What is Interstitial Cystitis?

Many women tend to view frequent bathroom visits as a consequence of childbirth, weight gain, or just getting older. But this pattern of increasing frequency may progress to pain and pressure in the bladder area until every activity has to be squeezed into 20-minute intervals between trips to the bathroom. Or women may experience relatively abrupt onset of urgency, frequency, and pain and pressure in their vagina, pelvis, lower abdomen or external genitalia. Yet the home remedy of cranberry juice or antibiotics for “an infection” brings no relief. In many cases women may find sex so painful that relationships suffer. Both scenarios may be explained by a diagnosis of interstitial cystitis (IC).

This condition is thought to be caused by tiny leaks in the protective lining of the bladder, allowing substances excreted in the urine to irritate the bladder wall. No one is sure what causes the lining to leak, whether a person may be allergic to foods they eat or to their own body chemicals. It may have an autoimmune component, with recent research pointing to a probable inherited genetic basis.

In the past, IC has been diagnosed by elimination - having negative tests for bacterial urinary tract infections, sexually transmitted diseases, tumors, or other urological disorders. Since pain originating in the bladder can often be referred elsewhere in a women’s abdomen, she may also have had procedures looking for irritable bowel syndrome, ovarian cysts or endometriosis. Now a recently developed minimally invasive, low risk, office procedure allows for an accurate evaluation for IC in the majority of patients. Therefore, many physicians feel testing for interstitial cystitis should come early in the work-ups for women living with chronic pelvic pain.

So if a woman experiences urgency and frequency but only voids small amounts, has unexplained pelvic pain which is sometimes lessened by urinating, and awakens more than once a night to urinate, the cause may be IC. Today there are several treatments and a new medication that can be tried. Some people with interstitial cystitis may eventually become symptom free, while most others experience a great deal of improvement. Hopefully, ongoing research will soon bring new therapies for the few people who still do not respond to current treatments