Flare up or IC...

So on Thursday night I went dancing as is my usual habit. Around 11 or 12 I noticed that my urethra was becoming irritated and I felt like I had to pee. Almost immediately I felt that all to familiar pressure and pain in my bladder. I took some pyridium (AZO) and drank some water and went on with my evening. The next morning I called my doctors office only to learn that my doc won't be back until fall and the office they referred me to can't take me till August. I did manage to score an appointment with a doctor for the 11th and I went to urgent care in the hopes that they might do a instillation if I brought the meds.
They tested me for UTI and put me on Bactrim because I tested positive for nitrates. The culture should be back on Monday or Tuesday and that will  tell me for sure if I have a flare up or UTI.
In the mean time my life has become about pain management. Despite the pain I went out dancing on both Friday and Saturday night and tonight I am visiting friends who live about 40 minutes away. All of this is made more difficult by the fact that my bladder hurts and I feel like I need to pee all the time. However, when I am in the restroom I have a difficult time actually peeing. Its damn annoying. I just don't want IC to run my life.

Here is how I am coping. I keep dancing. I am taking all my medications and supplements, I have smoked until I feel better. Though I realized I can't mix tramadol and smoking, because it makes me really anxious and paranoid. That was not fun. I have also used valium suppositories to try and get my pelvic floor muscles to relax. My bladder still hurts too, though not as much as if I hadn't been medicated. Right now I have horrible headache, which oddly enough keeps my mind off my bladder.

I hoping to feel better before the 11th, but I will still go see the doctor and do a DMSO treatment (providded I have the script still) just to make sure that my bladder stays happy. There is nothing that I can do sometimes to predict a flare up, after all I hadn't eaten anything new or been under new stress. Well, except that Monday would have been my 14th wedding/relationship anniversary and this year it will just be independence day. My ex-husband and I agreed not to talk on that day even though we remain friends.

This disease really does just suck sometimes. Okay, I am done bitching off to go live  my life.

Random flares

So on Thursday night I was out dancing and I began to feel that all to familiar twinge in my urethra followed by a sore and weighty feeling in my bladder. By morning my bladder was in full "internal migraine" flare up. So I call my doctors office, the people I have relying on the past 18 months to keep me sane and healthy, and discover that my doctor is out of town till september. Now, I already knew that the owner of the practice was retiring and that there would be changes. But I still expected a better continuity of care. They referred me to another uro/gyno office but that doctor's office couldn't take me until August. So I called back to "my" office and tried to figure out what could be done. The one remaining doctor for the office is not scheduled to come in until July 11th, so I managed to score an appointment for that day. I then packed myself off to urgent care so that I rule out a UTI, which didn't exactly happen. I tested positive for nitrates but negative for leukocytes, so they put me on Bactrim and told me to call back for my culture in three days. I also got some tramadol and azo for the discomfort.


The pain comes and goes at present. I don't have too much urgency, just that pain and pressure in the bladder that only ends when I void. I am taking tramadol and inhaling ancient herbal remedies for pain. I made sure to get religion on my supplements as I had been a bit lax the last few weeks.  My hope is that this is a minor UTI and that they Bactrim knocks it out quick. I know I didn't stray from my IC diet or have any other reason to bring on a flare up (except for the not being good about supplements). But I also know that IC is a bitch of a disease that sometimes rears its ugly head for no reason.