Cystitis Books

I was a little apprehensive when I bought this book because I knew that all IC patients were different. (I've been suffering with it for 3 years now and am a female, age 25) We all experience different symptoms, so I had no idea what to expect from this book. However, I'm SO glad that I bought it. I agree with others that it is a MUST READ for IC patients. I found myself crying throughout the book. Not because I was sad or over joyed, but because I could relate so incredibly much to Catherine Simone's story. I have been through and felt and experienced many of the things mentioned in this book, and even though I cried through most of it, I believe that it played a huge part in my healing. I needed to cry and let it all out. When I'm in pain I tend not to. I tend to tense up when really what I need to be doing it trying to kill the pain anyway I can and relax as much as possible.

Even if you are not an IC patient but love one, I also think this is a must read. It will give you a much better idea of what your loved one has or is or will go through. My husband is reading it now, and my mom is reading it after him.

I will most definitely try some of the things she talks about in the book when it comes to having a toxic body and cleansing it. At this point I'll do anything to get rid of the pain. I have found (like mentioned in this book) that drinking some water with a half teaspoon of baking soda in it actually helps! I will most certainly try other things she had to offer!

I applaud Catherine M. Simone for taking the time to write out her story. As anyone who has been dianosed with IC, or any family members trying to understand what this disease is all about, this book is a must read. I have felt pretty alone in trying to deal with this, and I think that most people are. Reading her words, feeling her pain and crying her tears with her through the bad times gave me comfort of someone elses understanding. My husband gained alot of understanding also, he's been such a dear help to me and trying to live with this disease.
I haven't tried all the things Catherine has done to be able to live her life IC free, but I learned so much from her, another IC paitent, not a doctor or a nurse or a friend who happened to read about the next "cure all" treatment I should try. I am trying to get my disease under control and I am anxious to try out her suggestions. I hope to be where she is now one day with my disease gone (and she can even drink Orange Juice again!); nothing else I've read even gave me hope that it is even possible.
If I've learned anything in the 3 years it took to get dianosed and the year I've been trying to deal with having IC, I have learned no two bodies are just alike and what hurts one IC paitent may not hurt another, and what heals one IC paitent may not heal another; but it's worth a shot.
The bad parts of this disease are written in such a way as I felt all she was feeling, the lowest of the lows and the lonliness that comes in the middle of the night when you wake again for the 10th time in a night to go to the bathroom, but it is balanced with the good of seeing life go on; and not just go on, but thrive and flourish and most importantly heal.
Thank you Cahterine, your words blessed me.

Catherine Simone's emotional chronicle about her experience with interstitial cystitis is a must read for anyone suffering with this sometimes debilatating condition. It has been my experience as well that some traditional doctors with their traditional methods can often do more harm than good. Read this book and find out how Catherine took control of her own health with great success. Be sure to also read her follow up "how to" book, "Along the Healing Path," which continues to give the IC patient a sense of hope and empowerment.

This book is very well written and an easy read. She offers many new aspects to this devastating illness. I personally have already tried many of the methods she used to heal herself and have been feeling much better. After 10 years of battling this illness and several doctors visits I found hope in her words and a better understanding of IC.

Before I came across this book, I thought I was doomed to live with IC for the rest of my life. After reading this book about Cath who had severe interstitial cystitis and many more ailments that seem to come along with this disease, I realized that there is hope in regaining my health. She tells her story of how she recovered from the nightmare she was living and shares with us what she did to recover. It's amazing she survived that horrendous experience! Thank you Cath for all the hope you give us with this book! :)

The book gives hope to persons afflicted with IC for which there is no known cure.

This is an excellent and informative book. As a person who suffers from I.C. it has given me many insightful moments and lots of advice and ideas. It is well written and easy to understand book. I was very happy I purchased this book.

This book gives a lot of good advice and information on dealing with i.c. I was not formally diagnosed, but have a lot of the symptoms.
I have done a few things that were recommended and have gotten so much better. I would say that it was worth the money spent and it's good to learn from someone who has been there before.

