5 Ways to Go Beyond Getting By with IC and Getting Healthy

Many who have IC accept that once the pain of the flares is reduced that it’s enough

Many look at health like this as well

“It’s enough” means to marginalize   To get by   But to sometimes skirt issues

You see I believe that a state of health is a process of evolution    Health is more than the absence of disease   That each day I can be healthier than I was yesterday

The energy science helps us a glimpse a that greater reality of health   Not to just get by

Good Deal!  The Pain is Reduced

There is a growing current mindset that there is more to health than being able to get up in the am, go to work, enjoy the weekends   That health is really more than being able to do the day well with reserve energy  If you have a lot of pain with IC now this picture doesn’t seem to be a reality right now

But as you do the work with the nutritional format, avoid certain food combinations, and take the aloe among other things outlined at this blog reduction in your pain will occur   And it’s estimated that 50% of patients with IC resolve their problem spontaneously

The matter science medical model creates for us a disease oriented health system and we become fixated on clearing IC symptoms   This is totally understandable and to just reduce the symptoms is an important milestone    Yet you may not realize that there is much more than reducing flares and symptoms

Roadblocks

The end result of this fixation is that you settle for second best   That is, symptom reduction becomes the order of the day  Thank you very much

But just the awareness that there is more to health than reduction in IC symptoms is a big beginning in going beyond getting by   You see the energy science can help you reduce the symptoms to tolerable levels   But it has so much more to offer

Real healing takes time   The matter science has taught us and shown us that healing is swift and can change the body quickly   Just shift some molecules around, take some molecules, or remove some and health is yours    You’re feeling immediately better after the appendectomy

But from an energy science view disease begins in imbalances in the energy field an percolate up to manifest as disease in the matter field that are labeled as IC, GERD, IBS, chronic prostatitis, or fibromyalgia   To heal these chronic diseases takes more than the molecular approach of the matter science model of healing

The observation here is that the qualities that produce IC are the same qualities that produce the other chronic “sister” diseases

The energy science approach to chronic disease requires change in lifestyle behavior patterns that produced the imbalance in the first place

The 5 Ways to Go Beyond Getting By

1  Awareness of these facts is a major hurdle to overcome the mindset and start viewing your health differently   The key is to live that awareness, to talk about it with yourself and others so that it becomes real for you

2  Use the energy science guidance that can help you develop lifestyle behavior patterns around nutrition that will bring about greater health

3  Realize that real healing takes time   That health is not something that you get but that which you obtain through your own discipline   That for every year of IC imbalance it takes two months to reverse that imbalance of IC

4  The energy science of Ayurveda says that a day in balance promotes health   This is a simple but significant step in going beyond

5  Understand that IC is the gift that starts you on your path to progressively better health each day   The use of nutritional work begins showing you how not only is this a mainstay in IC management but it will continue to advance your health beyond when the symptoms of IC resolved   The lifestyle behaviors that enhance digestion are also important to improving health long term

Until next week       To health as a Skill   Love  DB

How Long Does It Take to Heal IC?

Obviously this is a common question posed by those doing energy science work for clearance of their IC complex of bladder pain and possibly IBS, GERD and fibromyalgia

As a child you may have asked, “Are we there yet?” and “Now are we there yet?”  So when will this IC be over?   The short answer is, “It’s over when it’s over.”  But to be more specific, in general it takes 2 months of release for every year of imbalance   So if you have had symptoms of IC for 10 years it will take 20 months of work to clear the energy qualities that have accumulated

This would make sense wouldn’t it?  The longer the imbalance the more work is required to get resolution   This doesn’t mean that there will not be improvement of symptoms   The flare intensity get less as the months go by and then the frequency lessens   But real healing takes time!

Are You Particle(Molecule) or Wave?

The body is simultaneously a matter field and an energy field.  The former expresses itself as molecules or particles and the latter as waves of energy   So this is how the energy field expresses dis-ease    In waves

Sound familiar?  The waves are flares that occur in the body.  And they continue to express themselves until you do something about it.  Until you decide to intervene   Otherwise the expression of the excess qualities will continue to occur

Because the matter field is a gross expression of the more subtle energy field, you now can see why dis-ease begins with qualities that then eventually become manifest as particles or molecules in the matter field   This is why I can say with certainty that the matter science will never be able to heal IC with its molecular approach to dis-ease

The Concept of Release

Once the urinary tract is involved with the energy patterns of Vata and Pitta, the symptoms of Vata presence begin episodic expression of light, cold, rough, dry, and mobile which lead to urgency, frequency and a feeling of incomplete emptying of the bladder   Pitta’s presence of inflammation lead to burning on urination, burning pain in the pelvis, vagina, and even rectum due to the sharp, hot, liquid and spreading qualities

These qualities lodge in the urinary tract and express as energy or wave   So the intermittent flares that occur in the body are waves of energetic expression

But what happens when you decide to do things to differently?  You begin paying attention to your day and how you live it   Energy science nutrition becomes important and you start seeing food as medicine   You choose certain herbs that can help with IC and use them regularly

When you no longer support the overexpression of these qualities in the body by the foods that you eat, the body naturally begins letting go of these excess qualities of light, cold, rough, dry, mobile, sharp, hot, liquid and spreading   This takes time but by and by there is lessening of the symptoms that the qualities brought and healing begins to occur

What you see is gradual regression of the symptoms   They do not stop all at once   There is a receding of the complex of symptoms much like the outgoing tide on the beach

