New Member saying "hello"

[fishchick72]

Hi there, I am a 38 year old female. I have suffered chronic UTIs for the past 11 years. Most docs didn't care to get to the bottom of WHY that was happening, they were happy to just prescribe me antibiotics each time & send me on my way. I finally have a good doc that wanted to get to the bottom of it & did a lot of tests & has ruled out a lot of stuff. He now feels it is IC. No, I have not had a cystoscopy to get an official diagnosis. BUT I also see people who have a negative cystoscopy yet are still given the diagnosis, so I'd prefer to just skip the cystoscopy. I have ALL the symptoms, so I am quite confident this is my issue. I am assuming that somehow the flare ups make me more prone to getting a UTI.

I just finished reading "confident choices" (where I learned about this website) & am currently starting to keep a voiding & eating journal. I normally eat very healthy, so it's not too big of an issue for me to make changes to my diet. A lot of things I need to avoid I already do for health reasons, but there are still some foods I eat regularly that it looks like I should be avoiding. But I would love to be able to prevent/lessen the flare ups by changing my diet. I am considering buying some prelief for when we eat out or at someone's house. I'd say about 80% of the time (maybe 90%) I eat at home, but on Saturday we went out to lunch at El Torito & the next morning I was DYING in pain.

I look forward to getting to know others on here & comparing journeys & learning lots.

[Linda May]

You need to stick with the ic diet completely, also what kind of treatment plan are you on?

[earthlady]

Welcome to the forum. Mexican food was my biggest trigger at first and I never did figure out whether it was the salsa, the peppers, the cheese, or who knows what that was doing it. Now I can have some salsa but I always take prelief along with anything I eat at a Mexican restaurant. Sadly- no margaritas anymore though- sigh----

[fishchick72]

You need to stick with the ic diet completely, also what kind of treatment plan are you on?

I hadn't started the diet yet when I went to El Torito. I hadn't yet finished reading the book to understand what I needed to do exactly to do the diet. I started the diet on Monday. Today is the first day I am pain free since the El Torito flare.

[fishchick72]

Welcome to the forum. Mexican food was my biggest trigger at first and I never did figure out whether it was the salsa, the peppers, the cheese, or who knows what that was doing it. Now I can have some salsa but I always take prelief along with anything I eat at a Mexican restaurant. Sadly- no margaritas anymore though- sigh----

I never drink alcohol or coffee or soda, so luckily those are not issues at all for me.