Perpetual Pee Problem

When over half of all adult women will have a urinary tract infection (UTI) at some point, it’s natural, although frustrating, when the burning, urgency, and pain keep returning to keep grabbing your favorite OTC medicine and go ahead and take another round.

If this keeps happening, it’s entirely possible you’re not wrestling with a UTI at all, you may have Interstitial Cystitis (IC).

While urinary tract infections (UTI) and interstitial cystitis (IC) have many common symptoms, they are fundamentally different pathologies, thus requiring different modalities of diagnosis and treatment.

Both UTI and IC typically present with the symptoms of urinary frequency, urgency, pelvic pain and lower abdominal pain. One big difference is experiencing pain during intercourse. Painful sex doesn’t usually happen with a UTI but is a symptom of IC.

UTIs are caused by bacterial infection of the urethra, bladder, kidneys, and/or prostate while IC is a noninfectious inflammation of the bladder. Like any other type of infection, a UTI can make you feel sick. The infectious nature of a UTI may cause systemic symptoms of fever, delirium, and even sepsis to occur.

UTIs may also present with urethral discharge, cloudy urine, and blood in the urine. In contrast, the symptoms of IC may be from damage to the protective cells that line the bladder. When these cells are damaged, urine can irritate the bladder causing pain and other typical IC symptoms.

Since UTI’s are bacterial infections, they are diagnosed by urinalysis and easily treated with antibiotics. In contrast, interstitial cystitis is non-infectious in nature, and therefore must be clinically diagnosed through a patient’s medical history, a biopsy, cystoscopy, and examinations to rule-out other disorders.

There is no cure for interstitial cystitis, but 90% of IC patients improve with treatment.

If you’ve been struggling with IC treatments include acupuncture and herbal medicine, bladder training, dietary changes, analgesics, pentosan, and intravesical therapies. Surgery may be performed as a last resort. 

• Sources

  Imam, T. H. (2022, September 19). Bacterial urinary tract infections - genitourinary disorders. Merck Manuals Professional Edition. Retrieved September 22, 2022, from https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/genitourinary-disorders/urinary-tract-infections-utis/bacterial-urinary-tract-infections

  Shenot, P. J. (2022, September 19). Interstitial cystitis - genitourinary disorders. Merck Manuals Professional Edition. Retrieved September 22, 2022, from https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/genitourinary-disorders/voiding-disorders/interstitial-cystitis

  Sönmez, M. G., & Kozanhan, B. (2017). Complete response to acupuncture therapy in female patients with refractory interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome. Ginekologia polska, 88(2), 61–67. https://doi.org/10.5603/GP.a2017.0013