Category Archives: bladder

InterStim and Its Use with IC

bladder, bladder pain, CPPS, IC, Interstiial cystitis, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,

When confronted with a chronic disease two questions usually come up   1  Why is this happening to me?  2  How can I get relief from these miserable symptoms that are plaguing me day in and day out?   The first question will be difficult to answer based on the current model of healing and is based on theory

And the second question is more to the point of “allow me to get comfortable so I can at least function”   This question also has loads of responses doing online searches because you are empathetic to the other’s suffering and want to alleviate it if you can  What would life be like without this chronic pain?  What would I be able to do that I can’t do now?

The Surgical Option and the Overactive Bladder(OAB)

The FDA approval for the surgical use of Medtronic’s InterStim is for the OAB syndrome not IC   And the urinary frequency/ urgency and urge incontinence is improved by the device in about 50-70% of cases as reported in 2009 but  usually doesn’t eliminate completely the voiding difficulty so as to give normal bladder function   The use of the device has carried over into the IC patient group because of the desperate needs of the IC patient to at least control the voiding problem aside from the associated pain

This is to say, the IC pain complex will not be taken care of by the device   As always there are anecdotal reports of pain cessation but this is not what the device is designed for

There will always be a surgical or mechanical alternative to chronic pain or for that matter any problem   Weight loss surgery, pancreatic islet cell transplant for diabetes, and for the OAB  InterStim has become a surgical option in the management of IC   If you pass a 2 week trial period then a permanent stimulating neuromodulator can be placed in a subcutaneous pocket overlying the right gluteal region

The bladder is innervated  by the sacral nerve roots S2-3  By placing needles that emit a low grade electrical current to the nerves going to the bladder, the nerves sending signals from the bladder that urination needs to occur(resulting in frequency, nocturia, and urgency) get overridden by the nerve stimulator   The result is a reduction in the bothersome voiding pattern of OAB but not the pain complex

Complications range from 10-25% and related to the mechanical aspects of the procedure such as infection and dislodgement of the wires due to falling or jarring can occur particularly if the needles are not well seated    At times such stimulation can bring on chronic pain from the placement compounding the problem rather than making it better

The Energy Science Perspective

Surgery is a part of the energy science of Ayurveda discipline   It clearly recognizes that surgery can be the best option in certain patients   But it also brings to the table a rich understanding of the origin of disease and therefore uses the surgical option in a more refined way   When adding the matter science technological approach to disease this can lead to a very effective holistic medical system

With this being said the use of a mechanical device should not be offered unless there has been an adequate trial of nutrition using energy science guidelines  Over the last 10 years I have personally witnessed OAB symptoms resolve using this kind of nutritional approach

As discussed in my upcoming book, IC Bladder Pain Syndrome, the OAB separates itself from the disease label of IC due to the pain component   You see the OAB problem is a Vata disturbance of bladder function whereas the IC disease label is a Vata AND Pitta disturbance of the bladder leading to not only the OAB symptoms(Vata)  but the Pitta energy pattern presence leading to the sharp shearing pain of IC that can be episodic and recognized as the flare

Patience is the KEY  Don’t Jump Too Fast

Using a surgical approach is an option  Using a nutritional approach is an option  But if the latter has not been given an adequate trial then that leaves the former as the only viable option

So my suggestion is to not act too hastily and give the energy science approach a really good trial before you open yourself up to the potential problems associated with surgery    And if you elect to have the implant know that the pain may not be affected

All the best                               To Health as a Skill     Love DB

 

 

4 Ways to Deal With the “Horrible Flare”

bladder, bladder pain, IC, Interstiial cystitis, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , ,

I have found it interesting that quite often the physical problems that we have often seek their verbal expressions in the physically manifested universe    This indirectly supports that we know we are intuitively part of Nature   That we are not apart from Her but an aspect of Her   We are Her in a real sense

To divorce ourselves from Nature through technology and the study of molecules misses our ability to resourcefully look within for the answers

As the saying goes, you haven’t lived until you’ve had a good bladder pain flare   And while that’s over the top for anyone who has experienced one nonetheless let’s lighten up and realize that no one has ever died from one   Here are 4 ways to deal with the tormenting flare

Short Course of Steroids

The inflammatory response that occurs with a flare from an energy science view is the Pitta energy pattern which carries the hot and spreading qualities   These qualities are enhanced by the mobile and light qualities of Vata   These two energy patterns tied together can make the flare unbearable

The energy patterns are most concentrated in the bladder wall muscle and a quick way to manage the muscular spasm caused by Pitta is by the potent steroids available by prescription   You can ask your urologist or family physician about the use of a short 7 day tapering pack of Medrol which has the dosings all laid out in the packaging   This is highly effective in the management of uncontrollable muscle spasm

