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Dear all,
Thanks for your responses on my original threat 'How common is IC'. There are some interesting replies. One of the most interesting for me is how a wide maniufestation of IC symptoms seems common among a wide variety of people - if a wide variety of people (family members, children, friends) exhibit similar symptoms, why do we end up as we do and they don't? What makes their symptoms recede at some point? For example, my mother apparently had #constant cystitis' toward the end of her pregnancy with me. Given that we know that true bacterial cystitis is cleared by the body within one or two days (she didn't take any antibiotics), if she had been diagnosed at the time, it most likely have been IC (what else could it be?). However, her symptoms abbated after the pregnancy and she's been asymptomatic since. I suspect that many people have IC-type symptoms in their life but with some it continues whereas with others it resolves. We need to find out why it continues in some but not in others. Can't hang around for research - they'll never ger round to it. Any thoughts?
A couple of thoughts
I think it is much more common than what people think - esp here in the UK. The trouble is compounded by the fact that the term IC is a very general term and so it becomes a 'catch all' subject. There are other causes for IC type symptoms - for example, physical injury to the bladder, deferred pain from kidney stones etc... And pregnancy is another case in point. Any chronic inflammation of the bladder unexplained due to lack of bacteria will be coined as IC. Pregnancy can alone cause chronic cystitis since the ph balance alters in the entire area due to hormonal changes. Some women develop candida during pregnancy since the vulval area is more prone to developing yeast (irrespective of whether that person has systemic yeast or SIBO) although if you have gut problems pregnancy can make matters a lot worse. It did for me - I was bed bound for at least 3 months. Things eased after pregnancy but still have bladder pain and gut problems. Just my take on things - I am not a medical professional. I am in fact a brand new patient of the wonderful Dr. Brizman! Xx