Interstitial Cystitis Archives

Interstitial Cystitis: More than meets the eye TESTIMONIAL

In reply to my e-mail, when ordering his book, Dr. Stoll encouraged me to write what I had written to him on this BB, feeling it would help some people. I thought long hard on that. How could I help anyone? I was the one looking for answers. I was the one with the IC – straight on the heels of my first UTI. Then I realized over the days why he wanted me to do so. While dealing with the physical symptoms of IC – and we all know how 24/7 that can be, I lost sight of the non-physical causes. Reading Dr. Stoll’s cover pages has helped me refocus and connect the dots to a deeper level. But even reading his initial web site was not an instant trigger for me. Let me explain, because it was an important lesson for me and shows the underlying workings of what to many seems like a purely physical world but is so much more.

After an intense week on the website – after 5 months of IC, I was ready to venture more fully into the IC world of the internet. In the early days of IC, before realizing the immense importance of an alkaline diet, and Prelief (NOT available in Canada – thank God for being a first time snowbird in Florida) the ICN site made me weep, I was so overwhelmed. I felt ready now. I came across Dr. Stoll’s site and read the initial cover. I promptly closed his site and thought no more about it. I was tired at so many levels of working with the IC that thoughts of learning skilled relaxation techniques over time just seemed too tiring. It was many hours later that day that I went to meditate (17 years). My inner guidance spoke. It told me that once I understood the connection between my bowels and bladder and brought them back into harmony, along with my digestive tract, things would correct themselves. So while at the personality/mind level I had dismissed Dr. Stoll’s writings, at the deeper level of awareness and inner knowing, I was being told, get thee back to Dr. Stoll’s website.

I had some supplement questions for Dr. Stoll and some on vulvadynia in regard to bladder training – if anyone reading this has answers, please let me know (questions further on). I did share with Dr. Stoll my having worn a mouth guard for 30 years (50 yrs. old), losing more than my fair share of hair over the past 4 years, and being a basket case when my husband drives on the motorway – even for me, way beyond reason. But then I shared with Dr. Stoll that my spiritual counsellor – gifted clairvoyant/audient – felt my IC symptoms were triggered by my worries over family finances: we had sold the rights to part of our company, still had to sell the building, I had no personal income coming in from my part-time job there, we had begun building a house in the Rockies, commuting the 8 hrs drive to Saskatoon and back every 2 weeks, and we had bought a home in Florida. At the time, I really didn’t connect to what I was being told. Though I knew I worried “a little” – husband didn’t ; and he’s good about money – I didn’t give it much credence. I look back now and remember this lady I saw for treatments last year said that I used the bladder to deal with all my issues. Wasn’t able to handle any of the homeopathy remedies. I thought it was the remedies per se (very sensitive system) but it was undoubtedly a lot to do with how my bladder was processing what the remedies were helping me get rid of. Was too much for me. Both this lady and my spiritual counsellor said I had trust issues in regard to anyone treating the physical body and that I held the body very “hard” – Dr. Stoll felt that all my symptoms were related to “total body bracing”. And while it’s softer than then, apparently not enough. I now realize that years of knee and back conditions, I have spent a long time bracing myself protectively, defensively. Take that another step and we are into trust issues, and the ever pertinent, Let go and let God – whoever He, She or It Is.

Dr. Stoll has helped me refocus. Spirit, too, kept telling me that all the answers were inside. I didn’t want to hear that because with IC there is a part in most of us that is searching for the magic bullet, externally, and while I know supplements help, there is a bigger root. It is easy to define ourselves by the IC, at times feeling so captured by it, but I needed to be reminded that it all comes back to me. If anyone has read the Seth books, it very much comes down to the “nature of personal reality”. While I know some people have terrible nights with IC, equipped with a large bladder I can pull in now long periods of sleep – recorded 6-7 hrs. Why do I feel the best first thing in the morning? I do a lot of inner work and healing in daily meditations. I don’t need the dream state to be working as hard. I also do not have to deal with fight and flight scenarios an average day can lend itself to. So perhaps I am not onslaughting my body with tightly drawn muscles. It’s got my attention; and my husband’s. With a once active sex life, IC hit us both. It was upsetting for a while till we just got over the upset and worked with what worked. The morning. We are truly mastering the whole concept of “quickies”. Don’t want to spoil a good thing!

I didn’t realize I was doing it. I thought I was grateful for my large bladder and being able to pee copious amounts and go at least an hour before peeing (I drink vast amounts of RO water and I am always one step ahead in locating bathrooms). In meditation last night I learned my bladder has been sent away to the far end of the ball park – Spirit communes colourfully. I have not been loving it but have separated it from the rest of me. Through this I once more reminded myself that wholeness is not about being without dis-ease or any upset, but in accepting all of us. The good, the bad, the ugly. If we cut a part off from us, how can we heal; that is, be whole. One of the good things about an oft times bad and ugly IC is that I have become a really healthy eater, no more daily hits on the red wine, drink great RO water, really think what passes my mouth, lost extra weight, and, to my delight, my husband continues to surprise me with his caring and compassion. IC gave me that. And now it gives me SR.

