asiansalad
09-18-2008, 03:17 AM
For me, it all began 4 and a half years ago with a cup of coffee. I was an average college freshman maintaining a 4.0 GPA and living up life in the dorm. Then, one night, I went to the campus coffeehouse and got my staple - an "eskimocha" (cold coffee) - to take back to the room for more studying and hanging with the roommate. Before I had even finished the drink, I got horrible cramping in my lower abdomen so severe I couldn't sit still. Within the next hour, I was running back and forth to the bathroom with diarrhea and eventually collapsed on the bathroom floor, vomiting. The next thing I knew, I was in an ambulance with a crew trying to revive me, and then it was six hours later, and the ER doc was surprised I opened my eyes. He hadn't been sure I was going to make it.
Now, let me say this: I know this is not a typical IC experience, and I'm sure that's why no one picked up on it. I continued having episodes like this, and it frustrated me to no end. I couldn't figure out what was going on! I saw multiple GI doctors and had all kinds of intestinal testing, but everything was perfectly normal. About two years later, it struck me that every time I needed to go to the ER for this experience, it was a day before or the first day of my period, so I figured it was just a woman thing and set off for the gyno. She performed surgery just 3 days later, only to discover that there was nothing unexpected or seriously wrong with my anatomy. So it wasn't that.
About that time, I started waking up multiple times in the night to pee. This is something I had kind of expected my whole life. As a child, I couldn't go anywhere without finding the bathroom. I've always been a pee-er, so it was frustrating, but nothing I worried too much about. Then, in August 2007, I woke up and started vomiting again, but with a different kind of pain. This time, it was a kidney stone. It was this experience that helped me realize the episodes I'd been having were responses to PAIN! It was a hard thing for me to grasp. Because of an abuse injury when I was 9, I don't feel pain in the same way that others do. Even the kidney stone just felt like mild pressure, but it was enough pain to send my body into shock (and the morphine REALLY helped). So once I figured out that my symptoms were caused by pain, I started asking myself: what else is down there that could be causing such pain? My girl parts were fine, and so were my intestines. BLADDER! I scheduled an appointment with the uro.
He wasn't going to listen to me at first, but I convinced him and at the beginning of August 2008, I had a cystoscopy with hydrodistention, which confirmed what I had already come to believe: I have IC. He tried me on Sanctura, and my bladder immediately responded. No more pain, no more nausea, no nothing. It was so great that I didn't need any of my other medications at all! I went from having over 40 meds to having just 3. But the samples ran out, and I can't afford the Sanctura, so we are now looking at other options. But just to know what's going on finally and that it CAN be controlled...it's a blessing. It's an atypical presentation of IC, I think, but that's what it is!
It's great to be here, and I look forward to journeying with you all as we go through this IC thing together. :hi:
Now, let me say this: I know this is not a typical IC experience, and I'm sure that's why no one picked up on it. I continued having episodes like this, and it frustrated me to no end. I couldn't figure out what was going on! I saw multiple GI doctors and had all kinds of intestinal testing, but everything was perfectly normal. About two years later, it struck me that every time I needed to go to the ER for this experience, it was a day before or the first day of my period, so I figured it was just a woman thing and set off for the gyno. She performed surgery just 3 days later, only to discover that there was nothing unexpected or seriously wrong with my anatomy. So it wasn't that.
About that time, I started waking up multiple times in the night to pee. This is something I had kind of expected my whole life. As a child, I couldn't go anywhere without finding the bathroom. I've always been a pee-er, so it was frustrating, but nothing I worried too much about. Then, in August 2007, I woke up and started vomiting again, but with a different kind of pain. This time, it was a kidney stone. It was this experience that helped me realize the episodes I'd been having were responses to PAIN! It was a hard thing for me to grasp. Because of an abuse injury when I was 9, I don't feel pain in the same way that others do. Even the kidney stone just felt like mild pressure, but it was enough pain to send my body into shock (and the morphine REALLY helped). So once I figured out that my symptoms were caused by pain, I started asking myself: what else is down there that could be causing such pain? My girl parts were fine, and so were my intestines. BLADDER! I scheduled an appointment with the uro.
He wasn't going to listen to me at first, but I convinced him and at the beginning of August 2008, I had a cystoscopy with hydrodistention, which confirmed what I had already come to believe: I have IC. He tried me on Sanctura, and my bladder immediately responded. No more pain, no more nausea, no nothing. It was so great that I didn't need any of my other medications at all! I went from having over 40 meds to having just 3. But the samples ran out, and I can't afford the Sanctura, so we are now looking at other options. But just to know what's going on finally and that it CAN be controlled...it's a blessing. It's an atypical presentation of IC, I think, but that's what it is!
It's great to be here, and I look forward to journeying with you all as we go through this IC thing together. :hi: