Retention

I want to share a major victory I had with my IC in the area of retention. It has been six months since I had an episode of retention and I feel that this is my first sure deal victory since the onset of IC. Maybe it's too early to tell for sure, but I want to get the word out there because if you are suffering and running to the emergency room you need to know this. About seven months ago at the advice of my doctor I decided to give a urologist another chance at me. I had been suffering for a year or so with episodic retention about monthly. The urologist recommended amytriptaline and physical therapy for my IC and retention. Here's how that went.

The amytriptaline was supposed to reduce the pain messages to the brain that she claims are hyper vigilant and misfiring. After about two weeks I had to get off the medication due to an increased sensation of depression and anxiety. That medication is definitely not for me, though when I quit it, it seemed to me that it might have been causing a reduction in pain symptoms. In other words, my pain seemed to increase when I went off the amytriptaline. It's hard to be sure because my pain fluctuates anyway.

As for the physical therapy, I can't recommend it enough. Pelvic tension was found to be a big player in my IC symptoms, and my retention issues are, at least for the time being, gone. IC sisters will be developing a yoga video of helpful exercises, but in the meantime, consider seeing a physical therapist that specializes in Interstitial Cystitis.

There are many blogs where people share their experiences with TENS Units curing their IC pain, so other IC sufferers have also discovered a muscular-IC pain link. In the eighties I took Hytrin, a smooth muscle relaxer which also eased my symptoms some. There is quite a bit of evidence supporting the theory of a muscular component to IC pain, and from my own experience, I feel you must know that if you suffer from retention you should give physical therapy a try.