5 Ways to Heal IC Anxiety

In many different encounters with IC patients over the years I’ve found that there is often a feeling of ungroundedness from lack of direction, a feeling of being without a rudder, and the uncertainty as to whether this problem will ever go away

This feeling gives a sense of insecurity about the future (will I have this the rest of my life?), a feeling of hopelessness, and overall anxiety born out of the fear that IC will never go away  There is a feeling of loss of control over the body (not making to the bathroom) due to not knowing what has been done to cause the symptoms in the first place

There can be insomnia due to this free floating anxiety that is difficult to manage  And all of this is an energy drain leading to fatigue and loss of get up and go (as one described “bone weary”)  This leads to a sense of failure, restriction, and exasperation, anger, and irritability

But what if this feeling went away?  All respond that to have this anxiety lifted would be miraculous and they would be ecstatic, elated, energized and be able to dream again  They would be able to contribute again  One patient said, “It would be like getting a ‘Get out jail’ card”  or like “winning the lottery”

The Role of Stress and Symptoms of IC

Even though many respond that the symptoms are accelerated with stress, deadlines, and troubled relationships the matter science cannot offer an answer as to why this occurs  But the energy science using the VPK energy paradigm sees that mind is in every cell of the body  So in IC what happens in the mind, happens in the bladder!

For example, Vata, the energy pattern of movement has the qualities of cold, light, mobile, dry, rough, subtle, and clear  The body is thin (light) and the mind is subtle, light, and mobile making it very creative but susceptible to anxiety and fear

Can you see how stress could then cause bladder symptoms? If the mind is light and mobile then so will the bladder become those same qualities, light and mobile translating into frequency and urgency  And if this Vata energy stimulates the hot quality of Pitta then you’ve got a flare

The Solutions

Mind turbulence creates body turbulence so the key in this situation is to reduce the mind’s activity  Here are 5 ways to do that

1  Meditation using breath awareness  If you have trouble sitting for twenty minutes in the morning and evening just do 5 minutes and build up your tolerance  If it’s just not possible to sit then try just being aware of the breath during daily activities  Mental turmoil is the result of too much pent up energy in the mind  Meditation helps release this energy and consistent practice helps keeps this energy reduced  This therapy improves creativity, attention span, memory retrieval, and learning ability  Due to these effects it brings about a sense of confidence and courage that you can do this!

2 Breathing techniques  There are mind settling breathing techniques such as alternate nostril breathing or making the sound of a bumblebee that can calm the mindbody

3 Herbs  There are a number of herbs that placed with specific carrying agents that calm the mind  Brahmi, shankha pushpi, saraswati, and jatamamsi all have medicinal benefits on the mind, producing a calming effect

4  Daily oil massage  The use of self applied oil massage in the morning before showering can ground (heavy) the body because it counteracts the light quality of the mind

5 Nutritional format  And don’t forget that food can produce a calming effect to the mind  Using foods that don’t aggravate your IC will surely not aggravate your mind as well

This is a whirlwind tour of how to calm the mind but it gives you some approaches to improving your quality of life while you make progress with your IC using other techniques that I have described earlier

If you’re interested in going deeper into this topic you can set up a free consult to see if this can be of help for you  Just go to Services/Resources

All the best           To Health as a Skill        Love DB

8 Acute and 4 Chronic Management Methods to Reduce IC Flares

The accompanying graph depicts what happens in the formation of any disease process of imbalance   There is a gradual buildup of excess qualities such as the hot quality in IC   This can occur over years of unconscious choice making that leads to at first GI tract symptoms that then eventuate in dissemination of the quality(ies) to various parts of the body

In the case of IC the dissemination of the qualities of hot, light, mobile, dry, rough, and subtle to the urinary tract leads to the early symptoms of bladder wall irritability and pain that takes you to the doctor thinking you have a UTI

As the hot quality along with others  progresses over further time the symptoms become flares that become unpredictable and ever more painful to the point of incapacitation   At this point the disease is in its full manifestation and as depicted in the left hand side of the graph these qualities are most often delivered in the foods that are eaten

Chronic Management of IC Flares

From the above you can see that if you don’t do anything with the nutrition that you have been unconsciously taking then all bets are off that you will have any success long term   So the fundamental shift in food choices is important and probably the most difficult for IC patients since the shift requires giving up comfort foods and “friends”

1  As you can see once you stop the aggravating foods that are delivering the qualities that are responsible for your symptoms the ceiling begins to be lowered and instead of the spikes off the top of the chart they begin to come down to lower horizontal lines   The ceiling for symptoms is lowered and so are the symptoms themselves

2  Next avoiding food incompatibilities that overproduce acidic loading can again reduce the chances for flares in the future

3  The third chronic thing to do is help the body eliminate the qualities from the urinary tract by using aloe vera gel on a regular basis   I have written about that earlier

4  Using CCF tea to bathe the urinary tract mucosal lining with these herbs on a regular basis helps calm and soothe the irritated bladder muscle leading to again a reduced ceiling   When you drink this CCF tea on a regular daily basis this goes a long way toward medicinally medicating the bladder

The Acute Flare Management Tips

The ground state is now established with the above chronic work but as you can see we’re not out of the woods yet because there will still be more releasing to go which will mean flares but gratefully not as severe as the ones before you began doing the chronic maintenance work as described above

1  The castor oil pack placed over the two large pelvic and bladder marma(accupuncture) points help cool off the pelvis and bladder   Adding a cooling aroma such as jasmine, sandalwood, or peppermint can be beneficial as well    Ani marma can also be effectively treated with cooling aromas    Ani is located at the inside of the elbow at its crease and massaging for a minute or two can help with pain

2  Eating foods that are cooling and trying cucumber milk or other recipes to cool off is good to do and you can try these recipes:

Coconut Milk Smoothie                                                                                   

1cup coconut milk

1cup sweet strawberries, cherries, or other berries available in season

0.5 tsp sucanat

1 Tablespoon coconut flakes

Blenderize and add water to change consistency

Cucumber Milk

Cut up a half of a cucumber and blenderize it with a cup of room temperature cow’s milk with a 0.5 teaspoon of cumin or turmeric.  Milk acts as a taxi cab to take the cooling qualities of the cucumber to the urinary tract.

