IC Disease

I try to read as many articles and research studies as I can on IC Disease and bladder problems and I found another article that I thought was worth mentioning.  This article from the Kalamazoo Gazette shares a female patient’s story with her own battle with Interstitial Cystitis and her trials of getting a proper diagnosis. 

What else I found interesting in the article is where it was mentioned that  approximately 25% of all women suffer from some sort of pelvic floor and/or bladder disorder.  These include IC Disease, prolapsed uterus, incontinence of the bladder and bowel, and recurrent bladder infections. Twenty-five percent - that is an alarming number of women who are out there suffering like I am.

That percentage increases as women age.  The article states that…

A recently released study by the National Institutes of Health indicates the prevalence of pelvic-floor disorders increases with age, affecting more than 40 percent of women from 60 to 79 years old and about 50 percent of women 80 and older.

It also increases with the number of times a woman has given birth.

Who would have ever thought that the urge or need to pee too much would mess with the mind?  But experiments with rats with overactive bladders shows just that - the need to urinate too frequently changes the brain’s activity.  If researchers find that it is the same for humans as it is for rats, this change in brain activity could explain the disrupted sleep, concentration and confusion problems.

Rita Valentino, a neuroscientist at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, PA says:

“If you have an overactive bladder, you don’t just have a bladder problem. It has neurobehavioural consequences.”

It is believed that approximately 17% of the population have overactive bladder disorder. In people who have this disorder, they have the frequent need to urinate due to uncontrollable bladder contractions.

The study is the first to show that a bladder disorder can have a direct effect on brain function. “This helps complete the puzzle of why overactive bladder symptoms are so disruptive to quality of life,” says Craig Comiter, a urologist at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.

To read more, click here.

Another illness that has similar symptoms to IC Disease is overactive bladder. In people who have an overactive bladder, the smooth and layered muscle surrounding the bladder contracts spasmodically and causes an urgent need to urinate.  The spasms happen sometimes without a known cause and the bladder has increased intense pressure.  When the surrounding bladder muscle (known as the detrusor muscle) is working properly, it contracts and relaxes in response to the volume of urine in the bladder and upon urination.

Overactive bladder can be very embarrassing and can really limit a person’s social life. People with this problem often experience urgency at inconvenient and unpredictable times and sometimes lose control before making it to the restroom.

Overactive bladder seems to affect men and women equally and approximately 13 million people in the U.S. suffer from this condition. Causes of overactive bladder, also referred to as OAB, include:

• side effects from prescription drugs
• nerve damage caused by surgery, abdominal or pelvic trauma
• neurological diseases

There are three symptoms that are common with overactive bladder and these symptoms are why people are misdiagnosed with OAB when they in fact have IC Disease:

• Urge incontinence - This is when someone has a strong need to urinate followed by leaking or involuntary and complete voiding
• Frequency
• Urgency

Treatments commonly used for overactive bladder include bladder retraining, medication and surgery.

Thank God times are changing for IC patients and the illness is starting to be more understood.  But even though advances have been made, there are still a lot of women being misdiagnosed by physicians due to their lack of knowledge on IC Disease.  Lack of knowledge isn’t the only reason that IC Disease may be misdiagnosed.   It can be difficult at times to correctly diagnose because IC resembles some other conditions that have similar symptoms. 

This week I will be breaking down each of the illnesses in detail I have listed below that resemble symptoms of IC Disease.

• Vulvodynia
• Endometriosis
• Urinary Tract Infection (UTI)
• Overactive Bladder
• Cervicitis