enots1558
09-29-2009, 06:58 AM
Hello, I have been reading the forums for awhile before finally joining and now posting. I have been suffering with IC for a few years but only received the diagnosis in March/April of 09. I am also a severe diabetic with diabetic kidney disease. A few years ago I began having symptoms and saw a urologist whom I believe was on the right track to diagnosing me but he never used the term IC so I quit going to him. My symptoms were intermittent back then and I was also having a lot of bladder infections, which I have had all my life. I had bladder surgery when I was four years old (I am currently 51 years old) and was under a urologist care for years. As I hit puberty and had children my bladder infection were few and far between and then a few years ago the IC symptoms hit me hard but like I said off and on. Then about a year ago the symptoms came and never left. At first I had a bladder infection and I chalked all the symptoms up to that but after four antibotics and no infection but all the pain and symptoms my family doctor sent me to a urologist. He did a cystoscope in his office and saw a red place on my bladder that he did not like and because the procedure was so painful, he scheduled another one with a biopsy at the hospital so he could put me to sleep. This particular doctor did not understand IC apparently and after tons of testing and continual and constant pain, I went back to my family doctor for help with the pain as I could no longer tolerate it on my own and was told I could not take Advil due to the kidney damage (not that advil really helped much)! My family doctor sat down with all my results and she figured out that I had IC. She was empathetic to the pain of IC because she had a family member with it. She prescribed pain pills and Elmiron and I finally began to function again. My husband and I moved back to Florida from Oklahoma, where we had only lived for one year. Once back in Florida, I went to a pain management doctor because that is what you have to do here. The pain doctor took me off of the pain pill Lorcet 10 MG that I had been on and had helped me to become functional and put me on methadone. I had an allergic reaction to the methadone and have never been so sick in my life. I went to my family doctor who put me on a lower dose of Lortab and refered me to a new pain doctor, who I go see today. I am very nervous as I am not sure what to expect after the last doctor refused to take me off of methadone in spite of the reaction. All I know is I want to be more than this terrible diagnosis and the pain it causes every day. I would love to be able to go back to work, which I have been unable to do because of the pain but until the doctor put me on the methadone, I was feeling really close to being functional enough to do so. I am a social worker so I am hoping that I can work while on pain meds, not sure why I could not work in the field in some capacity. My husband works out of the country so I am alone three to four months at a time. I am posting here because I need to connect to others who understand my daily struggles that come with IC.