This book has been a blessing to my life. Within a short period of time I was able to get off the antibiotics that I have been on for over 15 years. Ms Simone's insight and wisdom is a gift from God. I would highly recommend this book.

This book is a MUST for anyone that is suffering from IC. I was at the lowest (and in the most pain I'd ever been in) when I stumbled across this book. It literally has changed my life. I was in SEVERE pain and had just spent 6 days in the hospital and was still in pain and doing no better. After reading Along the Healing Path, I completely stopped ALL medicines, began drinking Marshmallow Root Tea (with Catnip and Raspberry Leaf) and acidophilus and within a few days I was COMPLETELY OUT OF PAIN!!! It was amazing! I have been suffering with IC since I was 16 (took two years to get diagnosed, which is so common for IC sufferers) and had recently been in a flare for over 6 months. I'd had three bladder distensions, several painful bladder distillations and was on 22 pills a day. My life was changed dramatically by this disease. I was unable to attend classes and work and felt like my whole world was collapsing. I cannot say ENOUGH about this book. Thank you, Catherine, for helping so many of us find our way out of pain!!!! You are amazing!!!!

my search for the perfect book on health and healing is over. I read so many books trying to help heal myself of chronic fatigue syndrome. This book made the most sense to me. It takes dedication to follow the program, but it is worth it. Dr. Stoll and Jan DeCorutney give you lots of motivation in the book. I borrowed it from the library, but will purchase one to keep at home.

Recapture Your Health outlines a balanced solution to improving overall health. The authors call this program a 3LS solution named after the three legged stool which is perfectly balanced and fully functional without a lot of extras that aren't needed.

Like the three legged stool, the 3LS program contains three simple but sturdy elements (nutrition, exercise, and relaxation) that create a foundation for improved health. The nutrition section focuses primarily on minimizing damage caused by the high intake of refined foods in the modern diet. The authors promote a whole foods approach to nutrition that reduces and potentially eliminates all refined foods. This is very similar to the slow food philosophy that is gaining popularity.

Likewise, the exercise and relaxation portions of this program are not radical but are somewhat based in good common sense. Participants are expected to exercise twenty minutes three times a week of virtually any type of activity that gets them moving. Relaxation is guided through various types of formal relaxation exercises such as meditation or guided imagery completed for approximately twenty minutes twice a day.

Walt Stoll and Jan DeCourtney have given readers a chance to redeem their health or maintain it using three simple tools. Seemingly so simple, yet the authors have used their talents to give a good explanation of some of the who's, what's, and why's of the road back to health.

Even if you think you know the information to wellness they present, "Recapture Your Health" is still a great reference to have linking many common and not so common ailments to the modern day interpretation of stress. Many of us have used one of their key elements at one time or another, but in putting all the pieces of the puzzle together you have a great weapon to use in the war against disease.

If you have not yet had to deal with a serious illness or condition, you can certainly can go a long way to prevent it, according to the book, and maintain quality your quality of life for the years to come.

Something for everyone,

A+

There is nothing really new in this book. Eating well, exercising and relaxing is good for your health. Duh!

But it is very well presented, brings up enough (but not too many) testimonials to be inspiring, it is simply written without complicated theories. The diet is easy to do and presented with lots of details. The proposed exercises are varied - very much along the lines of "do what works for you and do it at least 3 times a week". The Skilled Relaxation is nothing new if you are already familiar with the work of Benson, Cade, Pelletier, Kabatt-Zin, but it is presented here in a non-scholar way that is easy to understand, easy to implement and the book provides the health motivation to keep doing it. Understanding skilled relaxation without actually doing it twice a day is worthless. The text in this book makes you want to do it and to keep doing it.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is sick and hopeless - or anyone who wants to implement good life habits and prevent illness. I like the fact that it does not promise an instant cure for anything but rather proposes a way of living that supports physical, emotional and mental health. Well done!

