Bad Pain, Affects Sleep, Appetite, Feel Sick, Neg Culture?

[futurehope]

I am having a difficult time believing what is going on.

I am on a strict IC diet. I normally feel burning and pain, but my last 2 days include severe burning, even on the azo, affecting my sleep, decreased appetite and generally feeling poorly.

and get this.... the uro says after a 2-day culture, that it is negative.
I told the receptionist ,"I don't believe it."

How could I be so obviously ill, and it not show on my culture? This severe "flare" is something that has occurred to me before and I definitely feel like I need an antibiotic.

BTW, the uro is giving me an antibiotic because there is no way I could get through this weekend without it. It has helped me through this kind of rough bout in the past.

I'm going to see Dr. Chai June 24th and I can't wait to ask him all my questions, including "how could I feel so sick and have nothing wrong with me?"

I always have symptoms, but when I'm this bad off, I KNOW there is something wrong. My entire body is responding to this hidden offender.

Anyone else on this forum feel this bad, and have a negative culture?

[GriffsMommy]

Before I started Elavil I had terrible pain a lot of the time. And then I would flare and it would get even worse but I have only EVER shown a positive culture once in my life and that was when I was in college. All of my other cultures have come back negative.

I know that some people w/ IC get a lot of infections in addition to their IC but I am not one of them. I never get infections. I will do a culture if the uro's office suggests it if I'm in a bad flare but I know it's just a flare and not an infection and it never is an infection. I don't really want to take antibiotics if it's not an infection showing on a culture because then your body could become resistant to the antibiotics for when you actually do need them. I just ask for pain meds when I have a really bad flare to get through the painful symptoms.

Hope you feel better soon.

[Babs RN]

I am one who gets very frequent infections and lots of positive cultures. I have had bad flares with negative ones. I have also had bad flares(or so I thought)that turned out to be kidney stones.

Hugs,
Barb:smile tee

[futurehope]

What symptoms did you have in a flare that turned out to be stones?

[vm]

I know people with IC can have very low grade infections that would not normally bother someone without IC, but for us it can really set off a flare. it did happen to me once, where the numbers from the culture weren't considered "significant", but in someone with IC - they were, so my doctor prescribed an antibiotic anyway.