My Mother Diagnosed with IC

[DeloresL]

My mom, 76, has recently been diagosed with IC. It took our family 14 months, 2 gyn's and 4 uro's, an 80 lb. weight loss and a lot of suffering for my Mother to finally get a diagnosis. The family is just now beginning to understand this diease and get her diet and meds under control. She was drinking a lot of Vanilla Ensure; we taken her off of it for now. Milk is not a trigger for her, but is that a no no on the IC diet? I couldn't find any information. Mother is extremely small and needs the nutrients.

I have been reading your boards for the last week and I have to say, you all are a very courageous and strong group of women. I'm glad my family will have access to your experience and knowledge of this little know diease. God Bless Each and Every One of You!

Delores

[ICNDonna]

I did a quick search and found that Ensure does have lots of soy, which can be a problem for some ICers. You might want to help her with an IC diet to see if it helps with symptoms.

Donna

[SharonA]

Delores...I am so sorry to hear that your mother is going through this, but thank God she has a family who wants to help her. That is very important for her. She needs the support of those who love and care about her.

You mentioned that you are trying to get your mom's diet under control. Does that mean that you are following the IC Diet available here? It is a process of elimination to learn what triggers symptoms. Since you have already taken your mother off Ensure, watch to see if her symptoms subside and to what level by doing this.

[DeloresL]

Sharon,

Thanks for your quick response. We are doing the elimination diet from this website. I took Mom off everything that wasn't on the "Usually OK" list. It's been about two weeks and I just introduced milk back into her diet. She has tolerated it very well. No difference in her pain. I wanted to add back her Ensure because she likes it so much and she really needs the additional nutrition. I can't find Ensure on any list and I scanned the label front to back for ingredients and I just wasn't sure. I hate to roll the dice and have her try it if someone else already knew. It's very hard to watch the pain and be helpless.

Deloris

[mary124]

Deloris:

Just letting you know that I drink ensure due to a huge weight loss- (lost 30lbs in 4 months-doctors don't know why) with then ensure, I'm at least keeping what I have on, which isn't much (I'm 5'6" and 115lbs right now). I have no problems with the ensure, I do drink the vanilla. Haven't the courage to drink the strawberry or chocolate kind, don't think I will either. Good luck.

[Claredale]

I am so sorry for your mom to be going through this. I am sure she is thankful for her family for helping her! Hopefully she can gets some weight put back on.

Hugs,
Tracey

[leelee88]

Hello and :welcome:
Some people are not diet sensative and then others are. Like I do ok with Soy but I have to stay away from coffee and citris and tomatoes. It's just all so hard because we are all so differant. My suggestion would be just keep her off of the insure a few days then have her try one and see if her pain level or frequency goes up and if it does not then you should be in the clear. I know you dont like to take chances, but like you said she does need the nutrients..
So I guess you will just have to use your judgement on this one..

[SharonA]

It is difficult, but we have to find out for ourselves what bothers us and what does not. The only way to know for sure is for her to try it. That is one of the things that is so frustrating about IC.

[DeloresL]

Thanks so much for everyone's responses. I greatly appreicate it. Finally,
I have found others who understand.

DeloresL

[ICNDonna]

One thing she might try is drinking a small amount for a few days to see it it's a problem.

Donna

[pingpong]

You might want to check out Instant Breakfast and compare the ingredients and nutritional value. A nutritionist suggested this to our family when my dad was refusing to eat and refused to drink the Ensure. He preferred the taste of the Instant Breakfast and was willing to drink it.

[SharonA]

That is a wonderful suggestion, pingpong. I totally forgot about Instant Breakfast. It would probably be best to try the Vanilla flavor at first and in small amounts like Donna suggested.