Holy Interstitial Cystitis, Batman! Am I Healed?

Long story short, if you are new to my blog, my Interstitial Cystitis was ruled out by doing DNA next generation urine testing, and it was basically an undetected low-count colonized e-coli UTI that hung around for about a year and refused to leave. If you go through My Story, you can read about what happened and why most antibiotics couldn't kill it. And if you have questions, just visit the FAQ.

So in January 2019, my MicroGen DX urine tests came back negative for both Level 1 and Level 2! (If you don't know what this is by now, go back and read these DNA next generation urine tests posts). This means that either my Quinolone-resistant ecoli is now all eradicated, or in very low count? I'll have to ask MicroGen DX, my American urologists, and IC specialist nurse Ruth Kriz on what they assess a "negative result" means. I was shocked, because I've had consistent e-coli show up in all my Microgen tests since July 2018. I test with a Microgen urine kit roughly about once a month, which is $200 USD a pop, ouch. Translate that to Canadian dollars and it's around $350 bucks each kit, double ouch. I'm from Canada so all my private US medical bills are always almost double the price, yuck.

Here's what a negative Level 1 Microgen urine test looks like. Am I in the clear? Maybe. This was January 2019.

Here's what a negative Level 2 Microgen urine test looks like, also Jan 2019. It either means I'm in the clear, or I did my urine test wrong! I don't use catheters or anything, I pee into a cup and then it's vaccuum sealed and sent to them which you can read about in full detail in the DNA link I posted above in this post. So they want me to do a re-test to make sure to see if I have pathogens or not. A re-test is FREE after you get a negative result. So I save $200 USD this time, phew.

So here below is Feb 25, 2019's Level 1 test and it's negative again.... is my ecoli truly gone??

February 28, 2019 update:

Boo, they're still around. Level 2 just came back and there is still low-level ecoli kicking around with some random other one. The random one is most likely contamination because it's a skin flora thing, and I used an old family bath towel to dry myself before doing the urine sample. I should have used a new dry towel. So I'm only going to pay attention to the E-coli on the paper. Someone said that if you have over 10% in the level 2, her naturopath still considers it an infection, so I still have a low infection. But that totally makes sense on why I don't feel 100%. I will be talking to doctors and MicroGen about this and will update what they say *if* they permit me to publish. I never post anything without a doctor's permission first.

I tried to scour the net for recovered chronic UTI patients who have had BOTH negative Level 1 + Level 2 MicroGen tests, but I can't find any. I think once people recover, they just disappear and leave happily onwards with their bladder-free lives. Dammit, I want to find some recovered people who used MicroGen tests to get their insight. Hey if you know of anyone (or if you are that person) who has recovered your IC or chronic UTI via Aperiomics or Microgen urine tests, write to me. I can't post my email up on here because blog readers will swarm me again with emails about their IC problems. Hm, let me think. I know, just shoot me a comment or message here at "Recovered Interstitial Cystitis Patients: For Those Who Have Healed" and then we can chat about recovery.