I am awaiting Dr. Stoll and Martha Davis’s books. In the meanwhile Dr. Stoll’s words have brought me back on-line where I need to be – on the inside looking out. Before I ask my questions, for those who have borne with me through this – I’ve already lost my first BB draft once on the website; in Word right now; so I’ve hung in there, too, I would like to end this unorthodox writing with some offered insights.

Since 1987 my path has been graced with some gifted people, gifted in that they are able to see beyond the physical limitations of a total physical interpretation many have on life. There was once a wonderful quote I saw: We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a physical experience. Our view of the world can change when we accept that as truth. And while our healing always comes back to us, some people can be wonderful stops along the way. Whether they do hands-on healing, clairvoyance, hypnosis, regression, make sure it feels right. You’ll know. For me they have helped me see my inner world more clearly in how it plays out on the outside. I never thought IC “happened” to me, but that it occurred in response to some inner cause. I believe SR will help in not only supplying techniques but opening those portals of deeper vision into my reality creating. If you do seek someone of heightened 6th sense abilities, remember that you can be psychic without being spiritual but you can never be spiritual without the psychic abilities happening naturally. DISCERN.

I worked briefly with a woman doing visceral manipulation this past summer and Fall. In Canmore where we’ve built our home. I look forward to returning to her. We had just been venturing into the importance of the energy connection between the brain/heart/kidney. With learning about the kidney connection, is the bladder, as some same, the ending stage of IC? So many questions – all valid. For me there really is something already afoot about the kidney/bladder and heart connection. Also, in Chinese medicine, the kidneys are the chi source for our ying and yang; that which gives us balance, harmony and wholeness in body/mind. I digress, but food for thought and so many pathways that can lead us back to wholeness. I would encourage anyone to look up the website re. Visceral manipulation. It is a treatment that works at amazing levels. This woman I know in Canmore continues to train extensively under Jean-Paul Barral, the French osteopath who developed visceral manipulation. Let me write some of the first paragraph because it might connect with some: “At optimal health, the relationship between the organs (viscera) and structures of the body (muscles, membranes, fasciae and bones) remains stable despite the body’s endless varieties of motion. But when one organ can’t move in harmony with its surrounding viscera due to abnormal tone, adhesions or displacement, it works against all the body’s organs and structures. This disharmony creates fixed abnormal points of tension that the body is forced to move around. That chronic irritation, in turn, paves the way for disease and dysfunction”.

My questions:
1. For 5 weeks I had been using L’Arginine to promote bladder healing – 3, 500 mg daily. I am in my second day now of reducing the dosage, with the intent to terminate its use. With a 25 day cycle, I have now missed 2, 28 day cycles. I was in a health food store last week and asked the owner what he knew about L’Ariginine and missed periods. He just looked at me. His 33 yr.old girlfriend had been sharing power drinks with greater dosages of this amino acid with him (also a muscle builder) and was “just bitching about it this morning” – she, too, has scrambled periods with no prior problems. Any comments?
2. I started Cysta-Q yesterday because it is endorsed by the ICN, who didn’t seem at all happy with D/Mannose’s advertising ways. Any comments?
3. The onset of vulavadynia, in strong fashion, “coincided” last week with my trying bladder training. Even had to stop my Kegel exercises. Any comments on bladder training, Kegel exercises, hot baths/showers with spontaneous peeing and aggravated symptoms all in relation to messing around with the voluntary/involuntary muscles in that good, ol’ pelvic floor. Symptoms have reduced greatly due to stopping bladder training, hot baths, and Kegels; but the latter needs to get back on line. 50yrs old with 3 kids – not a good idea to stop!
4. Bovine Microflora vs. Human Microflora. I went immediately onto Probiotics when I went on a 7 day course of Cipro for the UTI. After 3 months on it I was told that it would do nothing for me because it was from the cow – so where would that put the big dollar industry in bovine microflora? I was told the body would just do nothing with it. The patented HMF through Genestra Brands being from human microflora was the only way to go. With IC I cannot tolerate yogurt, even with the Prelief – interesting? – so who knows what on the micorflora debate and what have others done if they can’t eat live, plain yogurt?

So, there, I have written. In departing I wish to say that none of us are “IC sufferers”; we are all IC “champions in the making”.

To our inner power, Kate.

P.S. When Dr. Stoll asked me to write on the BB, I feel it necessary to say that I have expanded greatly since that e-mail. If I have gone beyond what he had hoped for the BB, I feel it important to say that he has not been witness to some parts of this BB entry. So if I have overstepped sensibilities, don’t blame Dr. Stoll.

Follow Ups:

• Re: Interstitial Cystitis: More than meets the eye (TESTIMONIALfor IC.) Walt Stoll [9.8] 07:37:59 2/02/04 (0)

In Reply to: Interstitial Cystitis: More than meets the eye posted by Kate Rogers [439.4] on February 01, 2004 at 18:38:40:

Thanks, Kate.

Namaste`

Walt