Cilantro Smoothie

2cups of cilantro(this is the leafy part of the coriander plant and cooling)

1cup of kale

1cup of carrot

0.5 teaspoon of cumin

Blenderize to pleasing consistency

Add water as needed

—————

3  Sipping on freshly grated ginger that has been steeped in hot water can be cleansing to the GI tract and help bring the hot quality back to the GI tract where it can be eliminated

4 Getting plenty of rest during these energy draining times is very valuable and avoiding any exercise.

5 If you live in a hot climate such as Florida, Texas or the Southwest, it’s important to stay out of the heat   Use sunglasses as often as possible.

6  If it can be tolerated using targeted herbal therapy instillations to the bladder lining can be therapeutic as well

7  Lastly take time during an acute flare to nourish yourself   Try not to be impatient but compassionate with the body as it sheds this unwanted hot quality

8 Continue to do the maintenance work as above

All the best                  To Health as a Skill   Love DrBill

Fibromyalgia and IC: An Energy Science Understanding

It is estimated that many people with fibromyalgia(FM) have an IC like symptom complex in mild form as well only to exacerbate as the years progress   As a matter of fact that’s why IC is now looked upon as a syndrome of diseases rather than an isolated disease of the urinary bladder   The energy science due to its way of looking at disease doesn’t create disease labels but sees all problems in the body as imbalances of qualities and hence with such a system of healing leaves clustering of disease labels as the way to understand how to treat

So if the imbalance is just Vata and Pitta in the urinary tract it’s just IC(if Vata is predominant you will experience frequency and urgency but not burning pain labeled as overactive bladder OAB)   But as you will see if you see Vata and Pitta both affect the muscles of the body along with ama then FM can coexist with the IC symptoms

Fibromyalgia is rheumatoid arthritis(RA) like pain that doesn’t involve the joints   All of the complaints are related to the muscular and connective tissue system with the accompanying aches and pains   The commonality between RA and FM is ama

Tongue Monitoring and Ama

The bodily systems are fully exposed on the tongue  By scraping the tongue in the am and checking it out you get a snapshot of how the body is   If you’ve been traveling and you have had cracks and crevices on the tongue these become more prominent   If there have been several days of heavy eating the tongue will show more coating due to the digestive strength being weakened    It’s a very good way to monitor your health on a day to day basis

So if you see a brownish, yellowish, or white coating on the tongue it implies that there is undigested material in the GI tract that needs to be digested   This material is called ama and is a significant contributor to chronic disease   If you have a coated tongue the first step in recovering your health is to clear ama from the GI tract which I’ll spend some time with you in the future

The Creation of FM

Once the qualities of Vata become excessive in the colon where Vata primarily localizes Vata due to its mobile quality carries this toxic residue of undigested material through the lymphatics and blood to the muscular tissue    This produces irregular temperatures due to this ama in the blood stream(it’s like the fever experienced with overeating)   Vata localizes with its ama load in certain Vata predisposed areas of the body, namely the shoulder and pelvic girdles

Pains of FM vary   As in the bladder if just Vata is involved then clinicians label the problem as OAB   And so if just Vata is involved then the pain of FM can be variable, migrating, and excruciating    If Vata in the colon is blocked by excessive hot or Pitta then the pain will be burning and sucking, accompanied by a metallic taste in the mouth(Pitta in the blood layer), experiencing a smokey aroma, and notable irritability   If Kapha and Vata are involved the pain will be dull but will be sweet because it lets you sleep

Psychological or Mind Aspects of FM

From an energy science perspective the subconscious mind is located in the connective tissue of the body   All the tissue that connects the muscles together, attaches them to bones, and maintains form of the body is related to this connective tissue system that we call fascia   So fascia is the subconscious mind and those emotions that you don’t want to face get pushed into the fascial layer

This is why when Vata enters into the fascial layer of the body it creates instability, anxiety, and fear   This is due to the mobile quality of Vata but leaves you the owner of the body very ungrounded because the subconscious mind is ungrounded

It is not infrequent that people go into yoga poses and experience emotional releases due this very fact

But if Pitta is there with Vata not only may you experience anxiety but also anger and irritability   And if Kapha is present with Vata then you may experience inertia, lack of motivation, lethargy, and mental fatigue

Summary

So this is an overview of FM and its relationship with IC and you can see why it would be so easy for these conditions to overlap   The ama condition of FM differentiates itself from IC where there is no tissue layer for the ama to localize   In IC the ama has no place to localize and so it’s simply passed through in the urine   But it can’t do that in the bodily tissues    There’s no place for it to be removed so it has to accumulate in some tissue to which Vata has carried it

The treatment for FM and IC together doesn’t vary much more than if you were treating them as separate diseases    You first have to get rid of the ama which I will talk about in future blogs

Until next time                                                  To Health as a Skill  Love DrBill