Oh, I just posted this huge post and hit save and it deleted it. I am going to try and recapture the essence of everything I said with the winds having been blown a little out of my sails:)

It is natural to think that if we do more and more and more it is better. People often ask me if they are not getting acupuncture or body work or some other kind of adjunctive treatment to mine, is it enough? Isn't more needed?

Is more better? Is it better to have two people cooking in the kitchen? Not really, you usually bump into one another and then in the end mess up the recipe. This is a simplified and perhaps exaggerated analogy, but, very true.

If you are on a path to get well, you should choose that path. Not any one path is right for everyone. There are different roads to take to get to your destination. When it comes to IC some will choose the path of oral medication. Some will choose a path of instillations. Some will choose things like interstim or pelvic floor therapy. Some will choose other types of alternative medicine. Some people will want to alter their diets, while others wouldn't think of changing their diets one bit. Many patients quit treatment early becuase they prefered to continue eating unlimited amounts of sugar and take medication to allow them to do so. This kind of approach is certainly foreign to many, while familiar to some. What ever your treatment is--it is best to invest in only one so that you get the results that you have set your goal upon.

Caution needs to be heeded however if you mix protocols. One may very much "bump into" the other and detract from its functionality. For example if you were to go and get bloodwork from another doctor and he or she determined your thyroid was hypo functioning. That doctor  will naturally want to supplement you with synthroid or T3 or the like. The thinking would be that if the thyroid is not functioning properly, if treated the bladder will then correct itself. But, taking this approach with someone having IC will only make the IC worse-both thyroid and t3 supplementation. The reason for this is that the thyroid typically is not misfunctioning as a primary problem, but, rather is a secondary problem owing to the IC. So, when you add thyroid stimulation to a situation that is occuring from another problem, all you are doing is worsening the underlying imblance that is causing the problem in the first place. Another example is HRT supplementation. Often people tell me that they are certain this is a hormone problem because they feel worse at certain times in their cycle. This is almost true, there is a hormone problem of sorts, but again, not the primary problem. It is secondary to the IC. The normal hormonal fluctations are causing pain due to the abnormal condition of the IC!

So the problem with seeing other really good practitioners/doctors is that their philosophies may conflict and adversely effect one another's treatment approach resulting in undesirable changes in the person they are treating.

Can you get to your desired effect by other route-I am certain that you can. For some people instills will give relief, for some people various pain medications work, there are all kinds of solutions for the endless variations of human beings that are on this planet. However, mixing protocols will diminish and often undermine any treatment path you are on, and certainly this one.

So, please keep this in mind when thinking about doing adjunctive treatment. And, BTW, it is not that I never recommend doing other things adjunctively, sometimes I do, when I am certain it will be consistent with what I am doing. But, one should be congnizant of this issue so as not to create situations where things become more complicated for themselves and then suffering occurs as the result.

Dr.M