IC and 5 Tools to Empowerment

“Self empowerment is the key to a healthy life. Simply put, it means you can take charge of the things you do in your life in order to create and maintain the health you want. If you suffer a life threatening illness, you are fully capable of making the choices and changes necessary to help your body heal. It’s up to you and you alone; no one else can do it for you. Healing and maintaining your health is your responsibility, not the doctor’s. The doctors job is to help you buy time to heal.” Use this time well and begin planning now what you want your life to be after you recover!                                                                                                                                                         Glenn Warner MD (1919-2000)

Dr Warner was an oncologist but a maverick for his times because he told his cancer patients that they should take control   His colleagues felt differently and eventually got his medical license revoked   Today he is revered as a consummate healer who was ahead of his time in suggesting something as innocent as taking responsibility for our own healing

The Current Medical Model

The bladder pain of interstitial cystitis (IC) that can be unrelenting at times and want to be free of it

Currently the matter science medical discipline practiced as the allopathic tradition has had the underlying treatment tenet that if you have a medical problem you should go to the medical doctor(MD)   The MD has studied the diseases and he knows what the answer should be or at least has the scientific  background to figure out a plausible and reasonable treatment solution

This is the medical standard under which we unconsciously live   And the MD has the high tech tools at his disposal to make this standard very strong in our culture   And I argue that there is great value for such a high tech system to “bail us out of catastrophic medical problems”   If you unknowingly create diabetes and come to the office with severe ketoacidosis, there is the capability to deal with the problem and straighten out this metabolic disease   Or if you have a life threatening injury from a car accident, the medical tradition can bring you back

A Problem

But the singular problem that has occurred with this matter science discipline is that it has unwittingly wrested away from you the responsibility for your own health at a subconscious level

And when that happens you naturally put all of the trust in the MD and his way of doing things  The next high tech research will solve my IC   The next drug will help me in some way

When relying on alternative therapies for the treatment of IC, you enter a different realm of healing   But carrying your old mindset of the MD will take care of me doesn’t translate  When you enter this world of healing you will have to be ready to assume responsibility for healing

And this is NOT like “going it alone” which is very scary   You should have and expect guidance in this road of travel if you so chose it

What does that look like, this responsibility for self healing?

I think there are at least 5 awareness tools to assume self healing and become empowered to take responsibility

1 Understand that self healing takes time

2 In this realm of healing multiple therapies are the absolute key to healing

3  Guidance with understanding the lay of the land is of value to help facilitate change

4 Remember baby steps   Self healing often requires changes in lifestyle behaviors, such as nutrition, exercise, or changing bedtimes or wakeup times

5 Be aware that the mind’s fear of change will argue to abandon this whole empowerment thing

This last tool of awareness is probably the most important because it’s our fears played out in friend’s “good advice” and well meaning family members(spouses included) who deter you from your path to empowerment   Everyone wants you to maintain the status quo

But the question is, “How’s it workin’ for ya?”

Most with chronic IC, if honest will have to say, “Well, not so hot”   There’s a common aphorism, “If you keep going out the same door and falling into a hole, the solution is to find another door”

Here’s for looking for another door                         To Health as a Skill  Love DrBill