Introduction to Cystitis Cures, Recurrent UTI Cures, and Overactive Bladder Syndrome Cures
Interstitial cystitis, also known as painful bladder syndrome, is an extremely common problem that afflicts both men and women. Often patients who struggle with cystitis also struggle with recurrent urinary tract infections or overactive bladder. All of these issues are debilitating, disruptive, and frustrating conditions. I know this because in my twenties, I had chronic interstitial cystitis and recurrent urinary tract infections. I was also diagnosed with fibromyalgia and later Reiter’s syndrome, both diseases that regularly co-occur with cystitis.
At age 48, I no longer have any of the symptoms of these health issues anymore and I haven’t had them for many years. I did, however, begin to have cystitis flares again in my 40s following 5 years of extreme stress and trauma which helped me see the relationship between stress, trauma, and cystitis more clearly. At that time, I had been studying trauma from several different perspectives, so I was able to clearly piece together the way that stress and trauma directly impact urinary tract health. In my twenties, in fact, cystitis, fibromyalgia, and Reiter’s syndrome developed after I had had a stillborn baby. My husband and I had a lot of financial woes at that time and then we moved to a new state. The combination of all of these events overwhelmed my physiology. I had no knowledge of how to process my grief about the loss of an infant and move through it, so my body held onto the grief and expressed it in another way through stiff joints and cystitis. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, trauma is known as “Heart Shock” and practitioners of this system of medicine acknowledge that there is mind-body connection playing a role in health issues like cystitis and fibromyalgia.
Indeed, the bladder meridian runs parallel to the main switchboard of nerve ganglia of the sympathetic nervous system located about an inch on either side of each vertebrae of the spinal cord. The sympathetic nervous system is one of three branches of the autonomic nervous system, the part of the body that deals with the Unconscious and the survival reactions that we have to our environment. For example, the sympathetic nervous system branch deals with the fight-or-flight reflex.
The other two branches belong to the parasympathetic nervous system. One of these branches deals with resting and digesting. The other tells the body to “freeze” or “play dead” in response to a threat that is so overwhelming that fight-or-flight won’t save the person’s life. This is the branch of the autonomic nervous system that tells a gazelle to “play dead” if a lion catches it by the throat. Rather than attempting to fight, “play dead” is a last-ditch effort at survival that can sometimes release us from the grip of a major threat.
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The autonomic nervous system is like a mind that’s separate from and very different from the mind that talks about and comments on our lives. The mind that talks and thinks does many things. It creates categories and lists. It has opinions and thoughts. It is aware of the rules that have been created for humans and it knows how to follow these rules and how to break them. But this mind that speaks is not the same as the mind that feels and that receives information from the environment and from other people in the form of symbols. This second “mind” exists throughout the body as an extensive network of nerves that begin at the base of the brain. It might be tempting to say that this part of us, the autonomic nervous system and The Unconscious, is not as important or valuable as the other mind that’s conscious to us, always talking, and that is much more familiar. In reality though, we wouldn’t survive long without this second mind telling our organs when to act and when to rest – when the heart should beat, how hard it should beat, and what rhythm it should take – when to breathe, how deeply to breathe, and the rate and rhythm of our breath. The vagus nerve, the main structure of the parasympathetic nervous system tells each and every organ when to act and when to rest as well as how forcefully to act or how deeply it should rest or even become dormant. We experience the subtleties of these activities within our organs as emotions and also something that Dr. Peter Levine refers to as “felt sense”.
As noted above, Traditional Chinese Medicine recognizes that the kidneys, for example, are the seat of fear. The bladder is a hollow yang organ that’s paired with the kidneys as solid yin organs. The kidneys and the bladder work together to process fear. Most people who have had recurrent urinary tract infections and / or cystitis are very familiar with the high level of anxiety that’s associated with the physical experience of having bladder irritation. Few people refer to this anxiety as “fear” though in essence, that’s what anxiety is.
