After having suffered for two years of what I now understand was ‘Interstitial Cystitis’, years of researching and writing about bladder health and working with clients who suffer from chronic bladder issues I’ve gathered some key points to consider.
If you don’t want to read through all the information I have compiled on this blog, I think this could be a good starting point for anyone afflicted with these problems.
Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) is one of the few allopathic medicines that seems to be rather popular in functional medicine circles.
I have heard of people taking it for interstitial cystitis and therefore wanted to investigate the why and how it could be used and whether its use makes sense for this condition.
Stress is a major trigger of digestive issues for me. When I talk to chronically ill people, and especially my clients with chronic bladder problems, stress is almost always one of the main triggers of their symptoms.
I’ve written about stress in the past, so I won’t go into great detail in today’s post. To briefly summarize it, stress is such an issue because our body’s stress response is not adapted to the type of constant stressors we are subjected to in our modern world.
Chronic stress can have a range of consequences, including: reduced digestive juices, reduced immunity, muscle tension, high blood pressure – the list goes on…
While we can’t always change the source of stress, we can support the body dealing with stress better with stress management techniques.
Are you chronically ill and have been told that it’s genetic and there’s nothing you can do? Do you, like most people, believe that your genes are your destiny and there is simply nothing we can do to change this?
While these beliefs still seem to be prevalent, research has shown that this is not strictly the case.
Sure, our genetic sequence cannot be changed but the truth is that gene expression can indeed be influenced by our environment, which includes the diet we eat and the lifestyle behaviours we engage in.
This knowledge gives hope that we do actually have some power over our genetic destiny.
Oxalates are the salt form of oxalic acid, an acid that is found in many plant foods and can also be produced in the body.
Oxalic acid can form oxalate crystals when binding to minerals such as calcium. When deposited in the body, these can cause a lot of pain, similar to tiny glass shards.
This is probably most well-known with regards to kidney stones, which can often be oxalate/calcium stones.
There is also some evidence that excess oxalates could play a role in painful bladder conditions, such as interstitial cystitis. However, this evidence is more anecdotal than based on scientific studies (as there haven’t been any studies that I know of). Today I would like to look at some potential connections between oxalates and interstitial cystitis.
Today’s article is a guest post by the lovely Risa of Peach Talk, a blog focusing on sex and relationships with pelvic and vulval-vaginal pain.
I got Risa along because she has some great tips and this is such an important topic for many sufferers out there.
On top of all the suffering IC brings, it can also truly destroy relationships and intimacy for many. I hope that some of Risa’s tips will help prevent this from happening.
Today I’d like to share yet another success story in the form of an interview with blogger Callie Dixon of River&Quill.
I hope you will find reading her story as inspiring as I did and be sure to check out her tips for dealing with the challenge of chronic illness.
That’s it from me for now, enjoy the interview!
I am a fan of functional medicine and have recently become a functional nutrition practitioner. Therefore, I believe it is important to discover the root causes of our health issues in order to help us determine an appropriate course of action.
Functional lab testing is one of the ways that can help us do this.
I often use a hair tissue mineral analysis (HTMA) test as a cheap way of getting an idea of my client’s main mineral levels in the body.
One pattern that I often see is a high calcium level, along with lowered magnesium (as well as potassium and boron). I personally also had this pattern.
Not everyone with this pattern has bladder issues, but I do believe that high calcium levels together with lowered magnesium might contribute to them.
Unrecognized sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as Chlamydia or Trichomonas Vaginalis may share similar symptoms to cystitis and could also be a co-factor in bladder problems.
Kimberly’s story is one example where a chlamydia infection played a role in worsening her bladder symptoms.
If you haven’t been tested for STDs but are suffering from bladder issues, it may be a good idea to get this checked out.