By removing Pitta from the tissue using the cold quality of the steroid there will be an unblocking of Vata from the tissues which releases the light and mobile qualities from the bladder muscle

Cool Off

A flare is hardly the time to use hot spices like garlic, heavy fatty or oily foods(fatty acids =hot quality), or sit under the sun  since all these situations carry the hot quality   Better to start looking for a cool area of the house that’s dimly lit(intense light aggravates the hot quality) and take in nourishing cool sounds that are not jarring   Using cooling aromas such as rose, khus, mint, or jasmine are excellent particularly with your castor oil pack

This is a good time to go by the rule, “Feed a fever, starve a cold”   A flare is a fever whether the body’s temperature is elevated or not   So nutritionally(and it’s very natural) it’s best to do simple foods like juice  fasting based on your energy makeup(predominant Vata should leave this suggestion alone)  But the nutrition during a flare should be very simple   Maybe just dal(split mungl)rice, and veggies

 Castor Oil Pack

I’ve talked about the cooling external effects of castor and applying it over  the bladder acupuncture site(aka marma point) is an ideal way to relax the area involved    In addition the use of the above aromas with heat can be highly therapeutic   The use of heat with the pack can be helpful to reduce abdominal wall muscle spasm

So treating the horrible flare with acceptance and cooling off are energy science ways of thinking through the flare scientifically not hit and miss  And yes there are many other things you can do energetically that make sense eg chamomile or CCF tea    And the value of the flare is that it can bring on renewed commitment to stay on the energy science approach

Lay Low and Nourish Yourself 

This one may be surprising but it goes without saying that this is a time to nourish the body and not be disappointed in what’s happening   Who would say to a frightened child,  “Buck up kid!  You’re overreacting   How you’re acting is complete nonsense” ?

So too with the body, be compassionate, don’t force it to do what it doesn’t want to do   Allow it to be the way it wants to be   Be gentle, be kind   For people with IC the imbalance is the hot and mobile qualities and the pain makes you irritable, upset, not in control, and impatient(“Is it over yet?  Why isn’t it over?”)

The hot quality brings a strong sense of need for control of situations, circumstances, and things   There is also intensity, focus, competitiveness with this quality but impatience, and yes, anger, sometimes rage at not being well   A sense of disgust becomes overwhelming that the body is not cooperating

At that point say, “I know you’re not feeling well, dear body   But don’t worry   I’ll take care of you and we’ll get through this together   And I promise that when we’re through this that I’ll make better choices for you because I know I’m hurting you but I don’t know how or why”

Total acceptance of the difficult situation of flare can in itself reduce the pain and begin the restoration of balance   Fighting(hot quality) with it, wishing it was different, hoping that the body is going to “get over it”,is completely counterproductive to healing this acute situation

And if this post pissed you off you know you still have the hot quality lingering in excess

Until next time                    To Health as a Skill  Love DB

 

5 Ways to Go Beyond Getting By with IC and Getting Healthy

bladder, bladder pain, chronic prostatitis, fibromyalgia, GERD, IBS, IC, Interstiial cystitis, Uncategorized, ,

Many who have IC accept that once the pain of the flares is reduced that it’s enough

Many look at health like this as well

“It’s enough” means to marginalize   To get by   But to sometimes skirt issues

You see I believe that a state of health is a process of evolution    Health is more than the absence of disease   That each day I can be healthier than I was yesterday

The energy science helps us a glimpse a that greater reality of health   Not to just get by

Good Deal!  The Pain is Reduced

There is a growing current mindset that there is more to health than being able to get up in the am, go to work, enjoy the weekends   That health is really more than being able to do the day well with reserve energy  If you have a lot of pain with IC now this picture doesn’t seem to be a reality right now

But as you do the work with the nutritional format, avoid certain food combinations, and take the aloe among other things outlined at this blog reduction in your pain will occur   And it’s estimated that 50% of patients with IC resolve their problem spontaneously

The matter science medical model creates for us a disease oriented health system and we become fixated on clearing IC symptoms   This is totally understandable and to just reduce the symptoms is an important milestone    Yet you may not realize that there is much more than reducing flares and symptoms

Roadblocks

The end result of this fixation is that you settle for second best   That is, symptom reduction becomes the order of the day  Thank you very much

But just the awareness that there is more to health than reduction in IC symptoms is a big beginning in going beyond getting by   You see the energy science can help you reduce the symptoms to tolerable levels   But it has so much more to offer

Real healing takes time   The matter science has taught us and shown us that healing is swift and can change the body quickly   Just shift some molecules around, take some molecules, or remove some and health is yours    You’re feeling immediately better after the appendectomy

