron rx and his offers to do dmso instills etc. I told him I read up on them and I don't want to treat the Sx's for life. He said he understands and that he can go along with my infection theory, and that he was willing to prescribe me what I asked for. So he approved two years refills of amoxicillin, nystatin, and diflucan. I really don't think I will need all two years, or even a whole year. After only a little over a month, I am feeling 98-99% better. I can feel I have a little ways to go yet, if I give up now, i know it'll all come back. This has not been a walk in the park. I got discouraged, badly depressed and stressed out plenty of times, especially as symptoms worsened. The ups and downs of healing IC are pretty steep and marked. I am figuring all of this out on my own, everyone around me thinks I am crazy for going against mainstream medicine. especially my urologist's medical assistant, who's an airhead, but who is also someone I have to rely on to type up all the Rx's and is also my urologist's messenger. ughhhhhhh. Can't really share this with "normal", "healthy" people, because they just don't understand what this is like.

Do not be fooled by worsening symptoms. every time I tried something that truly works, I had a sharp decline in symptoms at the very start. This is called the herxheimer effect, when a microbe suddely dies and releases all of its toxins all at once. This happened to me when I started douching with nystatin. The next morning my pee came out burning around the urethra. My overall symptoms got much much better soon afterwards. There was no more burning sensations afterwards, but then I didn't feel like I was making much progress with consecutive douching, there were ups and and downs in a very small scale of pain. I could only get better to a certain point, slight vulvar pain remained. I realized I was plateauing. After I plateaued for a couple of weeks, I tried vaginal douching with borax, and boric acid, these again gave me a smaller burning sensation than the first time in the urethra right away the next morning, which by now i figured it's the die off symptoms from the vagina into the bladder. I think, had I tried boric acid first, it would have given me one heck of a herx, because it is one of the most fast and effective atfs known to man. If you don't have boric acid, extra strength vinegar solution douche works well. The idea is alternate the pH of your douche, from one extreme to the other and medicate it. for example one day go alkaline (baking soda, borax), next day go acidic (vinegar, boric acid, i wouldn't mix the two in one, you might get a whole different compound).

Knowing whether or not something is making you flare or herxing is hard to tell at first. it can get very scary. Fortunately if it's a herx, it'll be over relatively quickly or fade as you go, or won't be there the second time you repeat the procedure. I had several herxes. in chronological order, on nystatin oral, I had mild flu like symptoms that faded over a week. felt tired, achey all over. this could be more severe for others. On nystatin vag tablets, i had a short duration burning sensation (faded over an hr) when urinating the first time. On oral diflucan for systemic fungus, I had a brain fog for 2 weeks. On borax douches, mild short duration stinging on first urination. I am still taking all of these meds, but I feel nothing when I take them now.

Yeast is known to make complex root systems when it takes hold of an immuno compromised body, I was never aware it could ever connect the bladder and vagina, yet the two share a partial thin wall. so when a bug is in the wall of one organ it is simultaneously in the wall of the other. the vagina and the gut also share part of a wall. and this is why they are all interconnected.

After my last treatment of boric acid, my ever present pudendal nerve pain and sciatica are very very faint. My bladder irritation is hardly there, I was able to have salsa again last night, which used to flare me badly. I'll consider myself healed when i am able to have coffee again though. Healing is very very slow and will take many months of disciplined therapy.

When yeast becomes systemic, there is no telling what symptoms you are going to get. Depends on what your body's weakness is. Mine obviously was the bladder. The possibilities are practically endless, there are so many ways that yeast can manifest in the body. It certainly can go and/or does get misdiagnosed or undiagnosed for years or for life.

I have read several posts from a few ICers that are convinced their problem is from yeast because, when they get a yeast infection, their eczema and IC flares up. I, on the other hand, had no clue because I had no visual yeast infection symptoms. I hardly even felt an itch. It is once I went on long term atbs that the real problem began to emerge, and I finally felt it at its max. no itching just throbbing vaginal, pudendal nerve, and sciatic nerve pain, that got worse. advanced cases can become bleeding ulcers in the vag tract, without cottage cheese symptoms. both nerves innervate the vagina and are connected to the bladder.

There are certain types of yeast that are not visible under the microscope, and others take over 30 days to grow in culture. So just because it's not detectable and these so called "professionals" tell you that you don't have a yeast infection, it does not mean you don't have a yeast problem. You have to go with your own symptoms which only you can feel. If no one is helping you, google the exact symptoms and location of symptoms, perhaps you will find the answer. When I read a book on yeast connection, I kept repeating to myself at every page, this does not apply to me, these are not my symptoms. I convinced myself I did not have a yeast problem, because I did not have the top 5 or even most of the symptoms listed. I had some, but who wouldn't.

So now I understand why IC is mainly a female issue. It's because men don't have a vagina which makes females vulnerable to all sorts of germs. and secondly they don't have short urethras that make them susceptible to UTI's and other germ invasions, therefore men's bladder hardly ever becomes a weak point in their system. IC happens when a lot of unfortunate things happen down there and all over your body after years of cumulative toxins, atb and other rx abuse, bad food and water, multiple deficiencies, and stress: you get a hard to detect and hard to kill bacteria in addition to a hard to detect and hard to kill yeast.

Thanks for paying attention everyone and hope you take this as a big clue to what's going on in your body, and hopefully you can get yourself in the path of healing.