ICN Education & Support Phone Line Will Be Closed While Jill Recovers From Surgery Next week I’ll be recovering from an urgent hysterectomy and waiting anxiously for my uterine biopsy results. This saga began last fall when I started spotting. Of course, I hadn’t had a period in about two years so contacted my doctor [...]
The sudden and swift passage of TrumpCare yesterday as created turmoil in patient groups around the USA. By leaving in an option in the bill that would allow states to apply for a waiver to raise the price of premiums for patients struggling with pre-existing conditions, disabled and elderly patients are deeply concerned that [...]
We are very pleased to announce that Sarah Conley PT, DPT & WCS (Conway Regional Health System) has been awarded the 2016 Physical Therapist of the Year. Votes were collected throughout Fall 2016 as part of the international IC Awareness Month campaign. We asked patients to nominate both physical therapists and doctors who treated them with compassion, [...]
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Robert Evans (Wake Forest Baptist Health) has, for a second year in a row, been voted the 2016 IC Doctor of the Year during our annual IC Awareness Month campaign. Hundreds of patients nominated and voted for doctors who they believe had treated them with kindness, respect and with excellent knowledge [...]
Perhaps the most important question that physicians and patients have asked is “how and why does the bladder wall break down in some patients with IC?” It’s the root question that we all want the answer to. Let’s consider eight possible causes of bladder injury. 1 - Chemical Exposure The first and most logical assumption [...]
We are happy to announce the release of the IC Optimist Winter 2017 edition. The IC Optimist is the quarterly magazine of the IC Network. Your subscription and/or purchase helps to underwrite our IC Support Services, advocacy efforts, Patient Support Line and IC Awareness Month! We thank you for your support! Our work could not [...]
Chemo Induced Cystitis Can Be Devastating For IC Patients - Joy*, a 73 year old woman, contacted our office in a dire situation. She had been diagnosed with IC last June. Just three months later, she received a second diagnosis of breast cancer (Stage 2B). After a mastectomy she began chemotherapy treatment. Of course, she [...]
From the finding that IC patients in flares often have candida in their urine, to the discovery that our gut biome is deficient in important bacteria, here are some of our favorite stories from 2016. #1 - Best Research of 2016 Some IC Flares Are Caused by Candida It's impossible to estimate the number of times [...]
Written by Nicole and Jesse Cozean, the Interstitial Cystitis Solution is the best book written about interstitial cystitis in twenty years. If you are newly diagnosed with IC/BPS, it will give you a road map on how to approach your treatment and self care. If you’re a grizzled IC veteran, it provides the latest information [...]
As we’ve discussed in earlier issues of the IC Optimist, many clinicians and researchers around the world now believe that there are distinct variations and/or subtypes in the IC patient population. While there is considerable debate of proposed subtyping systems, most agree that the roughly 10% of patients who struggle with Hunner’s lesions have a [...]