But from an energy science view disease begins in imbalances in the energy field an percolate up to manifest as disease in the matter field that are labeled as IC, GERD, IBS, chronic prostatitis, or fibromyalgia   To heal these chronic diseases takes more than the molecular approach of the matter science model of healing

The observation here is that the qualities that produce IC are the same qualities that produce the other chronic “sister” diseases

The energy science approach to chronic disease requires change in lifestyle behavior patterns that produced the imbalance in the first place

The 5 Ways to Go Beyond Getting By

1  Awareness of these facts is a major hurdle to overcome the mindset and start viewing your health differently   The key is to live that awareness, to talk about it with yourself and others so that it becomes real for you

2  Use the energy science guidance that can help you develop lifestyle behavior patterns around nutrition that will bring about greater health

3  Realize that real healing takes time   That health is not something that you get but that which you obtain through your own discipline   That for every year of IC imbalance it takes two months to reverse that imbalance of IC

4  The energy science of Ayurveda says that a day in balance promotes health   This is a simple but significant step in going beyond

5  Understand that IC is the gift that starts you on your path to progressively better health each day   The use of nutritional work begins showing you how not only is this a mainstay in IC management but it will continue to advance your health beyond when the symptoms of IC resolved   The lifestyle behaviors that enhance digestion are also important to improving health long term

 

Until next week       To health as a Skill   Love  DB

 

Aloe vera Gel and Carageenan for IC Bladder Symptoms

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A beautiful question was posed by a reader who asked about carrageenan(ca-rag-ee-nan) as an ingredient in aloe vera gel and whether that affected its ability to be useful in the management of IC flares   This brings up some questions for us

Questions

1  “Is the gelatinous property of aloe vera gel related to the carrageenan?”  No the aloe is gelatinous by itself without the carrageenan

Perhaps another question  2  “Does the carrageenan affect the effectiveness of the aloe vera gel physiologically?”  Again no

3  “Why put the carrageenan into the aloe in the first place if the aloe is naturally gelatinous?”   Now this is an important insight   This gets to the heart of an often asked question “Can I use the juice instead of the gel?  The gel’s gelatin quality is not very attractive”

Aloe Gel Versus the Juice

The gel has a “slooooooow” release in the GI tract and this slimy/smooth quality reduces both Vata and Pitta which is usually why one is using the aloe in the first place    The gel reaches the small bowel more effectively due to this quality

The small bowel is the area of the GI tract where the Pitta energy pattern is most heavily concentrated because it is the energy of transformation(a lot of transformation is happening in the small intestine)   A piece of broccoli is being transformed into the building blocks for the renewal of all forms of cells in the body(heart, brain, liver etc)   Pitta carries the hot quality responsible for IC symptoms so dousing it with the cold quality of aloe is exactly what is needed for healing(ever used aloe for sunburns?)

So the more aloe you can get to where it’s needed is the best   Gel does that, aloe juice less likely

Carageenan

Carrageen is a substitute for gelatin or the stuff we make jello from and the source is a form of seaweed   Even though derived from an energetically salty plant(salt is provoking for IC) its effect is not going to be significant due to the volume of what’s present    This food is Kapha promoting due to its slimy/smooth property and actually would be very good for Pitta Vata energy makeups   In fact it would promote balance for you

Sooooo…. aloe gel with carageenan is fabulouso!! and actually makes the gel work even better for those with IC
Take home message for IC patients   Even though aloe juice can be used it’s best to use the gel

Until next time  Ciao              To health as a Skill   Love Dr Bill

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About the Author:  Dr Bill Dean helps people with IC eliminating pain and
improving relationships  Get more from Dr Bill on LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+.

 Dr Bill is also the author of Foods Heal:  Why Certain Foods Help YOU Feel Your Best

The IC Bladder Syndrome: The Alternative Medical Treatment for Chronic IC and Prostatitis, IBS, GERD, and Fibromyalgia     February 14, 2013

 

Interstitial Cystitis and the Bladder: The Good News

bladder, bladder pain, chronic prostatitis, fibromyalgia, GERD, IBS, IC, Interstiial cystitis, Uncategorized, vulvodynia,

The pain of your IC flare is related to the movement of the qualities of hot, mobile, and dry   These qualities lead to the burning in the pelvis and on urination as well as the frequency and intense urgency you experience(leading to the rusty zipper syndrome)

These primordial vibrational frequencies(fancy term for qualities) are moving through a long tube in the mindbody   This tube begins in the kidney and ends where the urine comes out when you urinate   It’s that simple!    Energy in the form of urine moves through this channel or tube from the kidney to the bladder and then out when urination occurs

Channel versus Tissue

The good news is that the energetic imbalance of the qualities of hot, mobile, and dry in IC occur in a channel not a tissue   Why is this such good news?  It’s much easier to correct an energetic imbalance in a tube or channel than it is in a dense multicellular tissue layer

