My Recovery Routine on Healing My Long-term UTI (that was thought to be Interstitial Cystitis)

This is my recovery regime that has been working for me. I went from 25 times per day of burning and stinging frequency in April 2018, severe bladder pain put me into a wheelchair by July 2018..... to now a frequency of 5 - 6 times per day with no stinging or burning in September 2018. I still have moderate urgency, a weak bladder and bladder pain, but I'm loads better off than I was back in April. A lot of girls keep asking me, "How did you do it?" So I will tell you my recovery regime. Please note that what may work for me, may not work for someone else, since we are all different. This is not intended to be medical advice and should not be taken as such. It is just my experience.

Before I begin, I was prescribed Elmiron, Gabapentin and other pain medications. I have not taken any, not even Advil or Tylonel. I have been facing on the pain part completely naturally and suffering the full extent of the pain to my very core. The reason why I did this is because I didn't want to mask my symptoms. I wanted to get to the root of my problems and see if I could cure it. By masking with pain medications, I would not know if I was healing or not. Please do not take this as medical advice, because to be honest, it was so very agonizing at times that I thought of killing myself. I still have medical prescriptions sitting in my home, but I don't open them or take them. I will if I absolutely must but so far, I've been recovering very slowly.

1. What I have been eating:

• April to today: No sugar, no salt, no sauces, no spices, no vinegar etc. All my food are literally so natural, like from the earth directly and eaten raw and/or steamed/cooked only. If I season them, I do so with organic herbs and extra virgin olive oil. That's it, it's very bland and so natural. I see ICers on Instagram complaining about pain, and then I see their diets are loaded with sugars, carbs (which convert to sugars), soups with tomatoes, curry spices, or stir-fry foods with salt! I cannot believe it, no wonder they are not recovering!!

• April to June: I was eating a raw vegan alkaline diet that knocked down my frequency from 25 times/day to 8-10 times/day, and took away 100% of my stinging and burning urine. I kick-started an aggressive raw vegan alkaline diet to get the healing done fast.

• June to September: Now that I've tackled away the stinging and burning urine, I got a little lax and switched to eating a 70% alkaline (raw veges) and 30% acidic (cooked meats and veges) diet because I was getting way too thin from a raw vegan diet. Because of the cooked meats, I did experience a little bit of stinging urine again, but I needed to put on weight. I kept my cooking to only steaming and boiling. If you bake, roast, fry or stir-fry, you actually change the chemistry in your food to acidic/very acidic. I never put any salt, pepper, sugar, vinegar, sauce or anything on my food. I just ate them very plain and with organic herb seasonings. In June, I started to get severe bladder pain and was in a wheelchair by July. Oddly enough, all my other symptoms were healing, but the bladder pain was a bizarre turn-out. The bladder pain would start to self-heal by September.

• September 7th to present: I began a candida diet after meeting 2 IC girls who healed their IC through a candida diet. On September 8th, I noticed a huge difference -- as soon as I cut out dairy, rice, and starchy vegetables like potatoes, my frequency immediately jumped down from 8-10x a day to 5-6x a day nearly overnight. My Candida diet is actually a Candida diet + Alkaline IC diet mixed together. It's not just 1 or the other, but a merger of both so my food intake is severely limited at this point and sadly I'm losing weight again (I'm currently 88 lbs and my normal weight is 110 lbs). However, my symptoms have drastically improved from September 8th to today. My bladder pain has also really improved; I didn't take any new supplements during the Candida diet experiment, so it was entirely due to the new diet. 

2. What I drink:

• April to August: 2 litres of Fiji water per day, no more - no less. Too little will get acidic, too much will force my bladder and urethra to work too hard.

• September to present: 1 litre of Fiji water + 1 litre of green juicing and/or bone broth, at a total of 2 litres per day.

How I drink and strategize a full night's sleep:
375ml - 500ml when I wake up / 1 litre slowly spaced through the afternoon and evening / my last 250ml - 500ml exactly at 10pm along with 1/2 a tablet of Benedryl. The Benedryl takes two hours to knock me out, so it kicks in fully by midnight. So I hold in my wee and take my last wee at midnight, climb into bed feeling very drugged tired and fall asleep for a full night's uninterrupted sleep. Sometimes I do get up once at 4am to wee, but not always. The evening is always all about timing. I make sure that I drink a total of 2 litres per day - no more, no less.

3. What I have been taking:

• 1/2 Benedryl: I take this every night to knock me out to sleep for a full 8 to 10 hour uninterrupted sleep. To see how I strategize this around with water, read the paragraph right above this.

• Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM): I go to a Chinese doctor and he prescribes me natural herbs, roots, and stems to boil in my Sunpentown Chinese Medicine cooker. I drink 2 bowls per day - 1 in the morning and 1 in the evening. This has been a lifesaver and the strongest medicine of everything I've taken. My bladder pain was so severe before I took this. When I took this, my bladder pain was tolerable. I stopped TCM for a bit to see if it was really helping, and yes, my severe bladder pain returned with a vengeance. When I began TCM again, the pain was knocked down to tolerable levels. TCM tastes bitter and awful by the way, but you get used to it. I've been taking this daily since June. However, I have temporarily stopped TCM for a month in September, as I am testing other methods, but will be going back on TCM soon.

