re interstitial cystiitis

[Guest guest]

Hi bel, I've treated 2 or 3 women with this awful complaint and have done

quite a bit of research into it. I've found that it can be very severe for some

people, making life unbearable - leading to suicide. I currently treat one woman

with a mild form of IC and one whose symptoms are more severe. Orthodox tx can

take a variety of forms, from the use of cimetidine (H2 receptor antagonist more

usually prescribed for gastric/duodenal ulceration and reflux oesophagitis), to

injecting a chemical into the bladder (can't off the top of my head remember the

chemical injected, but it can be an extremely painful tx) or bladder removal.

For the woman with the more severe Sx, alcohol really just makes the sx worse.

I'm absolutely certain that in the case of the two women I'm currently helping,

food sensitivities are involved - one woman also has nasal polyps and asthma,

I'm sure that dairy and wheat are involved, but she has the milder case and

because sx are so mild and so well controlled, she's really not motivated to do

an exclusion diet. She does have a tincture mixture for other things but she has

a tea that she drinks two or three cups of daily for her IC sx - which have

improved over the 2 years I've been treating her. The tea is equal quantities of

Chamomile, Calendula, Liquorice and Marshmallow root. The woman with the more

severe sx just drinks loads of Marshmallow root decoction and has found that

Charcoal tablets also seem to alleviate sx -she discovered this when using them

for indigestion.

I don't know if you use supplements, but if you do I would investigate

Serapeptase. The bioflavonoid, Quercetin, has also been found to be helpful for

some people, as it stabilises mast cells - in some people, increased numbers of

mast cells are thought to be a possible cause of bladder inflammation (this

could be a " chicken and egg " situation - are the mast cells the cause, or are

they there as a result of some other process of IC), but I think it fits in with

the possible aetiology of intolerance. Plantago has a lot of quercetin, so

that's something you could include in treatment.

In IC the GAG (glycosaminoglycans) lining in the bladder is defective, so

natural sources of GAG may be helpful, for example, Aloe vera and Marshmallow

root. Apparantly, glucosamine and chondroitin are sources too. And in one study

quercetin combined with chondroitin was found to be more effective in

alleviating sx than either supplement on its own. I think Jay Mackinnon posted

an email about this some time ago.

One other thing that's worth thinking about - I think it may have been ??

who first mentioned this on the list - it's always worth getting IC sufferers to

use a natural toothpaste as there's a bladder irritant in many commercial brands

- the name of which completely escapes me at this moment in time, very well

known additive, it's just too late in the day and common words are escaping me!

but I'm sure someone will supply the name.

Hope this helps

Regards

Sue Salmon

Huddersfield