Can This Help

[cinder]

:idea: I hope someone out there can help me with this question? I have GERD (gastro esophgeal refux diease) and was admitted into the hospital several months ago because the acid in my stomach got so bad that it actually burned my esophgus. They put me on tons of medicines, from Previcid to protonic to pepcid.( plus major pain meds) My friend said to me the other day Cindy did you have any problems with flares or any other IC type symptoms when you were being treated for GERD. And I started to think about that and I can't remember but I did have a uti at the time too.
So my question is if Previcid (or other prescribe meds) work for stomach issues surely they would go a long way in reducing the acid in the bladder since it is absorbed into your system, Right? I will appreciate any opinion on this subject but I willing to give it a try... (GERD is under control and am not taking acid reducing meds at this time).
Cinder :)

[ICNDonna]

I have read posts by some who find Prilosec, Nexium, or Tagamet to be very helpful with IC.

Donna

[prbetty]

Dear Cinder:

You may find the following postings from October, 2003, helpful..



Posts: 73 Dumb Question - Does Prelief make urine less acid?

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I know it helps a great deal with foods and drinks that have acid in them.

But I'm curious - what if a person were drinking only water (with a perfectly neutral PH if there is water like that) and having baseline discomfort just from the normal acidity of urine...would Prelief take care of the urine, and alkanize it? Or does Prelief work mostly with food/drinks that are ingested, and not affect the urine the body produces?

What I'm trying to figure out is if Prelief will work the same way baking soda does, to alter the basic PH of urine, regardless of whatever is eaten....

Thank you for reading my question!

Love, ICY

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ICY,

It is not a dumb question. I would like to know the answer also. The literature put out about Prelief suggests that it acts on the food itself to neutralize the acid in it, but I think that would help decrease the acidity of the urine in the long run also, just as baking soda does. Apparently both baking soda and Prelief can only go so far in reducing the acid in urine, and I think if you take too much of either thing you get other problems with digestion and other bodily functions, maybe leading to diarrhea or constipation. It seems I read that in a book by Dr. Larrian Gillespie called "You don't have to live with cystitis", a book which has some very good information for i.c. sufferers, even though the doctor lost her license for some reason. I was told it was not because of her theories about i.c. but because of some surgical procedures or something. Apparently the tips for dealing with i.c. in that book are still pretty sound with the exception of her saying that it is not the caffeine in coffee that causes i.c.'ers the problem, but the acid. Most urologists now seem to say that it is both the caffeine and the acid in coffee that cause problems.

I think the reason the Prelief people emphasize that it works on the food you ingest is that it is not the category of drug that acts on the acid producers in your stomach to stop them from pumping out acid, like Prilosec and Prevacid and some of those do. It doesn't do anything to your body--it just neutralizes acidic foods or drinks, which it would do in a cup or any other container that it was put in with the food or drink.

What I don't understand is how that is different from Tums or other alkalinizers, but Prelief definitely does a better job for me than they do at reducing acidity. There must be additional ingredients that make it so helpful for i.c. patients. I hope someone knows the answer, or maybe the Prelief people might want to throw some light on it.

lyse3



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Thanks, Lyse3, I hope they chime in too!

Tums also doesn't do a durned thing for me either that I can tell - and I've taken 6 or 8 of them at a time hoping for relief - and got no relief at all.

Love, ICY



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October 9, 2003

A Message from Alan Kligerman, CEO, AkPharma Inc., makers of Prelief

Dear ICN Message Board Friends:

THERE IS MORE THAN SIMPLISTIC ACIDITY OF URINE INVOLVED. If that were all there was to it, then the Tums and other antacids of the world would work....... and they don't. The fact is that an IC sufferer’s urine acidity is no greater than that of other people without IC, but the people without IC don’t hurt. So it’s not the acidity of the urine; it’s the sensitivity of the cells to normal urinary pH.

Trying to reduce the acidity of urine, successfully or unsuccessfully, is, at best, a Band-Aid approach. It’s the cells that need the attention. Interesting work is going on now and yielding papers very much worth your attention, including, especially, work at an eastern U.S. university urology practice that is demonstrating an elevation of a cell distress’ marker in the urine that now is shown to be present at elevated levels in interstitial cystitis patients’ urine, apparently because of the cellular inflammation. In short: Objective observations are now being made that corroborate patients’ pain levels and these observations are non-invasive and are as simple as any urinalysis.

Are you reading this right? Yes you are. Here it is again: There is third-party readable objective evidence validating that your pain is not in your head. It’s in your bladder and always was.

For IC sufferers, the findings are enormously valuable in terms of confirmation of the worth of Prelief, long the most reliable IC palliative available. The clinical observations, only several so far but each one showing large effects and all agreeing with the other demonstrate this: There is a direct relationship between the use of Prelief and the drop/absence of pain and urgency along with a major drop in the marker’s reading. There is also the opposite effect when Prelief is discontinued: pain and urgency go up and so does the marker reading. The indications are that there is more than pain and urgency relief happening; Prelief appears to be doing something measurably good for the bladder cells.

These findings are a major breakthrough if confirmable, and AkPharma intends to fund a full clinical study for just that purpose. The preliminary first public paper on this will be presented at the New York Section of the AUA early in November. We will seek permission to post it.

Questions? Email Betty Corson, AkPharma’s Customer Service at prbetty@akpharma.com. And visit our site, www.Prelief.com for more complete product information.

Have a great day.........and many more,

Sincerely,

Alan E. Kligerman
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For additional information on Prelief, please call 1-800-994-4711. AkPharma is a proud sponsor of the IC Network Message Board.

P.S. A full clinical study is underway to confirm the above observations.

Betty Corson
Customer Service