The weakest point maybe is that it addresses general well being but only mentions in a rather weak way that people with long term diseases may have to be much more specific to completely heal. The proposed diet may not work for everyone, some people may need specific types of exercises and to avoid others, some types of meditation or biofeedback processes may be better than others for some conditions, etc.

However as an adjunct, Dr Stoll bulletin Board [..]) is filled with more specific information and the good doctor is also available to answer questions. A very generous proposition.

Ok - Got to go now and practice my skilled relaxation...

While conventional medicine tends to focus on covering up symptoms with medications, many of which cause dangerous side-effects, this book provides step-by-step instructions on how to potentially avoid the doctor's office altogether. Based on the premise of 'how to be healthy,' this book outlines what Dr. Stoll refers to as the '3-Legged Stool of Wellness' - Skilled Relaxation, A Whole Foods Diet, and Exercise. As simple as this sounds, there are many crucial aspects that one needs to be aware of in order to implement the Wellness lifestyle effectively. 'Recapture Your Health' provides all the knowledge, insight, frequently asked questions, and troubleshooting guides needed for anyone to do just what the title says. Jan DeCourtney's writing style makes this book both fun and motivational to read cover to cover as well as easy to use as a quick-reference using the detailed index in the back. Hats off to this book, a long-awaited tribute to a very important aspect of Walt Stoll's life's work of getting the truth about Wellness out to the public!

As a newly diagnosed sufferer of Interstitial Cystitis this book was a godsend. Thank you Catherine M. Simone for writing your story, and helping us who are still wandering about, flailing to find things that will work for us when the medical community will or cannot.

By revealing some of the mystery behind the spirit, mind, body connection (based on her own experiences), the author makes the point that healing from IC involves more than just healing the body. There is much to think about in this book, and it may trigger some healthy self-reflection. For those who believe in God, the references to "God/the Universe" may be unsettling, and are probably made to appeal to a wider audience. But the principles mentioned are universal in nature.

Catherine brings the human aspect of IC to the reader, as she has lived this painful illness. Her tenacity to overcome is remarkable. Catherine's story is written from the hand of expertise, as she has had to fight for an answer to her pain and suffering. Catherine's story is one of courage and filled with hope for others who suffer from IC.

As her other two wonderful books, this one also offers you with hope. She writes about how the mind, body, and spirit are connected and how she came to understand how she "drew" IC to her and how she used it to help her heal the rest of the way. I find this book to be comforting and inspirational and greatly recommend it. Once again, thank you Cath for the hope you give us!

This is Catherine Simone's third book describing her battle with Interstitial Cystitis. In this one, she lets her readers know that she is still doing great but addresses spiritual, emotional, and mental issues that can attribute to/stem from the disease. Many people who have recovered are finding that although the physical symptoms are gone, the fear, anxiety, etc., tend to linger. This book perfectly complements her other two, bringing her work full circle. I am so thankful for this book...an excellent resource for every IC patient.

This book takes you on a journey into the process of healing through reflection, imagination, and heartfelt glimpses into this author's soul. As you read this book, you will find yourself entering into a sacred space within you and a peace filled place known as your soul. What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living

Chronic illness is something that affects millions of people worldwide. And yet those in pain often feel alone, as if no one "gets" what they're going through. By writing this book, author Marguerite Bouvard has validated all of those who struggle with chronic illness year in, year out. This book can also serve as a learning tool for the families and friends of those who suffer from chronic illness. I highly recommend HEALING.

Having received HEALING only this morning, I have only skimmed it and found it very insightful, enlightening and encouraging. I am a vicitim of IC myself and have been discouraged with most of the urologists and urogynecologists I have seen over the past 16 month. It was encouraging to read what Marguerite Guzman Bouvard had to say on this very subject. I am ordering 5 books, one for each of my children, so they can get a better understanding of what IC is all about.

