Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[CLKD]

I find taking 1/2 Nurofen B4 bed-time can ease the need to pee through the night. 

[Eviepf]

Hello all. Thank you so much for your replies and information and sorry it's taken me a few days to respond - computer has been playing up and I get quite confused when trying to reply using my tablet! So many helpful suggestions, which I have taken on board.

re thrush - Thank you ancient runner. I had a diflucan capsule in the cupboard which I bought months ago and never used. I took it on Monday night - no improvement for a few days but since yesterday my symptoms are definitely somewhat better, so I do think that thrush was at least making matters worse. I'll keep my eye on that and now intend to use Multigyn Actigel regularly.

Amitriptyline - I am seeing my GP soon and intend to ask her about this and hopefully get a prescription. As you say Julation, I just want the burning to stop at this point and thank you for your suggestion about increasing the dose gradually.

nicolcarrie - I'm glad you're feeling better with the higher dosage of HRT. What you say does give me hope that the patches I'm using might eventually do the trick, if I can just get to the right level of estrogen. I don't know what the patch equivalent of 5 pumps of Estrogel is but I think I'm on a low to medium dose at present (just gone up to a 50 mcg patch). Will speak to the gynae if things don't improve and see if she thinks I can increase. I don't think the Vagifem is irritating me - I think I would have noticed when I started using it (but it's so hard to separate out symptoms, so who really knows)!?

Meadowblue -  it is miserable indeed and I hope you're feeling a bit better now. It must be very demoralising to have had good results for so long and to then slip back, but at least you know that relief is possible and I'm sure you'll get back to where you were.

dahliagirl - yes - the discharge! The gynae described it in her report to my GP as 'profuse'. Dripping is definitely a better description.... At least the Vagifem seems to have stopped that.

Thanks to CLKD for the Nurofen suggestion - have been using ibuprofen as necessary and occasionally (if I'm feeling particularly daring) Co-codamol! And thanks too to Machair for the useful link.

[hoping4best]

Eviepf, I woke up from a pelvic surgery at 38 with the burning, and the urgency. They immediately diagnosed me with IC and I went down that road for a couple years. The IC meds and the diet had no effect on me. When it's bad, it can make you feel so desperate, I know.

What emerged later was that I was in perimenopause at 38. I have one ovary left, and that had "failed" by the time I was 39 or so. So I also then started thinking that maybe my discomfort was VA. Systemic HRT and local estrogen eventually stabilized me so that my flare ups were few and far between.

Another thing that helped was pelvic floor physicial therapy. I am in the US, I'm not sure if you have access to PT where you are. It's definitely something to try if you do.

I took an HRT break and mucked around with my doses from Jan 1 to mid-march of this year, and it caused a terrible flare up. I was burning for about a month. I got my patch dose back up and am taking local estrogen nightly. And this week my pain finally relented! It's back today, but the relief gave me hope.

In my experience over the last 4 years dealing with this, hormone adjustments can take maddeningly long to affect things. When stopping and starting HRT, I often experience a delay in things getting better or worse, which of course makes them hard to track. Please hang in there. I think systemic HRT is a great thing to try, but give it time. Which can be so hard when you're miserable, I know.

[Eviepf]

Thank you hoping. It sounds like there is a lot of similarity between your experience and mine (IC/PBS diagnosis, then realisation about the hormonal connection). It must have been very shocking to wake up from surgery to find yourself suffering with an immediate problem like that.

I'm sorry to hear you're having a blip at the moment and hope things will settle down soon for you.  It does seem that it can take quite a few months for HRT to have a beneficial effect on the burning/frequency - I think I just need to be patient. As you say, it is hard when the symptoms are so relentless.....

I've heard good things about pelvic floor therapy and have thought about it as a possibility. It's definitely available here, but I don't know if I could access it on the NHS - I'm sure some other UK posters will have info about this.  Failing that, I guess I need to go private - I think I need to read up some more and maybe start another thread.

[Maryjane]

I have women's health physio.

It is available on the NHS however only for a short time and TBH the private ones are far more knowledgeable regards pelvic pain , as the NHS ones are more geared towards incontenance mainly , and when you suffer from pelvic pain the last thing you want to do are pelvic floor exercises as this just tightens and already tight pelvic floor , it is also a whole body physio the private sector use not just he vagina.