All of you know how hard you are working to regain your healthy balance and get back to life--ordering more normally in a restaurant, not needing to worry about every minute ingredient in a meal served at a friends house, etc...
So, you are trying to eat heathily and take care of yourself. You are exercising and doing all the things you think are important for health. However, life catches up and stress enters the picture. You find yourself not being able to deal with it and now it's effecting your sleep. You go to your doctor and he gives you a prescription to help your nerves and help your sleep. OR, that didnt happen--you came down with strep throat, and figured you will just take this round of antibiotics , it can't hurt right? You haven't taken antibiotics since you came down with brnchitis 6 months ago. OR that didnt happen--you are getting frustrated with having to worry about when you are ovulating and being careful about contraception. There is a newer low hormone birth control pill or the copper IUD. OR that didn't happen either--one dessert a week made with agave turns into two with processed white sugar and then slowly that turns into one a day. You think to yourself, its just a little dark chocolate every day.
Suddenly you find yourself feeling itchy vaginally and realize you are a little gassy and bloated and your bowels have changed a bit. Your skin is not as clear as it was last year. Your hair is not as pretty and suddenly you are seeing it all over the floor again. And then you realize, "uh oh" I am peeing once an hour again and I am thinking about my bladder again. Sadly, you have to make the call to talk to me about all of this and by the time we speak your symptoms have escalated further.
This is what I dont want to have happen to you. One of my jobs is to educate each of you on how to take care of yourself. These are a few of the pitfall examples. It is not that you can never have sugar in your life or that if there was some crisis, you could not take an antibiotic. But using the tools I have taught you, thinking about what and when and the appropriateness of your choices is what I hope I have given you the ability to.
One of these tools is understanding perspective. So, if you are seeking the advice of your MD, please remember to take the advice given you in the context of his or her persepctive. He may think that a prescription of Valium, or Ativan or the like is not a big deal. It IS. it is a BIG deal. He or she may think that taking a Z-pak a couple of times per year is also not a big deal. It IS. You should not need to take a prescitption antibiotic twice per year. To give you an idea, I have take antibiotics once in the last 27 years-really! Herbal supplements are ample to fight infection in most cases. If you are having problems with your stress or sleep, there are natural solutions to that as well. And, the list spills over into all other categories of health too.
I had someone come back this month because she fell into one of these categories and honestly, my heart broke. I thought, "where did I go wrong?" Perhaps I was not admant enough about the do's and dont's of good health. Beer, benzos, sugar, mushrooms, coconut, chemical birth control, unnecessary abx amongst the big examples are all things that should be avoided like plague.
This treatment program is a way of thinking differently about your health care. And the biggest part of healthcare is taking care of yourself so you avoid getting sick!
Thought for today:)
Dr.M
Comments
Perhaps this is one of the
Perhaps this is one of the benefits for those of us "slower" patients. This is all so ingrained in my lifestyle, I cannot see a future where i would "forget" or start to let things slide.
So, those of you on the "longer road" with me, let's be grateful that we have this perspective!
Thanks for posting, Dr B.
Thanks for sharing this, I
Thanks for sharing this, I agree with Deir, I think the slow road is going to always help me keep these little things in mind. I am fighting to know what's it like to feel "normal" and once I get there I don't want to be fighting for it again! Dr. M, thank you for all your valuable lessons and Deir, for always helping me see the silver lining in the slow road! :)
Thank you for posting this!
Thank you for posting this! It could be helpful to have a list of do's & don'ts for post treatment as there are things to avoid like the plague and things to limit to very occassionally and I'm not sure I'm aware of everything. Sometimes I think I am overly worried about things like bread and not cautious enough about how often I eat healthier sweets. Not that I'm going crazy eating sweets but not sure how much and how often is OK.
Carol
Great post, great thread.
Great post, great thread. Carole, I love this idea!!! Even a basic list of "NEVERS" would be great to have. I'm thinking that something like coconut oil would be on the "NEVER" list??? I'm not totally sure though. I AM sure that each individual person can handle different amounts of bread, sweets, wine, etc. I learned (the VERY hard way) that I can not have ANY alcohol. I'm sure that's not the case for many, but it is for me. So maybe just a list of things that ICers should NEVER eat/do would be a place to start. Then we could add on with our own person experiences for our own person lists.
As someone who healed from IC
As someone who healed from IC (or went into remission?) 2 times before this particular long road out, I SO wish I had found you sooner and had been given the tools to know how to stay in balance in my teens and twenties. But I was a kid, and really had no idea how to keep myself in balance. Through trial and error, it was clear that alcohol was not my friend, but no one helped me figure out how to stay balanced. And that is one major reason that your treatment resonated with me so much, because you emphasized the tools to stay well rather than to just reach a state of being asymptomatic. I'd done that before (and lord knows being asymptomatic is a great thing!) but learning how I got there and how to remain there is one of the largest parts of treatment that remained a mystery with all other practitioners that I worked with.
I don't know if it's true for all of us, but I believe a huge component of this for me is unlearning so many behaviors that are self-sabotaging, both in terms of how I treat my body and how I conduct myself and advocate for myself in the world. It's so, so much about boundaries and feeling confident enough to say "I need x and not y" and no compromising on that because of fear that others will be insulted/upset/disappointed, etc. If anything, being an advocate for myself is a chance to share my true self with the world rather than bending to what I feel is expected. It is leading me to more authetic relationships and experiences.
Anyway, I believe it is such a huge piece of this puzzle to understand our delicate systems and all the factors that lead to balance. The knowledge and tools that you give us about our workings and systems are such a gift. Thank you!
Beautiful!
Beautiful!
Claire, this is so beautiful and so true for me. Learning to advocate for myself has been one of the most challenging and rewarding parts of this process. It still makes me nervous, especially when dealing with authority figures like doctors. The last time I went in for a checkup and said I didn't want a mammogram it felt like the doctor went out of her way to find something "of concern" and scare the life out of me. It turned out to be nothing but I felt so angry and powerless and I've been avoiding going to the doctor for 3 years since. I know I can't avoid it forever so the next time I'm at the doctor I will remember your words about sharing my true self with the world and not bending to expectations. Thank you for this :)
Thank you for taking the time
Thank you for taking the time to clarify why our choices for our diet and medicines are so important to our continuity in staying healthy. It's good to feel empowered with this information, especially remembering how much health has been restored by following your advice on these things from the beginning of treatment.
Dear Dr. Brizman,
Dear Dr. Brizman,
Thank you so much for this post! I am going to print it out and read it regularly to keep me motivated! They are such good reminders. For me, it is so easy to fall into the trap of 'a little more often treats with agave' or 'a few treats with sugar' because i don't feel immediate negative effects. So these reminders, telling us again what it can lead to, help to keep me on track! Thanks!
C, Ireland :-)
I think the realisation that
I think the realisation that CM is about maintaining health is a cultural issue - generally we run to the doc when we feel ill - not to maintain our health (which is ridiculous - think of the money we would save on prevention rather than cure). I wish I had realised this earlier! Having felt amazing I let my appointments slip - I would never have done this if I'd have known I would have to come off Dr M's patient list!! :(( Maybe all new patients need this different approach highlighting. While my bladder is generally very good, I am now having other issues which I'm sure could have been prevented had I stayed in closer touch........