Strange Questions

[branmun]

This is going to sound really crazy but...

1) If I'm having really bad urgency the very thing that makes it stop is coffee, Starbucks Iced Mocha to be exact. I know coffee is a big no-no. I can't figure out if it is because it is mixed with milk. However, I would think the caffeine and mocha would cancel out any benefits of the milk.

2) Everytime I cut calories/eat clean my IC goes completely mad. I do not seem to have the food issues that most ICers do. If I'm eating enough calories, I can eat all foods (spicy,acidic,etc.) and my bladder is happy. However, if I eat very clean or less calories my bladder immediately seems to know. Can there be a connection-say if eating less/cleaner foods is processed/filtered out differently by the bladder? What I mean is maybe with the cleaner foods my body thinks I am losing weight and that creates a different process for my bladder? Also, I was thinking about a estrogen connection as well since more body weight can increase estrogen.

3) I test negative for infection and antibiotics do not make my symptoms go away. However, when I started a low dose antibiotic, I was finally able to have sex without flaring. Isn't that strange?

I'm just stumped and wondering if others have bizarre stuff like this with their IC.

[BellaLuna]

#1 I have know idea about the coffee situation but if it works do it!
#2 I have the exact same thing!!! Some days I am perfect on my diet and eat really really clean with less calories and my body freaks out. Then I will go into the bakery at my work and eat stuff with soy and bad stuff in it and I will feel better... It's like the more food in my body the less acid hits my bladder in the end process. I really can't figure it out but I'm glad you said something because I was wondering the same thing! The only problem is I will flare from those foods that made me feel better for a little while the next day. SO I will eat clean and the process begins all over again ugh.
#3 another thing I am not sure about... all I know is the antibiotics eventually could be really bad so be careful!

[branmun]

Thanks Bella Luna! Yeah, the bad foods seem to make my bladder happier too. You brought up a good point about more food letting less acid hit your bladder-I hadn't thought about it that way. I'm very worried about the antibiotics. I just found research about the one I am taking causing breast cancer in mice. I only have a few left so I going to try to do without them.

[Claredale]

Everytime I go on antiobiotics my IC symptoms intensify and I issues with my skin. In September I had been given antibiotics due to an infected tooth. My tooth didn't hurt at all, which my doctor was amazed. The only reason I even went to the dentist (my 6 month checkup was scheduled for this month) was because part of my tooth broke off. He kept pushing the area with his little hook and even asked me when I had taken my last pain pill, which had been several hours prior. Anyway, he put me on antiobiotics and almost immediately I started getting a rash under my left breast that got so bad, it looked as if it was raw meat. My PCP said it was a yeast infection of my skin. I took one of those pills you take just once and he gave me some cream. Within a couple of days, it was cleared up. I hate that I took so long to get it checked out, but since I have bad skin, I just figured it was my Eczema flaring, which it does sometimes when I am under stress.

My PCP and my uro/gyno told me that I really need to be careful when I take antibiotics. I am so glad I don't get UTI's easily. I have only one 1...possibly 2 in my 20 years of IC.

I hope your start feeling better. I am coming out of a long lasting flare myself. I have been doing so well and everytime it seems to be getting better, my flare starts back. Believe me, I have been very careful with my diet even though the only foods that I am sensitive too are in the citrus line, but I believe that when my bladder is irritated, any "non IC friendly" food is able to irritate my bladder.

Hugs, Tracey

Oh, I wanted to add that when I am in a flare, I have found that if I stick to foods with protein in it, they seem to calm my flare almost as well as my pain meds. Scrambled eggs and peanut butter seem to be 2 of the best foods for me to eat. I hadn't had a flare in so long, I had forgotten my own tip that I have suggested so many times.

Also, my mom who is a retired nurse, knows that I drink so much water since I am on Prosed DS, but she begged me to decrease my water intake because I was "flushing" out my meds too quickly. I kept a journal with my intake and how my pain was doing during my "experiment" and she was right. I didn't drink 8 ounces all at once, I would just drink it a little at a time. I know Ronda mentioned that one time that she drinks her water like that. I guess it allowed my meds to actually stay in my system longer, especially my pain meds. I have also read that the "daily amount of water" should not be the same for all of us, since we are not all the same size and our systems works differently.

Tracey

[SharonA]

One thing I have noticed about me is that my frequency is alway up in the mornings. It continues until I eat something. Once my stomach has something to digest, the frequency quiets down.

[BellaLuna]

I tend to be fine in the morning until I eat something and then gradually throughout the day my pain gets worse... I think it is because my bowls fill up and since I go to the bathroom in the morning only, it begins to push on my bladder from the inside (kind of like a baby) and makes me have to go more often. The food triggers cause the burning more than the frequency and the frequency is from the bowl filling. I should just never eat food haha. Oh wait I did that and it made things worse ugh.

[Natsy]

Hey Brandy

Re: the antibiotics preventing flares

I had a similar response to antibiotics. For a couple of years I only had flares after sex. Sometimes they were UTIs but most of the time they were just flares with no bacteria that did not respond to antibiotics. But then I began taking a low dose prophylactic antibiotic and I had no flares, at all. This worked a charm for me for 2 years but has stopped working unfortunately. I think that maybe it keeps the urine sterile and a doctor told me that sometimes the antibiotics have an anti-inflammatory effect too.

I too find I can tolerate a Starbucks ok! It seems to irritate me less than coffee I make at home.

Take care

Natalie