Acupuncture has been used widely for chronic pain conditions for a long time and therefore lends itself as a potential therapy for interstitial cystitis and pelvic pain and I’m sure at least some of you have already tried it.
It seems to me that acupuncture is widely accepted these days by conventional practitioners, but as with any abstract therapy it remains controversial. In today’s post I’d like to take a closer look at what evidence we have for it.
Many IC sufferers I have spoken to are either interested in trying alternative natural therapies, or have already tried some.
There are a variety of natural therapies and remedies out there, and often it is hard to know what is effective. In my experience, this is highly individual. We do, however, have some data on what seems to help the most people.
First of all, I would like to wish all my readers out there a happy new year! I hope that you will reach your health goals in 2019. This blog is all about empowering you to be able to get to the root causes of your bladder issues and I hope that at least some of you have been helped by the information provided here.
As the start of the New Year is a time for reflecting on the past and making new resolutions, I thought I’d do a bit of both in this post.
Pain-relief is probably one of the best gifts one can give to someone suffering from chronic pain.
Luckily there are some natural solutions for pain relief, so I thought I’d compile a list of things that would make great gifts for interstitial cystitis sufferers.
The festive season can be really difficult for people with chronic illness. When I was still suffering from interstitial cystitis, I used to feel deprived and sad during the Christmas holidays and cheating on my diet meant flare ups!
Back then, I didn’t have many resources to help me get through the festive season. Luckily now, I don’t have these issues anymore but I’m also part of a great community of chronic illness bloggers that is very supportive. So today I’m going to share with you 5 great chronic illness resources for the festive season, including a healthy Christmas recipe and tips on how to stay healthy and pain-free.
Aloe vera is a traditional herb that has been used in ancient cultures and is used today both topically and orally for various therapeutic purposes.
Aloe vera is one of the herbal remedies used for interstitial cystitis. Today, I wanted to have a closer look at how and why it’s used for IC and, as usual, what evidence we have behind it. Plus, I have a giveaway for you (who doesn’t like free stuff?!) so make sure you read on till the end!
Uva Ursi is an evergreen shrub of which the leaves have been used traditionally as a remedy for urinary tract infections. It is also known as bearberry.
It is traditionally used as a tea or tincture, but also available in capsule form. I have previously listed it in natural antibiotics, but today I would like to take a closer look at how it’s used and what evidence we have behind its usage.
I never had a bladder instillation when I suffered from ‘interstitial cystitis’ – my doctor at the time couldn’t even diagnose me, so I didn’t get to try any conventional treatment for IC. In my desperation, I very quickly turned to natural interventions… and the rest is history.
We often speak of orthodox medicine as being ‘evidence based’ and anything ‘alternative’ as being ‘quackery’. I have long come to understand that a lot of ‘alternative’ interventions are in fact very much following the newest evidence but also that ‘quackery’ (and maybe more importantly ego) can be found in all walks of medicine.
So far, I’ve mostly stayed away from writing about conventional treatments and it’s not my intention to slag anything off. But after hearing from so many sufferers I’ve spoken to that instillations have not helped them, I wanted to see if their use is actually evidence-based.
D-mannose is one of those supplements often used for chronic urinary tract infections. While I’ve heard some very positive reviews about it, it never helped me back when I took it myself.
Therefore I wanted to examine the evidence behind D-mannose a bit closer to see how useful it actually is for those struggling with chronic UTIs.
Low level laser therapy is also known as light therapy or photobiomodulation. There’s different forms of light therapy, but this form mainly refers to red-light therapy of a specific wavelength.
It sounds pretty esoteric, but actually it has been used by NASA to help plants grow in space and by farmers for breeding chicks and other livestock. But it has also been used therapeutically for humans, especially in the context of recovery from physical exercise.