Again, I need to repeat that the bladder meridian of Traditional Chinese Medicine passes alongside the sympathetic nervous system ganglia, the part of the autonomic nervous system that deals with fight-or-flight. So the bladder and the bladder meridian represent a crossover point between Eastern and Western medicine. In the West, we actively shun the idea that our emotions might be causing our physical health issues, but in reality, the autonomic nervous system is like a high-tech human suit that every human being wears and the “human suit” often behaves like a completely different person who is at odds with the other mind that talks and thinks, and that has opinions. We’ve learned to feel ashamed of how we feel and we’ve learned to block the feelings that this high-tech human suit generates from its interaction with the environment and with other people’s high-tech human suits. Indeed, without this high-tech human suit, our bodies would have no sense of when it was daytime or when it was night-time even though our eyes could perhaps see that the sun is shining or that it’s dark outside. The autonomic nervous system, which is related to and connected with the meridians of Traditional Chinese Medicine, is the part of us that interfaces directly with the earth and with other humans who live here. This high-tech human suit is sensitive to light and dark, temperature fluctuations, changes in angle of the sun, phases of the moon, and probably also astrological changes in terms of planetary alignments too. Its sensitivity is something that few of us explore in depth. Rather, we try to avoid the information being gathered by this part of our nervous system. It is the high-tech human suit that causes us to get goosebumps in response to changes in electromagnetic frequencies in a given space. It is the high-tech human suit that senses when someone is watching us from behind, even without turning to look. We often sense what’s around us and what matters in the environment on an unconscious level before we become consciously aware of any of those things.
Breath and the Autonomic Nervous System
Every emotion has a breath pattern associated with it. And breath patterns can be used to generate emotions as well. Breathing is normally an unconscious activity, but we can take conscious control of it too. As such, breath is an interface between the mind that talks and the high-tech human suit that senses the environment and responds to it, often on an unconscious level.
In the short-term, the organs that make the biggest difference quickly in blood and tissue fluid pH are the lungs. Though typically, breath is managed unconsciously by the autonomic nervous system, it can be controlled by our conscious minds if we wish. Our breath speed, rhythm, and depth when we aren’t controlling it consciously, is calibrated around blood and tissue pH such that most of unconscious aspects of our breathing (depth, frequency of breath, and rhythm), is the result of kidney function and the pH level that results from our kidney’s efforts to detoxify the body.
In turn, breath is where much our body’s “felt sense” and “emotion” comes from. We also express emotion through breath. A broken heart feeling, for example, has a particular breath pattern and the feeling of intense joy and giddiness does too. If you feel terror or some form of extreme fear, how you breathe, the intensity, depth, and rhythm of it, will be a core part of the experience. As you calm yourself, breath will be essential to that experience as well.
But what about breath and the bladder?
Breath and Bladder Irritation
Kidney and Bladder Alkalization to Reduce Irritation
The way that we breathe (fast or slow, deep or shallow, etc.) strongly impacts whether our blood and body fluids are acidic or alkaline. The lungs and our breathing patterns work in tandem with the kidneys to maintain balanced pH levels in the body. When pH levels become imbalanced, kidney and bladder stones can develop which can cause pain and irritation throughout the urinary tract. Alkalization of the body using daily doses of baking soda / sodium bicarbonate dissolves kidney stones and bladder stones while supporting kidney health.While sodium bicarbonate / baking soda alkalinizes the tissues fluids, urine, and blood, breath also alkalinizes or acidifies the body. Inhalation is naturally acidifying to the body. When we inhale and hold our breath, the body becomes more acidic. Inhalation also causes the body to become more sympathetic dominant (wherein the autonomic nervous system is balanced more toward a fight-or-flight state of being).
Exhalation is alkalizing. When we exhale and then hold the exhalation, we are alkalizing the body and causing it to become more parasympathetic dominant. When we exhale and hold the exhale, our bodies go into more of a rest-and-digest state of being. Exhalation supports the kidneys which respond well to alkalinity.
