All I can say is that it has worked for me. I am about 11 months in and I feel about 98% better. I asked her if I was the norm in all this and this is what she told me. About 20% sail through, I am not in this group even though I have donve very well. About 30% do suffer and take awhile to get there, I am also not in this group. And about 50% do about as well as I have done and in that 50% she said I am in the middle. So does this work, yes, can it take more then a year, yes, but what are your options. I feel so blessed to have taken this path to healing.

Hi there, it's working for me. I've been in treatment 10 months. When I came down with IC I had frequency (12-15 times a day, 3-4 times a night) constant urge, buzzing in my urethra, bladder pain (like an animal scratching to get out), pain throughout my pelvis, vulvodynia, IBS, and vaginal pain. My remaining symptoms are occasional very vague urge (like I might be *about* to need to pee), soreness on and off in my external tissues and some  irritation in and around my vagina - itching/tickling, also on and off. The diet helped me very much, and since I've been in treatment I've improved steadily. I started seeing a definite difference around 3 months in, when I had 3 days of very low symptoms in a row. I keep a journal of my progress and last month had 10 symptom-free days (my highest total so far).
 
It's not easy, and one of the hardest things is that things seesaw: having bad days again after good ones is almost tougher, psychologically, then feeling steadily ill, I find! But it gets easier to be positive as you feel better. yes, it takes some people years to get to the point of being symptom-free, but most see improvement over that time, so it's not like being stuck in the same place of feeling 24/7 awful for all that time. And take it from me: when you're feeling good, you completely forget about IC, so quickly it's almost alarming! I don't have any symptoms tonight and it's as if IC never happened!
 
I've also found it helpful to note the tiny improvements (because the better I get the harder it is to get better - or the harder it is to see the improvements because they're less dramatic). So for example up to around christmas time I used to get this feeling over my urethra that wasn't pain so much as awareness, like having a light shined on it. THis has now been gone for three months. Last weekend, I slept through the night, got up to pee at 7, and went back to sleep until about 10 (my son was at his father's!) and when I woke at 10 I couldn't feel my bladder at all! this was AMAZING for me  - if I go back to sleep after peeing I'm always just aware of my bladder when I wake - not pain, just that it's there. So this was a big change. I'm hoping to feel more or less symptom-free at the two year mark- that's my hope!
 
Anyway, long story short - I am confident in the programme and in Dr B. Bear in mind that people come on here when they're feeling bad - when you're feeling good, you're off living your life, and don't bother. So the picture you get on here is necessarily tilted. The best thing I can say is that if my best friend came down with IC I'd have her on the plane to LA before her feet had time to touch the ground.

Hi Cristine, that's so interesting! I reckon I'm in the middle 50%, though I haven't done quite as well as you I don't think - I'd say I'm more like 85% just now. But am hugely grateful for my progress, and (really never thought I'd say this) for the changes this has brought to my life. I've embarked on therapy (which I REALLY needed to do), am calmer, take pleasure in smaller things, appreciate my son more. All sorts. On the good days (of which there are more and more - and today was one) I feel blessed.
 
Actually, as further encouragement - my day today: staying up with my parents with my son, got up with him at 7, then got sent back to bed by my dad (I LOVE my dad :)). Woke up at 9.30, peed, felt fine. had a shower, ran some errands, feeling fine all the way. Had lunch and drove out to a great big bookshop, where I bought secondhand books, showed my son a toy train and drank a lovely cup of black coffee in the cafe. Only symptom through all this was an ache in my labia(!) which is a pre-period thing for me. Came home, had tea. Have peed 3 times today I think. Read to my son, got him to bed, watched some TV with my parents. About to go to bed myself now (it's nearly 11pm in the UK!). And still no symptoms. Looking forward to reading and going to sleep, and hopefully sleeping through! When I compare this to when I was staying here a year and a half ago when IC had just hit - and I was just sobbing all over my dad, feeling AWFUL, like I was trapped in a nightmare and  couldn't possibly raise my son while feeling like this, I feel astounded at my recovery.
 
So so delighted you're feeling so well Cristine - and that you're taking time to come on and encourage others! Well done you, lots of love xxx