• Green juicing: Green juices are very alkalizing. I juice 2 cucumbers, 2 pears and 2 big handfuls of blueberries daily to make 1 Litre of fresh juice. They are all organic and since blueberries are out of season, I buy them frozen. (Fruits that are said to be bladder friendly are pear, blueberries and watermelon). I drink half a litre first thing in the morning, and save the other half a litre for sipping in the afternoon or evening. This must be done daily, because I read that the ingredients lose their nutritious power after 24 hours. Experiment around to see what works for your bladder. I don't add yogurt nor milk because dairy is inflammatory, and a lot of almond and rice milks contain filler and salt which hurt my bladder. I just drink straight-up green juice with no add-ons.

• Florastor probiotics: I don't take this all the time. I do it sporadically depending on my stool. When I had loose stool after too many antibiotics, I was taking 2 - 4 per day. While during antibiotics, I was taking 4 -6 per day. Now I take maybe 1 every other day or 1 every few days since my stool is pretty normal.

• Jarrow Formulas Fem-Dophilus probiotics: I was taking 1 daily, but I haven't in a while. I should really get back to taking 1 everyday. I'm running low on them and worried how I can get some more, because they're not available in Canada. If I get them shipped, I need them to stay cold via shipping since they go in the fridge, so I don't know what to do about this and I don't know what a good Canadian equivalent is. I don't have a bad reaction to this one so I'd like to stay on this brand.

• Arm & Hammer Baking Soda: I used to do 1/4 teaspoon every morning, and 1/4 every evening. Sometimes I did it 3 times a day if my urine felt extra hot or acidic. I would take it at least 1 hour before or after a meal to make sure it didn't mess with my digestion. As of today, I rarely even take this. I only take a 1/4 teaspoon a few times a month if I feel that my urine starts to feel slightly stingy/hot. Make sure your baking soda has NO aluminum.

• Now D-Mannose 100% pure powder: 2 to 3 teaspoons daily (2000mg - 6000mg). I will be switching over to try out West Coast Mint D-Mannose next month. Ruth Kriz carries this brand and I met the owner of West Coast Mint via Instagram. 

• Grass-fed Bone broth: I slow cook a huge home-made bone broth pot for 12 - 72 hours with pure Fiji water (to keep it as alkaline as possible) and drink it 4 days per week. I read that bone broth is very nutritious and anti-inflammatory. I boil the pot with marrow bones, lamb bones, chicken bones or a mix of all 3. I do not add any salt, vinegar, tomatoes, spicy spices, nor pepper to keep it bladder-friendly. I add in organic seasonings such as oregano leaves, turmeric, thyme, rosemary, sage, and garlic powder. Oregano, turmeric and garlic are nature's antibiotics. I add in carrots, parsley and celery in the last hour of cooking. Leftovers are put into mason jars and stored in the freezer. 

• Desert Harvest freeze-dried aloe vera super strength capsules: I just started this a few days ago. I'm starting at 3 capsules per day and will increase to 6 if I don't feel any flares, then keep at 6 per day for 2 months to see if it helps further eliminate my bladder pain. I was told that this can be a substitute for Elmiron to tackle bladder pain, and best of all, it's natural and has no toxic side effects like Elmiron. I was drinking George's aloe vera (you can get at Whole Foods stores) but switched over to capsules so I don't have to glug so much liquid all the time. But if you want liquid, then George's is natural, doesn't taste bitter, and has no filler ingredients. Some patients complained of aloe vera juices hurting their bladder, but that could be because many aloe vera juices out there contain citric acid, sugar, and other filler ingredients.

• Thorne Vitamin D & Natural Factors Vitamin D3 drops: I just started this a few days ago. My vitamin D was found to be low on a blood test, which was issued by Ruth Kriz and my naturopath. I was told to start with 10,000 IU daily for 1 month, then scale down to 5000 IU daily after that, then re-test my Vitamin D level in December. Low vitamin D is found in many UTI and IC patients, so there is a strong correlation there. Make sure it's the Vitamin D3. You can take as capsules or drops. I'm doing both to see which I like better.

4. What I will be taking:

• Natural Factors Oil of Oregano: A girl who recovered from IC was also taking this. This is organic and has 80% carvacrol. It's a natural anti-fungal and natural antibiotic. You want one that has at least 80% or higher. I just got this today but haven't figure out yet how much I will take.

• Nature's Way Organic Marshmallow Root: A girl who recovered from IC was also taking this. I ordered this and it's coming. I didn't do well with organic marshmallow tea, so trying this one out to see if it works. Another girl I met didn't do well with marshmallow tea but did well on this product.


• Cannabis Oil or Tincture: I haven't started this yet but I will once I get my doctor's consultation about what to take through the MCRCI (Canada's leading resource centre for patients wishing to become licensed for Medical Marijuana).

5. What I may take in the future:
I've been recommended Bladder Ease which contains all the good stuff like Quercetin and Bromelain, but I haven't yet. I probably should have started this one earlier on!

6. Why I'm Slow with Supplements:

A lot of ICers take a whole bunch of supplements right away and all-at-once. That's the pattern I'm noticing. I take them slowly, testing them for reactions, and adding on new ones very slowly to ensure I know what is working, what isn't, and/or what is hurting. I also start off with low doses and then work my way up. If one doesn't feel like it's doing anything, I just keep taking it anyway. But if one feels like it's irritating me, then I immediately stop that one.