That being said, many people hold their inhale or their exhale and “forget to breathe” when they have bladder irritation. Some people receive a diagnosis of sleep apnea, daytime apnea, or “central sleep apnea”, but in fact, apneas are often a signal that the body is trying to rebalance in some way. Holding an exhale or holding an inhale literally switches the body from a state of fight-or-flight to a state of rest-and-digest or vice versa. So bladder irritation can actually be signaling the body to make this switch, in part to reduce irritation by alkalinizing the urine, and in part to rebalance the physiology of the body in a way that serves the whole organism.
Overactive Bladder and Sleep Apnea
Scientific studies have shown that there’s a connection between an overactive bladder and sleep apnea. Sleep apnea, of course, happens when breath is disrupted during sleep. Overactive bladder can be caused by cystitis (where cystitis is defined technically as inflammation of the bladder due to any cause). In those with overactive bladder, people feel a frequent need to pee to a degree that it negatively impacts their lives. Though sleep apnea is something that’s thought of primarily as a night-time issue, in fact, people do have daytime apneas as well where they hold their breath on the inhale or on the exhale and then “forget” to breathe.This connection between “forgetting to breathe” and bladder irritation is something that’s familiar to me because I once had this problem too, along with the cystitis and the fibromyalgia. I was given the diagnosis of “central sleep apnea”, but again I refused to label this problem as such. Instead, I watched myself and observed how often I'd catch myself holding my breath during the day when I had bladder irritation.Holding my breath led to joint stiffness and pain and it made me feel exhausted because I wasn’t sleeping well. Indeed, sleep apnea causes people to do something called “fractionating” wherein each time they wake due to the apnea, they fall back to sleep even more deeply. These super-deep states of sleep make people wake feeling groggy and unrested.
At that time, I didn’t know that holding one’s breath on the inhale was acidifying to the body and that holding one’s breath on the exhale was alkalizing to the body. I didn’t know that I was, perhaps, holding my breath in order to balance my internal pH. What I did notice was that bladder irritation would cause me to hold my breath in a particular way that varied somewhat, but that always led me to a point where I felt exhausted, achy, and generally bad.
There were two ways to look at this problem:
- The anxiety that I felt as a result of bladder irritation would cause my entire body’s pH to change via a change in my breathing, which in turn, would cause me to feel fatigued, achy, and sick.
OR
- The anxiety that I felt as a result of bladder irritation would cause my entire body’s pH to change via my breathing in an effort to restore some kind of balance that had caused the bladder irritation in the first place.
Anyone who is working to heal cystitis or get rid of recurrent urinary tract infections or cure overactive bladder needs to be aware of the important connection between the lungs and the kidneys – between the breath and the urine. The pH of blood normally stays within a narrow range between 7.35 and 7.45, but your brain can actually get used to elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the body and develop less sensitivity such that less carbon dioxide is properly removed. Carbon dioxide acidifies the urine and the blood. If too much carbon dioxide builds up in the blood, the kidneys may begin to produce more bicarbonate to try to alkalize the blood and the urine. This problem is called “chronic respiratory acidosis” and often, there are no noticeable symptoms. Though it sounds serious, baking soda therapy can be used to restore an alkaline state and Wim Hof breathwork can be used to retrain the body in terms of how to breathe again.
Uric acid buildup, which can lead to painful conditions like kidney stones, happens under conditions of low oxygen saturation in the body (hypoxia). Hypoxia, of course, can occur as a result of something like sleep apnea or daytime apnea. And these apneic conditions which lead to hypoxia, of course, can be caused by bladder irritation. So you see, the connection between the lungs, kidneys, and bladder is worth careful consideration for anyone who has cystitis, painful bladder syndrome, overactive bladder, or any number of urinary tract issues overlapping with other disease states in other areas of the body.
Most doctors won’t be able or willing to work with the idea that your sleep apnea and bladder irritation are, perhaps, related to each other. If you note that you have these two problems, you’ll get sent to two different specialists who have no knowledge of the other’s specialities which means that neither will be able to look at the cystitis-sleep apnea problem as a holistic issue. That shouldn’t stop you from seeking out care from a practitioner who is able to think holistically though. An osteopathic physician or an integrative medicine doctor will be more likely to be able to consider the big picture and guide you through the healing process with breath and bladder issues. Or consider going to an acupuncturist, an Ayurvedic medicine practitioner, or a naturopathic doctor for help.
