120.0 at the meeting with my sweater on
114.4 - "clean" weight, at home
Week 22 of maintenance
Boy, do I feel different from this time last week! ALL my symptoms are GONE! Saturday and Sunday were still miserable...especially Sunday night. Then I really got serious on Monday and only ate foods that were on the "safe" list on my iPhone IC app.
Tuesday was MUCH better, Wednesday even better and today, totally symptom free! I've even added one food back in that's on the "caution" list...prunes. Yes, it's crazy but I love them and they are important for me to eat so that was the first food I chose to test out.
What a relief!!! I'm still going to be very careful...still eat safe foods except for the prunes for several days until I'm SURE that prunes are ok for me and Betsy. Then I'll add another "iffy" food in to see how I handle it. As you can see, not having an appetite because of the pain and then being scared to eat and very careful with eating, I lost another pound.
Earlier in the week I was contemplating getting a second opinion. I was feeling quite adrift on Sunday, when I was still miserable and trying to figure out what I was eating or doing that wasn't making it better. I was irritated at the doctor for giving me the diagnosis and then not telling me what the next step would be.
But I didn't ask her for the next step there in the office...because I didn't REALLY believe there was such a thing as Interstitial Cystitis...and I wanted to come home and look it up and decide for myself if I truly had it or not.
Once I read about it, I was convinced that's what I had. I guess the optimist part of me thought that I could stop eating my daily grapefruit and I would immediately feel better. And then when I didn't, I started trying to figure out what I should do next as far as seeing another doctor or trying medicine.
I talked to a nurse on our insurance health hotline and she recommended I see a gynecologist rather than a urologist because of the strong tie between women who have had endometriosis then develop IC. Yeah, THAT just motivated me even more to ONLY eat safe foods!
I did more research on Monday and then went to Lil Wally's at night and got a few things that are said to help...Peppermint Tums...which neutralizes the acid not only in your stomach but also in your urine. I opened that baby in the parking lot and popped 3 ultra-strength tabs on the way home!! I also started taking Advil as that was recommended for the pain. I was still take the precautionary antibiotics and the Azo, although I was trying my hardest to get along without the Azo because taking too much of it can damage your kidneys.
When I woke up Tuesday morning and the burning pain was noticeably less, I was FOR SURE going to eat foods that I KNEW would not make it come back! And then Wednesday and today, same thing. Except for the 2 prunes yesterday and now this evening I had my normal 5 prunes so I'll have to see if the symptoms start coming back.
So as of right now, I feel like I'm almost back to normal. I haven't been running, only walking, since any kind of bouncing, jarring exercise can make IC worse. I don't know if I'll try a short run tomorrow or not. I guess I'll see how I feel when I wake up.
