I encountered a discouraging bump in the road last week. In addition to Lyme Disease, I have an inflammatory bladder condition called Interstitial Cystitis (IC).
Marked with bladder pain, urinary frequency and urgency, I have had this condition since 2005. It was fairly well-controlled for about 4 years. I even thought the most difficult days of dealing with IC were behind me. Unfortunately, this flare-up shows my bladder has more healing to do.
As I struggle to understand why I am once again experiencing such severe bladder symptoms, I decided to take a specialized urine test from a lab called Pathogenius. The lab performs testing at two different levels using a culture and DNA detection. My nurse practitioner only recently began working with this lab. Whether or not a patient improves using treatments designed around this testing method, remains to be seen.
My level one culture came back negative. However, the DNA portion of the test detected abnormally high levels of a bacteria I was unfamiliar with called Prevotella Bivia. This bacteria is not a tick-borne infection like the others I am battling. In fact, some amount of this bacteria appears to be present in healthy individuals and poses no trouble to them.
Perhaps my immune system, already suppressed by multiply systemic infections, could not keep this bacteria in check and my bladder became symptomatic again.
That’s my best guess.
After reviewing the results, my nurse practitioner presented me with two treatment options:
Option A is to instill medication directly into my bladder via self-catheterization. A two-week course of medication and supplies arrives at my house from a compounding pharmacy. It’s not covered by insurance, so my out-of-pocket cost would be somewhere between $200-$500. A second, two-week round of the instillations is usually required. For a one months supply, the total cost is between $400-$1,000. This is in addition to the $1,000+ per month my husband and I currently pay out-of-pocket for my treatment.
The pros of this treatment are:
1) It delivers medication directly into the bladder so the antibiotics do not have to bypass the GI tract where it can disrupt normal gut flora or interact with the other medications I am taking.
2) It’s an innovative new approach to treating interstitial cystitis.
The cons are:
1) It’s expensive to do and I question whether it’s sustainable for the average person over a long period of time. Several courses of treatment could be required to achieve maximum benefit.
2) Repeatedly doing bladder instillations carries the risk of contracting a urinary order soma online from canada tract infection, which is then treated with another oral antibiotic.
3) This treatment is so new that it is not yet known what the rate of success is.
A pit in my stomach formed as I did the math. With our current situation, I felt Option A would not be feasible for me. It’s just too costly.
As FOMO set in (Fear Of Missing Out on a treatment that might be THE treatment to finally cure me), I reluctantly asked for an option B.
This option is to add yet another antibiotic to my already rigorous treatment. In this case, it would be the broad spectrum antibiotic, Clindamycin.
The pros of this treatment are:
1) It’s cheap. In fact, I would pay nothing with my insurance.
2) In addition to treating the Prevotella Bivia in the bladder, it also targets the Lyme bacteria in the nervous system.
The cons are:
1) Since this antibiotic kills bacteria from such a broad spectrum and I am already on an aggressive antibiotic protocol, it could increase my risk of developing candida overgrowth or worse, a potentially life threatening GI infection called C-Diff.
2) I need to take this antibiotic three times per day, making it difficult to schedule it around all my other medications.
3) It’s also hard on the digestive tract.
4) Because this antibiotic has penetration into the nervous system for the Lyme bacteria, there is a high likelihood of experiencing an increase in my neurological symptoms as the new antibiotic kills those bacteria.
Truthfully, I really didn’t like either of the options. Neither annihilating my gut nor going in debt seem like great solutions. In the end, I chose the only affordable route for me. I added the fourth oral antibiotic to my treatment for the next 10 days. Following completion of this antibiotic, I will re-test with Pathogenius to see if there are additional infections.
During this course of treatment, I have significantly upped my intake of probiotics and digestive enzymes to help protect my gut and decrease the risk of C-Diff and Candida overgrowth. As predicted, I am noticing an increase in my neurological symptoms and worsening insomnia has been the most difficult symptom to endure. Luckily, I am already on day 6 of my 10 day plan.
I am hoping this new treatment will shed light on potential causes of Interstitial Cystitis in some people and yield improvements in my symptoms.
I will post an update after I have completed this course of treatment.
