I love to plan. I have a paper planner, a digital planner and lists for everything. Of all the things I plan, though, I haven’t often thought about creating a wellness plan. In having an unpredictable health condition like IC, making plans can sometimes be frustrating because we never know how we’re going to feel. Plans have to be flexible and, honestly, having plans fall through too often gets discouraging and leads to us not following through.

But what if we could use the new year as motivation to come up with a wellness plan that is realistic, designed for flexibility and will result in us feeling better? I’d say sign me up!

With that goal in mind, I decided this is the new year I’m going to intentionally and specifically focus on wellness — in spite of the crazy and unpredictable ways my body can behave. Let’s use these strategies together to make the new year one full of more wellness physically and emotionally.

What Wellness Means

Let’s start with the definition of wellness for our plan. Wellness means having the best quality of life possible. It means taking care of ourselves even when days are hard. It means making choices to live as healthily as possible even when we hurt.

Getting more technical, Merriam-Webster defines wellness as “the quality or state of being in good health especially as an actively sought goal.” Let’s note that even the definition doesn’t emphasize perfect health.

We’re not aiming for perfect; we’re simply aiming for an awareness and improved quality of life no matter how small that improvement is.

The Focus Areas for a Wellness Plan with IC

Understanding wellness isn’t about being pain-free with perfect health, we need to decide exactly what areas we are going to work on for overall improvement of quality of life with IC. You may have other areas to work into your own plan, but we’re going to focus on five in particular:

  1. Diet
  2. Exercise
  3. Mental Health
  4. Bladder Care
  5. Medical Care

Having a plan and goals for all five of these areas can help improve your sense of wellness and make a big difference in taking control of your IC rather than letting it completely run the show.

Diet

This isn’t your stereotypical New Year’s Resolution to eat healthier to lose weight. Instead, let’s focus on making the right dietary choices to help our bladders and our overall health.

Goal Suggestions

Do an elimination diet. If you’ve not done an elimination diet before to determine your trigger foods, or if you haven’t done one in a while, this could be the time to give it a try. An elimination diet can help improve your symptoms, possibly reduce your medication, potentially widen your food choices and give you a sense of control. I thought I knew my triggers until I did an elimination diet and found a hidden culprit in vinegar. Removing it from my diet improved my symptoms and was well worth it!

Try new IC-friendly foods. Not being able to have some foods can be discouraging. Make this the year you try some IC friendly options you haven’t before. Try carob to replace chocolate. Or try some IC friendly coffee and tea options. You may just find a new favorite!

Balance your nutrition. No matter where you are in your IC journey, focus on eating nutritious food. Not only can eating more healthily boost your energy, doing so has many other benefits, including improving your overall health. If you have comorbid conditions with IC such as fibromyalgia or IBS, then eating better may improve those symptoms as well.

Action Items

Experiment in the kitchen. Try your hand at new IC friendly recipes that are both nutritious and delicious. Check out some of these resources for some great foods to try:

Start meal planning. Meal planning can be a great way to ensure you always have a plan for IC friendly foods as well as the correct ingredients. Focus on what you can have and have a back-up plan for when bad days strike. Meal planning helps you stick to your eating goals.

Exercise

Another component of wellness is exercise. You don’t need to train for and run a marathon, but find ways to get your body moving for both your physical and mental health. Exercising with IC might look a bit different, but it’s definitely still possible.

Goal Suggestions

Commit to stretching daily. Yoga and Pilates are great workouts for IC patients. Both are low impact, can be done at home and also help stretch out tense muscles that often occur as we are dealing with pain. If you have other conditions, such as fibromyalgia, stretching is an excellent symptom alleviator.

Try water exercise. Swimming is a terrific low-impact option. While being in water does have its challenges for the IC bladder, use some of these self-help strategies to dive in and get your water workouts started.

Find accountability. We tend to stick to our goals and plans much better with some accountability. Find a friend to begin an exercise regiment with, or consider joining an online community or even a local gym to stay motivated.

Action Items

Find Pilates or yoga videos online to try. I’m a huge fan of morning stretching with yoga or Pilates. It has made a difference in how I feel as someone with both IC and fibromyalgia. Head to YouTube and see what videos you can find. My personal favorite is Yoga with Joelle. She has an entire line of low-impact yoga workouts designed specifically for people with chronic pain. In fact, she herself has fibromyalgia.

Plan exercise time in your schedule. For habits to form, we need to do things regularly. Figure out what time of day works best for you to incorporate exercise. Maybe it’s getting up 20 minutes early to do some yoga in your PJs before the day begins. (That’s what I do!) Or maybe you’re a night owl and do better with an evening workout. Remember you also don’t have to do all your exercise for the day at one time. No matter what, scheduling the time scheduled helps make it happen.

Research aquatic exercise options. Unless you have a swimming pool or other body of water at your disposal, do research and figure out any water exercise options near you that work for your budget and bladder.

Explore workout-at-home options. Getting out isn’t always feasible, so find some ways to stay active at home. From dancing around your kitchen to using your stairs to walking laps around your house, there are some pretty easy ways to get active at home. (Find more ideas here!)

Mental Health

Keeping on top of mental health is important for everyone, but it’s even more important for those of us dealing with chronic pain issues. Research shows we are three times more likely to develop psychiatric symptoms than the average person.(1) And we know that stress, anxiety and depression can negatively impact our IC symptoms. As such, mental health definitely needs to be a component of your wellness plan.

Goal Suggestions

Get good sleep. Good sleep — or lack thereof — impacts our mental wellbeing. Set a goal to follow a better routine for getting good sleep this year.

