Interstitial Cystitis Socializing: How Do I Dine Out?
When I was feeling 50% healed, there were only two places I could dine out at safely: Freshii and Whole Foods. Otherwise, I always home-prepare and home-cook all my meals to ensure that my meals are bladder friendly. I didn't start to venture out to dine at normal restaurants until I reached 70% healed. This took me about a year or slightly less to get to that point. I am thankful that I am recovering, because if you have read my old posts, my life was confined to "no cure" and "you may be in a wheelchair forever" because urologists and specialists in my city did not want to look further into my case to heal me, or just dismissed me because I was a mystery puzzle. Whether it wasn't worth their paycheck to look further into me, or a lack of medical technology, or medical politics, I will never know. But thank the stars that I am healing today when I discovered US and UK and Chinese medical practitioners here.
Now, this post is more geared towards interstitial cystitis patients who are at the 70% recovered mark. If you are not at the 70% recovery stage, I don't advise you to dine out at all. You should be home cooking / home preparing your food that is non-GMO, organic, free-range, free-run, no hormone because your bladder needs to get healing.
For those who are at the 70% recovered stage, you probably are getting your life back like I was a few months ago. You are meeting up with your old friends, meeting new friends, catching up with work, or picking up your old life again, or maybe starting a new life. But you probably have challenges eating out with friends or new friends who don't know about your Interstitial Cystitis or a long-term UTI at this point. Or worse yet, it could be a part of your old or new job, now that you've returned to working again since your bladder is very manageable at this point. Sometimes you can't tell others about your IC if they are business clients, acquaintances, or in professional networking events. I honestly believe that there is no point hashing out details about a rarely known disease to people who aren't close friends or family. So if you're struggling with that, this is how I go about it! I put in considerable time researching the restaurant's menu before I attend:
1) Find out the restaurant planned by the event, or better yet, you pick the restaurant
2) Research the menu, on their website or in-person, to determine the "safest" foods you can possibly do
3) Meet with the restaurant ahead of time to customize your order so they know ahead of time, and save yourself a lot of grief. So whether it be a day or an hour, or even just 30 minutes earlier to have a 1-on-1 chat with a chef or server, you can tell them you have a <insert not-so-intimate disease such as "stomach digestion problem", "sensitive stomach" or "severe food allergies>. I use 1 of those to avoid having to give a long-winded explanation about IC. Ask to have "sauces on the side", "no sauces", "no vinegar, spices, seasonings" etc, substitute certain sides with safe sides. eg) if something was a lemon sauced chicken, I would ask if they could make me the chicken purely without seasoning, or just lightly salted. If there was a spicy thai sauce or a vinagrette for a salad for example, I would ask for NO dressing, or just a light olive oil drizzle. I go a day to a few days ahead of time, so that if they can't customize, then I don't attend the event.
4) If you see problem foods like tomatoes, cranberries, spicy peanuts on food, sub it for safe veggies that they can offer like carrots, broccoli, cauliflower etc.
5) Don't order fancy drinks or teas or coffee. Common sense to avoid alcohol completely, that's an obvious no-brainer for those who want to heal. Keep your beverages to just water or hot water. If your bladder is still extremely sensitive, pack your own water. I bring my own natural Spring water at 7.0 PH and pour that into the restaurant's empty cup for myself. If your friends / clients ask, just say, "I'm detoxing" or "I have a sensitive stomach" or "I like to keep my eats clean". I say "detoxing" or "eating clean" all the time and nobody questions it or insults it, they admire it.
6) Make sure to take 2 - 3 Preliefs with that restaurant meal to lessen the bladder pain or pelvic pain or urinary frequency blow. I was not ready to go to any restaurant meals until about maybe a year. I'm now at the 1.5 year mark and I still order very carefully on the menu and thoroughly customize my meal to make it IC friendly.
7) If you are in control of picking the restaurant, research and call them: "Do you serve organic, non-GMO, no MSG meals?" Pick the cleanest restaurant you can find. If I am in control, I pick vegetarian or vegan restaurants because they are usually very into the organic foods. Just remember to avoid tofu, soy, edamame beans, bean sprouts, as those are all IC triggers. I just say "I'm allergic to soy" to them and then they make sure my meal has none of those items.
A lot of my non-close friends and acquaintances think I'm just a major detox nut and label me as that, and since it's "trendy", nobody questions me about it. My close friends and family however, will know about IC. You don't have to talk about your IC with everyone, and that is perfectly fine as it's your choice and your right to privacy. Eventually, when/if you heal (which could be a long long road), you can continue eating like this. I am certainly not returning to "eating normally" after I heal. I will continue to eat safe, clean, and baby my bladder even after fully healing! I want to keep my bladder non-irritated as much as possible to minimize or prevent any future problems.