I have been mainly clear of bladder symptoms for over 3 years now. One of the few things that can still flare up interstitial cystitis symptoms for me are B vitamin complex supplements. These tend to cause a burning sensation and a slight loss of bladder muscle tone. There is a reason why B vitamin supplements can be a problem for IC sufferers, which I’d like to share with you today.
Amino acids are derived from protein and they are the main building blocks in the body. For example, they are used to make hormones, neurotransmitters and enzymes. Some of them are essential, meaning they need to be taken in from the diet, whilst the others can be manufactured in the body.
As you hopefully can see from the above, amino acids are pretty important. But some of them can become problematic for people with bladder pain. These are tyrosine, tryptophan, tyramine and phenylalanine (called the ‘arylalkylamines’).
When I first had interstitial cystitis (IC), I started looking at diet and lifestyle changes that might help me get better. Exercise is generally considered to be health promoting, so I decided to include it in my routine. I knew quite a few people who were jogging regularly and decided to give it a go myself, since it required no special equipment or gym membership.
However, each time I did go for a run I would get a massive flare of my IC symptoms, as well as the urge to run to the toilet.
I eventually abandoned jogging (mainly because I was chronically fatigued and couldn’t do much at all). I only recently came across an explanation as to why jogging may not be so great for the bladder and I thought I’d share it with you!
We’re all aware of the benefits of drinking water but I realized I didn’t actually know if sparkling water actually had the same benefits. Therefore I started to look at the research to answer the question: is sparkling water healthy? What about sparkling water and urinary tract symptoms?
Hopefully you know by now that the bladder and urine is NOT sterile but houses a community of microbes, collectively known as the bladder microbiota. Until now, we have mostly spoken about bacteria and fungi in the bladder. But a recent study has shed light on another never-before-seen member of the microbiota: tiny viruses called phages.
If you have been following this blog for a while you’ll hopefully know about the role of the microbiome in health, including bladder health. I’ve posted about this topic several times. Today I’d like to look more specifically at the bladder microbiota and interstitial cystitis (IC).
This is the second part of my experience with receiving a Fecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT, a.k.a stool transplant). After having received 5 implants at the Taymount Clinic in England, I took home 5 more (frozen) implants to administer at home by myself.
If you haven’t read part 1 yet you can read it here.
If you’re not sure what I’m talking about you can read all about FMT here.
Welcome to ‘Tried and Tested’, my new series where I share my experience playing guinea pig with various ‘alternative’ health treatments. First up: my experience with receiving a Fecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT) for IBS/SIBO/gut dysbiosis at the Taymount Clinic in England.
If you’re not sure what FMT is, please read this article first!
FMT stands for Fecal Microbiota Transplant, which is ‘the process of restoring the bacteria commonly found in a healthy human gut’ (according to the Taymount clinic).
Or, to put it in plain English: implanting a healthy person’s stool (+ microbiome) into a sick person’s gut.
The reason I wanted to share this information is that I’ve had FMT myself and will be sharing my experience in the future.
If you haven’t heard about the connection between the human microbiome and our health yet, you’ve probably been living under a rock – there’s been tons of news articles, blog posts, research studies etc. about this topic in recent years.
Type in ‘human microbiome’ into PubMed (the database for scientific research) and you’ll be rewarded with over 30.000 results!
Although the topic has probably been covered enough, I’d like to offer my own little summary here to use as future reference on my blog and for completeness sake.