Make time for things you enjoy. You may feel selfish for making time for your own hobbies or activities that bring you joy. But stop that guilt. Hobbies give you time to relax and can improve your mental health, which helps you be better at everything else you do.

Practice relaxation techniques. We IC patients can be good at catastrophizing. We are also good at feeling anxious and even ashamed. Incorporate relaxation practices into your wellness plan. Mindfulness, breathing exercises, aromatherapy, journaling and more can really help you reset.

Action Items

Figure out what sleep practices help you most. From maintaining a consistent sleep schedule to avoiding electronics just before bed, you can give yourself a better chance at a good night’s sleep. Commit to making this a priority in your wellness plan for the year. Try these ideas for getting better sleep with IC.

Make a list of your favorite activities or hobbies. Sometimes we get so busy in the fray of life that we actually start to forget what we enjoy doing. If someone asks what our hobbies are, we might even make a cheeky comment like, “Knowing the location of the bathroom everywhere I go.” So sit down and write out what activities bring you joy or you’d like to try. (Check out “25 Hobby Ideas You Can Do Sitting Down” for inspiration.) Then schedule time each week to do at least one of those activities.

Plan time for relaxation techniques. Especially if you have a busy schedule, be sure to plan time for relaxation. Whether it’s scheduling an entire down day (on purpose, not out of necessity!) or just 30 minutes in a warm bath, make this the year you prioritize relaxing to help yourself both mentally and physically.

Bladder Care

Taking care of your bladder in effort to prevent flares and just treat your bladder the best you can is important for your wellness plan. It’s very easy to see your bladder as enemy number one and maybe even give up trying to take care of it. But, in the long run, we are the only ones who suffer as a result. We can’t prevent every flare; however, we can treat our bladders well and benefit from the result.

Goal Suggestions

Be familiar with your triggers. Sometimes flares come out of nowhere, but often they come as a result of something we’ve done if we just pay attention. Once you know your triggers, you can more easily avoid them.

Stay hydrated. Drinking less water sounds tempting when we are trying to avoid urinating, but this is the exact opposite of what we should do. Staying hydrated dilutes our urine so it’s less acidic, which decreases symptoms.

Listen to your body. Pushing through even when we don’t feel well can be tempting. After all, there are always things that need done! But, make listening to your body part of your wellness plan. Give yourself permission to stop and rest when you need to.

Action Items

Keep a symptom journal. In order to really figure out your triggers, keep a symptoms journal on your phone or on paper. Write down how you are feeling along with what you’ve been doing. This will allow you to see if any patterns emerge. For example, if your pain level increases each time after you vacuum, then you can assume the two are correlated and find an alternative.

Set a daily water intake goal. Use your phone or a tracker to keep track of how much water you’re drinking and work to meet your goal each day. Help keep yourself motivated to drink more water by having an option to carry it with you, keeping it cold or adding some flavor.

Come up with ideas for how to say no. To really listen to your body, sometimes you have to say no to an activity. Think about how you can graciously say no and then give yourself permission to do so. Also, give yourself grace for not being able to do everything!

Medical Care

A final component to making a wellness plan as an IC patient is having a medical care plan. This entails advocating for yourself and making sure you get the care you need.

Goal Suggestions

Schedule regular check-ups. Make appointments with your doctors and specialists for regular check-ups and then keep the appointments. Medical providers require seeing you in person every six to 12 months in order to continue writing your prescriptions, so that alone means you need to be seeing them. But keeping up on your appointments also means identifying issues as soon as possible, which always leads to a better outcome.

Keep track of your health records. Chances are really good you’re seeing more than one provider. Keep your own file of important health records — procedures, surgeries, etc. — so you can bring along most recent copies to appointments. You also want to maintain an updated list of your current medications.

Find the right provider. IC is not a condition treated by all urologists. In fact, some are not very familiar with it at all. Figure out if this is the year you need to break up with your urologist and find a new one, or if this is the year you need to seek out specialized treatment elsewhere.

Action Items

Make a list of questions and concerns before each medical appointment. Remembering what we want to talk about with medical providers can be difficult once we’re in the room, covered by only a paper blanket. Having a list of questions and concerns makes sure you address what you really need to talk about with your medical provider.

Get copies of medical records you’re missing. Start a file for your major medical records and make sure you have copies of everything. This is especially important if you are being treated in more than one healthcare system where records aren’t as readily shared.

Keep up with the latest IC research. Staying up to date on the latest IC treatments is more important to you than your doctor because it impacts you directly. Be familiar with what is working well based on research (not just the testimony of other patients) and bring it up with your doctor. I’ve literally brought studies into my doctor’s appointment to discuss treatments.

Seek treatment from the best provider. When it comes to being your own best healthcare advocate, sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone and even out of your town. As someone who lives in a mid-sized Midwestern city, I don’t have access to IC specialists and latest treatments locally. I’ve driven out of town and out of state to see providers who specialize in IC. Doing so has had a tremendously positive impact on my symptoms.

Plan for Success

No matter which goals and action items you choose to focus on in your wellness plan, set yourself up for success from the beginning. Be specific with your goals but also keep them simple and realistic. Don’t set more goals than you can possibly achieve and figure out how you will achieve the ones you set. Consider involving a friend or family member to help you stay on track with your wellness plan.

Finally, also remember to be flexible and give yourself grace as you go. Do your best, but know challenges will happen and your plans may get derailed. Just get back on track when you can. You’ve got this!

References:

  1. Harvard Health Publishing. Depression and Pain. Harvard Medical School. Updated March 21, 2017.