You may be led to think that Interstitial Cystitis is a newly recognized disease since so little appears to be possible with treatment. But because it was first diagnosed over a hundred years ago, the facts about the disease are widely and commonly known already. When you think about it, it’s kind of amazing because this is a disease that many believe to be tied to lots of issues that affect the immune system. You might be surprised to learn that there are some physicians who do not believe that this disease is real at all. The doctors don’t deny that a patient will feel pain or experience specific symptoms but they do still have questions about it.
Finding a solution for interstitial cystitis or IC has been at the top of the list for many medical researchers for decades. Even though this condition has been known for decades, like many other diseases out there, the information and research has seemingly led scientists nowhere. A common factor that is known is that 10% of the patients develop ulcers as a result of this condition. More specifically, a type of ulcer called Hunner’s ulcer will form on the wall of the bladder. When this occurs, there are patches of tissue that are irritated, red and will bleed. When this happens, the treatment becomes very complicated for those that have cystitis in their system.
Another name for interstitial cystitis is nonbacterial cystitis. Once they do a test on your urinary tract that proves to be negative, they can make this diagnosis. A compromised immune system may actually result in having this condition. People that have interstitial cystitis often get it after having an immune system compromising disease. The wall of the bladder may develop cracks. When the cracks form, the urine leaks into the space between the wall and the bladder muscle, causing the problem. Urine in the cracks will degrade the tissue lining of the bladder itself. The misplaced urine causes this irritation which leads to this difficulty.
Renaming this disease has been one of the things doctors have done to help figure out exactly what IC actually is. For example, Japanese doctors offered to name the condition, Hypersensitive Bladder Syndrome. As you can see, PBS and IC are not the only names for this condition.
This proposal by urologists in Japan came as little as five years ago in 2007. This is their way of narrowing the focus – specifically adding frequent urination to the symptoms so that proper diagnoses can be made. And although some patients to report having pain with cystitis, it is usually not extreme.
Gathered for decades, data on cystitis has been collected by physicians and researchers to hopefully find a cure.
Researchers that have studied diseases that they don’t know how to fix usually gather quite a bit of evidence. So when doctors try to make a diagnosis, they encounter symptoms which can be compared with the data. So if you are diagnosed with IC, you need to go to another doctor or urologists to get a second opinion just to make sure.