Until next week                    To health as a Skill        Love DB

IC Trigger Foods and Matter Science Dietary Advice

 One caveat: diet in IC is a very individual thing. When I read the list of foods that were deemed to be safe for IC, my reaction to the inclusion of some of them was “I WISH I could eat that!”              IC patient

The matter science dietary approach to IC is to determine personal trigger foods   This approach is hit and miss and makes it difficult to be sure what foods carry  the offending “molecules”  In the end it becomes virtual guesswork except for the obvious choices such as white chicken(good) or coffee(bad) for everyone   Confusion reigns

Matter Science Diet Approach

The elimination diet has been used for decades to help determine possible food allergies and has been used with mixed success for the IC community   Proponents push their “style ” of molecular hearsay and those who use it ponder what they’re doing wrong since they still have flares   In the end this molecular approach like all of the Western dietary strokes are anecdotal at best   When the approach doesn’t work the proponent of the diet responds “Oh you must be allergic!”

The difficulty with this approach is twofold   First a flare may occur for you but it is problematic to find which food was the offending agent    This leads to a  second problem which is the danger of walking yourself into a “dietary corner”    Literally food choices begin to be sectored away from the mainstream of choices such that nothing is safe anymore particularly when the flares are extremely painful

Other problems with this approach are the need for excessive diet diary entries and the possibility of interpreting foods that produce “an allergic reaction” when it is actually related to poor digestion(see the recent videos)  This applies to other sister related disorders such as GERD, IBS, chronic prostatitis, and fibromyalgia

 Ah! Removal of Dietary Guesswork

As I have written in previous blogs the food choices using an energy science nutritional approach removes food diaries and is elegant in its simplicity   Just follow the list at icdiet.com and you’re done!  Or if you want a more refined approach with more choices you can take the test at foodsheal.com and use the appropriate nutritional format for you mindbody energy makeup

The reason that this energy science approach works is because it is based on a philosophy and observations about the conscious workings of Nature Herself not on errant molecular observations, mythology, and guesswork.  When you ingest foods you are ingesting Nature’s universal qualities that make up you which creates balance or imbalance of those qualities   The imbalance causes all diseases and in your case IC

Because of this the energy makeup of the individual dictates food choices   If you have the inflammatory hot quality in excess then taking in more of that quality produces an imbalance and potentially a flare   This is a salient observation that sets apart the matter and energy science approaches to disease

Nutrition Versus Diet

But the energy science approach goes even farther   It takes “diet” to a new science of understanding   Whether you know it or not, you are looking for a nutritional approach to foods   Something that will bring sanity to a confused discipline   “I eat healthy” is a common refrain but virtually has no meaning   The individual defines healthy food choices which are based worn out belief systems that are often physiologically incorrect   So nutrition is a steady guide to override the mind and its food confusion

A nutritional system goes beyond diet because it takes into account appetite or digestive fire(metabolism), incompatible food combinations, bowel activity or the lack thereof, and the psychological effects of food(more about that later)  Nutrition is more than a bunch of molecules you ingest

Until next week                         To Health as a Skill   Love DB

Aloe vera Gel and Carageenan for IC Bladder Symptoms

A beautiful question was posed by a reader who asked about carrageenan(ca-rag-ee-nan) as an ingredient in aloe vera gel and whether that affected its ability to be useful in the management of IC flares   This brings up some questions for us

Questions

1  “Is the gelatinous property of aloe vera gel related to the carrageenan?”  No the aloe is gelatinous by itself without the carrageenan

Perhaps another question  2  “Does the carrageenan affect the effectiveness of the aloe vera gel physiologically?”  Again no

3  “Why put the carrageenan into the aloe in the first place if the aloe is naturally gelatinous?”   Now this is an important insight   This gets to the heart of an often asked question “Can I use the juice instead of the gel?  The gel’s gelatin quality is not very attractive”

Aloe Gel Versus the Juice

The gel has a “slooooooow” release in the GI tract and this slimy/smooth quality reduces both Vata and Pitta which is usually why one is using the aloe in the first place    The gel reaches the small bowel more effectively due to this quality

The small bowel is the area of the GI tract where the Pitta energy pattern is most heavily concentrated because it is the energy of transformation(a lot of transformation is happening in the small intestine)   A piece of broccoli is being transformed into the building blocks for the renewal of all forms of cells in the body(heart, brain, liver etc)   Pitta carries the hot quality responsible for IC symptoms so dousing it with the cold quality of aloe is exactly what is needed for healing(ever used aloe for sunburns?)

So the more aloe you can get to where it’s needed is the best   Gel does that, aloe juice less likely

Carageenan

Carrageen is a substitute for gelatin or the stuff we make jello from and the source is a form of seaweed   Even though derived from an energetically salty plant(salt is provoking for IC) its effect is not going to be significant due to the volume of what’s present    This food is Kapha promoting due to its slimy/smooth property and actually would be very good for Pitta Vata energy makeups   In fact it would promote balance for you

Sooooo…. aloe gel with carageenan is fabulouso!! and actually makes the gel work even better for those with IC
Take home message for IC patients   Even though aloe juice can be used it’s best to use the gel

Until next time  Ciao              To health as a Skill   Love Dr Bill

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About the Author:  Dr Bill Dean helps people with IC eliminating pain and
improving relationships  Get more from Dr Bill on LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+.

 Dr Bill is also the author of Foods Heal:  Why Certain Foods Help YOU Feel Your Best

The IC Bladder Syndrome: The Alternative Medical Treatment for Chronic IC and Prostatitis, IBS, GERD, and Fibromyalgia     February 14, 2013