scared & unsure

[Pac168r]

Hi everyone,
About 2 weeks ago I started getting burning/frequency. One lab came back negative, started Uristol 2 days, 5 days later pain worse and started leaking. Another urine test came back negative but my GYN gave me Cipro for 3 days. Since then I have been incontinent, especially while driving/exercising and vaginal spasms. She mentioned IC and today I saw a urologist who performed a cystoscopy. That looked normal and I am scheduled Tueday for a CAT scan and in 2 weeks for a pelvic untrasound. I feel like I woke up in a bad dream. Any advice?
Paula

[ICNDonna]

It does sound like your doctor is taking the right steps to rule out other things before doing the hydrodistention under anesthesia that usually is the test to diagnose IC. An office cystoscopy will not usually diagnose IC --- when I had mine, my bladder appeared to be normal and healthy. But when it was distended (stretched) under anesthesia the IC was apparent.

I think the time before diagnosis is the worst --- once you know what you have, you can begin to deal with it.

Donna

[MakinIT]

Yup...I agree with Donna....While you wait for the diagnosis (always, always, with weeks between tests....different docs saying different things...) is the worst, specially with pain, fatique, and docs who won't treat those symptoms until they get a diagnosis. (Even then...many women will not get pain meds from urologists....those docs don't think the pain is bad? or what? I haven't figured that one out yet...Thank god My uro is female :bow: )

While you wait, research, research, research....At least you can ask lots of questionsof the docs, and I find that I get more respect from them if I have some information....(However...I am careful not to step on some of doctor's toes...they have huge toes to go with egos, so with some of the docs, even though I know how to be more straightforward, I tippy tap around so I wound their little psychies and get them mad...Hey, you kiss up where you have to when it comes to treating pain.) I do have 2 docs I can be completely honest with and actually show that I know a thing or two . My internest actually gives me my narcotics, my uro gives me my valium. My pain doctor gives me, well, my pain. He hooked me up with a chronic pain psychologist. If it turns out you have a serious case of something, It would be good to hook up with one of these people. My psych has REALLY helped me.

Tracey

[vm]

One thing that helped me and my uro was keeping a diary of symptoms. I tried to keep track of symptoms in terms of how often, the intensity, if they coincided with my period or something I ate, etc. It helped me b/c I felt like I was doing something and it helped my doc see exactly what was going on symptom-wise with me.

I also did the IC diet while waiting for my doc appt.; figured it couldn't hurt even if it wasn't IC. You can find the diet info here: www.ic-network.com/handbook