Marguerite Bouvard has written a magnificent book we should all read.
Perhaps some will not pick this book up thinking, "I don't need to be healed." But it is beyond healing. HEALING is a gorgeous book about finding the richness, poetry and meaning in life. It's Bouvard's experience with illness that is the vehicle for her healing. However, none of us has a perfect life to live and we all have "something" whether it be illness, or loss, or disappointment...that is imperfect, yet defining to our lives. Despite these "somethings," we all have the potential to have meaningful lives rich with purpose. HEALING is Bouvard's journey beyond illness to that richness-and with her journey, she inspires us to find beauty and meaning in our own lives.

I can understand why it was many years before a woman as ambitious and accomplished as Marguerite Guzman Bouvard could stand before her colleagues and share with them her long-kept secret: "I am chronically ill." In her book Healing: A Life with Chronic Illness, Bouvard chronicles her own resistance to admitting her daunting physical limitations.

For decades, Bouvard had been absorbed in a busy and very public life of travel, research, teaching and writing--a life she loved, a life that gave her her sense of her successful self, and one she simply refused to surrender. She fought valiantly against the reality of her diminishing energies and capacities. She found her illness demeaning, an embarrassing weakness, a symbol of her failure both as a professional and as a person. As she became less active, less vocal, she felt her colleagues avoiding eye contact and avoiding her altogether. She began to feel invisible, "an unwanted outsider," no longer a part of the illustrious team of academicians that had been her life for so long. As her condition limited her more and more she lived "...in a turbulence of outrage, fear, and sorrow..." over her wildly changing circumstances.

When her illness at last became impossible to ignore, Bouvard spent years going from doctor to doctor, enduring painful procedures. Accurately diagnosed at last, she learned she had a chronic illness called interstitial cystitis, an inflammation and deterioration of the bladder lining that affects not just one area of the body but the body in its entirety. After a time, she would also develop fibromyalgia, again a miserable chronic illness involving muscle pain, severe fatigue and disturbed nightly sleep.

But in spite of her depleted stamina, Bouvard refused to cancel a previously planned arduous journey to Argentina to work with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, whose children had disappeared and/or suffered torture at the hands of the country's brutally suppressive government. From these exceptional and courageous women, Bouvard learned that they assuaged their grief over the loss of their children and the brutal tyranny they lived with daily by banding together, by sharing their stories, by actively rising up against their oppressors, by not keeping silent. In time, she realized that she too would find healing only by speaking the truth of her increasing physical frailty, her acute and unrelenting pain.

The Mothers, who possessed a profound sense of caring for one another and a dedication to righting the senseless and horrific injustices that endangered them daily, became Bouvard's teachers. Her essential values began to change. Things she once considered important lost their significance. She stopped rushing about, stopped feeling the familiar competitive drives she had known all her life. She learned from them how to listen, how to hear and see in depth what was going on around her; she learned to pay attention, to give herself time to take things in and reflect.

However, these changes happened only gradually. She admits that it took her a long time to come to terms with her chronic illness. She writes:

I didn't realize this was the beginning of learning a new culture or that I would have to create a new language that would reflect my reality. Nor was I aware of one of the sources of my deep discomfort: that to become ill in this society means having the body, spirit, and mind severed. How could I speak to the people around me about my fear and anxiety, how could I speak to the self that was changing, when I was unable to find the words and had no frame of reference?

Having found the language to speak her truth, Ms. Bouvard was faced with giving up the certainties of her old career. She needed to learn to navigate her life without the familiar maps and landscapes of previous years. She began to trust that ideas would come in new ways, that her career would follow a different but equally creative path. She wanted to write only about ideas that fired her soul; she wanted to write not with the objectivity of research but as though she was addressing each reader personally.

