I started this blog with the intention of documenting my travels to India. Well, it never happened. I came down with what I thought was something fleeting, something simple, but it turned out to be something complex and "chronic." Unfortunately, there are things in life that cannot be explained to another person, but only fully understood through experience. The first one that comes to mind is the death of someone close to you, which I discovered when my father passed away my senior year of high school. If anyone had words for me they were never right, never enough, because that person couldn't truly understand the ineffable pain of such an event without personal experience. Being told I had a chronic illness felt similar, except this time I was being told my life was over.
Except I was alive.
And I wanted to be alive. But how could I live like THIS. In my eyes, living in constant pain and isolation was not an option. Filled with confusion I battled the idea of living like that or not living at all, but always ended up tormented because just weeks earlier I was going to India, I was running 8 miles a day, I was going out with my sister for drinks at a bar, I was happy. I wanted my life but I had been robbed blind and this time I had no idea how I could ever get it back. I was no longer creating my life, but trapped in one I didn't ask for. You can't run from your own body, it's all you have.
I have Interstitial Cystitis, more commonly know as IC to those suffering from it. It's a bladder condition, one that manifests itself in combinations of various symptoms like urgency, frequency, pain, and also presents itself with other mysterious problems like IBS, endometriosis, and fibromyalgia. IC is underdiagnosed and severely misunderstood.
When my symptoms started I knew something was seriously wrong. Those around me tried to be reassuring but as other possibilities were checked off the list I lost all hope, I had known what it was from the start. During the first 2 sleepless weeks I spent endless hours researching the illness while everyone else in my house slept peacefully curled up in their beds. It killed me. All I wanted was sleep but I couldn't get it in so much discomfort and pain. Even more upsetting, my research only lead to dead ends. Western medicine couldn't help me. It was all experimentation on this drug or that, drugs that in the end, didn't work.
Then I found Matia Brizman, a doctor in L.A. who practices chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture and specializes in IC and its related conditions. She had treated many patients and given them their lives back... symptom-free. I immediately had my answer, I knew what I had to do. Without much support from those around me I stuck by my instinct. The follow through has transformed my life. Though sometimes I desire my life before IC, I don't think I would go back. Health is something I thought I understood, but have discovered in treatment I was wrong, REALLY wrong. My version of "healthy" was nowhere near accurate. As an American I'd learned a skewed view of health and I had to throw everything out the window. IC was a fresh start.
The body is a whole. Many times we forget this simple fact. Our body cannot be compartmentalized. It seems we try and simplify the complexity nature has created, and in this process have created great misunderstanding in how to take care of ourselves. Much like the American agricultural system, the way most of us see health is destructive, not only to ourselves, but the environment as well. I could write endlessly about this topic, but will save it for other posts.
The point is my body is healing itself, without any synthetic medications or invasive treatments, without any "MDs." Nine months into treatment I'm already living in a state of near normalcy, something that supposedly cannot be achieved by someone suffering from IC. But it's happening to me. Drugging myself to sleep is a thing of the past. I don't pee 60 times a day (and I really do mean 60, that did happen). The road, of course, has been hell. I have been on an unbelievably strict diet and am slowly adding foods back in. I take herbs that regularly change. These two things along have created much social isolation and mental battles. I've experienced headaches, flu symptoms, shortness of breath, hair loss, stomach pain, anxiety, depression, and so many other symptoms as my body has expelled the bad. In this alternative world of medicine it's called die-off, and essentially all those uncomfortable symptoms are the result of bacteria, yeast, and whatever else (chemicals, toxins, etc.) has been built up in the body over time, leaving. Many are skeptical of the phenomena, but I have experienced these things firsthand in waves, have watched them increase and decrease and morph. The intricate connectedness of the body has been continuously demonstrated; I cannot explain the miracle that is the human body. Given the right tools, it can heal itself.
When I became ill with IC I felt like the world came crashing down on me. I wanted to post this in the off-chance someone out there suffering from IC might just come across it in their desperate internet search for well-being and find there is a way to dig themselves out of the rubble. Choosing alternative treatment is not an easy path to take and can be compounded by outside questioning, but it is deeply transformative and can give you a life you never knew possible. I want others to know that they can once again dream colorfully.