Other examples of channels are the gastrointestinal tract(mouth to the anus), the respiratory tube(includes the nose, nasal sinuses, upper airway tubes, and lungs), the male and female genital channels, and the vascular network(both arterial and venous sides)   Other channel disorders besides IC include GERD, IBS, and vulvodynia

There are other energy structures in the energy mindbody that are tissue layers    The muscles of the mindbody are a dense energetic multicellular layer   A lot can go wrong in such a complex structure and so it takes longer to correct a tissue layer problem   Tissue layer disorders include fibromyalgia and chronic prostatitis

Yea!  IC is a Simple Channel Dis-ease

So we’re familiar with those people who develop IC and they have a brief experience with the symptoms but somehow or another there is a spontaneous resolution of the IC and they never have another problem with it   A pure channel problem clears

But then there’s the mixture of channel and tissue energetic imbalance   Here the IC becomes more complex   Tissue imbalances involving hot, mobile, and dry become mixed with the channel imbalance of IC with the experience of the symptoms associated with the dis-ease

From an energy science view this explains the reason why many people don’t get spontaneous resolution but smoulder in the embers of chronic IC   There is a mixture of energetic tissue imbalance coupled with the channel imbalance

Still Good News

Even though there is the energetic imbalance of hot, mobile, and dry in both the tissues and urinary tract channel or tube IC regardless is a channel dis-ease  and will respond to treatments more quickly   It doesn’t mean that the tissue energetic imbalances don’t have to be addressed   They do

But they can be addressed as the symptoms from the urinary channel are resolved by such channel soothing herbs such as CCF tea and aloe vera gel   Just visualize the aloe cooling the hot, mobile, and dry internal lining of the urinary tube just as it soothes the external skin when it’s burned

Ciao  until next week                                                             Your servant in healing  Love DrBill

IC and Bladder Inflammation: Herbal Remedies

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The pain of IC is related to pelvic inflammation particularlyof the bladder   The flares that occur are related to the episodic increase in intensity of this inflammation

So it stands to reason that the treatment for such a chronic disease would be antiinflammatory(AIF)   This is not rocket science, folks!   And there is a wide host of naturally occurring AIF   For example, tumeric is commonly used in cooking and is a well understood AIF which when used with black pepper is potentiated even further in terms of its AIF effect

Now the well respected National Institutes of Health(NIH) published a year ago(October of 2011) a review article on antiinflammatory therapies using the energy science Ayurvedic formulary   This article essentially says what I have been advocating for the last 5 years:  that we need to marry the matter science discipline of the West(so called matter science healing) with the energy sciences such as Ayurveda and the traditional Oriental Medicine(TOM)   An East meets West in healing traditions
 

Importance of the Study

This may not seem like a big deal to a casual observer but as an interested clinician involved in the treatment of such chronic diseases as IC this type of article is landmark  The event metaphorically states that even a conservative government agency such as the NIH is willing to review, endorse, and support the use of natural therapies of the energy science of Ayurveda, recognizing them as not only safe but efficacious

In the health arena it is very normal and expected that the consumer with a painful bladder is timid about trying “new therapies” that can potentially help them because nobody in the medical establishment has condoned their value   Further the allopathic(matter science clinicians) tradition are reticent to support the use of such therapies since they are not “tried and true” and supported by evidence based medical(EBM)review

Because of this there is a tendency in the current medical profession to stonewall articles that speak to the use of natural remedies to help with painful bladder syndrome because they are not consistent with the status quo and EBM

The AIF Nutritional Format

But what about just regular food?   Hippocrates, said to be the father of Western medicine, wrote that “Food is medicine and medicine is food”   We have been so ingrained traditionally to believe that food is just something we put in our mouths and it takes care of our appetites that it doesn’t really have a medicinal effect to help a painful bladder

But let’s rethink this  If you take in 3T of salt you know that there will direct and distinct physiologic consequences   You’ll pee more, require lots of water, maybe get acid indigestion, have tight feeling skin, have excess hot sensation in the body   All because you took in some food in this case salt

The energy science perspective is that foods can be inflammatory and that’s why they lead to symptoms of pain   So a well delineated energy science nutritional format can be AIF with no grey areas   It won’t lead you astray   Coupled with the incompatible food combination list which is basically a group of foods that when joined together produce inflammation you have a way of using nutrition in a AIF way

There are three things you can do right now to help yourself with IC pain

1 Go to the above links and begin following the nutritional formats

2 Begin using the AIF cocktail we spoke about in an earlier blog

3 Begin using cumin, coriander, fennel seeds, tumeric, and cardamon in your cooking   All are AIF

Until next time                        To Health as a Skill       Love DrBill

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