She became excited as she felt herself and her life changing drastically. She began to keep a journal and as it became filled with her writings, and with cards and messages from friends, she realized she was neither invisible nor alone...no longer "an outsider" but very much a thriving human being, more connected to God and to herself than she had ever been. "Chronic illness," she writes, "has given me the opportunity to reassess my life, to decide on how I will live, what I hope to accomplish and what is important to me."

We all have problems that are difficult to confront, difficult to come to terms with. This is a book that can change the lives of the healthy as well as those struggling with illness. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

by Duffie Bart
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

Julie Beyer's latest book, "Confident Choices: A Cookbook for IC and Overactive bladder" will be a lovely addition to IC libraries around the world. A perfect complement to her first book "Confident Choices: Customizing the IC Diet," Julie uses this new publication to walk the novice patient through essential IC diet basics and she does it in a style that is simple, easy to understand and inherently practical.

As the first book written by a registered dietitian with IC, Julie's focus is on educating a patient about healthy, balanced diet, particularly for patients who feel confused and overwhelmed about what to eat when you have a tender, irritated bladder. It's a perfect resource for patients who are afraid to eat for fear of causing an IC flare. The section on "rescue menus" will be greatly appreciated by patients currently struggling with a sensitive bladder. Yes, Virginia, you can eat when you have IC but you must choose your foods carefully.

With a positive and encouraging tone and style, Julie reminds her readers about key nutrition basics. She focuses on keeping the IC diet simple and practical. Her are some highlights:

* She offers an excellent list of IC friendly food substations. For example, pear or blueberry juice can be used in place of lemon juice or vinegar in many recipes.
* For patients embarking on an elimination diet, she offers a step by step guide on how to determine which, if any, foods you are sensitive to.
* She offers sample menu ideas for every meal
* A variety of very appealing recipes for each meal are included
* The printable shopping list will help patients ....

Some of you may wonder how this book differs from the best selling "A Taste of the Good Life: A Cookbook for an IC Diet," written by Bev Laumann. Like Bev, Julie has an impressive knowledgebase. You know that you're reading material that has been created with a tremendous amount of thought and research. Where Bev's book is ideal for patients who love to cook and spend time in the kitchen, Julie's books are perfect for patients who want to approach diet simply or who simply don't want to spent a lot of time cooking. The recipes are simple and very appealing.

Unfortunately out of print, this is a marvelous book that with elementary and sound techniques helped, and could help if reprinted, many patients that, officially or not, suffer of urinary bladder diseases. Many senior and not so senior Americans, probably due to our bad eating habits and horrendously sedentary life, suffer of chronic diseases that all antibiotics of the world (too many already in the USA, or premature need for diapers, oversold by over commercialization on TV, will not be able to cure. Sound, simple, natural health oriented techniques of personal 'urinary bladder management' are extremely important. Few are even recommended, practiced or even known by commercial health practitioners in the USA, but known and successfully practiced in many other countries of the world. A marvelous and useful book, 'Cystitis' guides patients through self-control, relief and even cure. I am such a successful story.

If this is the book I read years ago, it is well worth the money. After years of suffering, I followed Ms. Kilmartin's advice and problem no more!

Angela has lived with cystitis all her life. That's the reason for her research of the topic and writing numerous books about it. Anyone afflicted with this illness should follow her advice and seek guidance through the book or from Angela herself via e-mail. Not only are all of her books written in a user-friendly mode, she will personally answer questions sufferers may have.

Good books, good person, good friend.

Grannum Sant's "Interstitial Cystitis" is an excellent resource for clinicians and patients seeking academic/research oriented information on IC treatments, pathology, epidemiology and much more! Contents include discussions on the history of IC, current research, diagnostic options, a wide variety of treatments and general issues, such as quality of life.

Of particular note is the insightful chapter "The Causes and Treatment of Pain in Interstitial Cystitis" written by Daniel Brookoff, MD, which has helped us convey the often underestimated need for pain management.

This book is a cornerstone to any IC library, including our own at the IC Network. Very well done and much appreciated by the patient community.