Structural Abnormalities and Cystitis
In addition to breath and pH, there are certain structural abnormalities, some permanent, others temporary and even fleeting, that can cause cystitis, painful bladder syndrome, overactive bladder, and recurrent urinary tract infections. Structural abnormalities like diverticula, organ prolapse, and reservoirs in the bladder can all be an underlying cause for cystitis, painful bladder syndrome, and overactive bladder.It’s tempting for patients to assume that structural abnormalities in the bladder or other areas of the body are incurable, unchangeable, and that they’ll always cause the same problems. In reality, organs can change shape. As tissues heal and get their natural electrical charge back, they become more pliable. Organ prolapse in western medicine can only be “fixed” using surgery (which often makes the prolapse worse), but acupuncturists regularly work with the problem of prolapsed organs with only needles and herbs. Though western doctors may recommend surgery to get rid of a bladder diverticula, in fact, the use of castor oil and dimethyl sulfoxide applied topically to the skin may be enough to get rid of adhesions and fibrotic tissues that have created the abnormal diverticula.
That being said, some people opt to undergo surgery for cystitis because they believe that surgery is the most powerful and therefore “best” option for treatment. But we don’t generally recommend that people undergo surgery, especially in situations like these in which the body is low on energy and needs more energy in order to heal. If you do undergo surgery though, consider seeking out an acupuncturist to help you restore the proper flow of energy to your body afterwards.
Nutrient Deficiencies
At the top of the list of things that we often see in health coaching clients with painful bladder syndrome / cystitis is nutrient deficiencies. Most people never consider the possibility that nutrient deficiencies underlie their severe bladder irritation, yet this is often the case. There are several nutrient deficiencies that, when present, cause the body to be more vulnerable to certain toxins and certain types of infection. Iodine deficiency, for example, leaves the body vulnerable to bioaccumulation of bromide and fluoride. In turn, the combined toxicity caused by bromide and fluoride buildup along with a deficiency of iodine causes severe immune system dysfunction and electrical malfunctioning of cells. Many people with iodine deficiency and bromide or fluoride toxicity end up with some type of parasite infection or systemic Candida infection. They struggle against these infections, unable to overcome them in large part because of the deficiency of iodine.Correcting nutrient deficiencies can change the expression of a person’s DNA which can, in turn, give the body what it needs to correct some of the structural issues that are causing organ prolapse, reservoirs, or even bladder diverticula. Sometimes nutrient deficiency correction leads to alleviation of sleep apnea caused by bladder irritation. A lack of certain essential nutrients changes our body pH and how we metabolize other nutrients that are not deficient.
Herbs for Painful Bladder Syndrome / Overactive Bladder / Cystitis
Herbs are an important resource for anyone with cystitis / painful bladder syndrome / overactive bladder, but you have to know how to use herbs properly or it will seem as though they don’t work. Pay attention to dosage and how the herbs are supposed to be prepared for use. Some herbs can be steeped like a regular herbal tea while others must be prepared as a decoction and be simmered for 10-20 minutes to extract its medicinal properties. Not all herbs function well in pill form. Often (but not always), herbs must be taken in fairly high doses (but never above the recommended maximum dose) in order for them to work properly.Herbs often complement nutrient supplements to treat cystitis / painful bladder syndrome / overactive bladder by supplying some of the nutrients that the body needs in order to heal. Herbs, of course, also contain medicinal agents. Many of the medicines prescribed by doctors, after all, are derived from plants.
FDA-Approved Medicines
We include information about dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) in this discussion as an FDA-approved medicine for cystitis during pregnancy. Of course, DMSO can also be used in people who are not pregnant, but DMSO has an excellent safety profile when it is used with proper care and it is a powerful treatment for cystitis.DMSO has the broadest medicinal action of any other FDA-approved medication, which is both good and bad. Its broad medicinal action makes this medicine into a swiss army knife in terms of treatments for disease, but it’s wise to learn a bit about DMSO before you attempt to work with it. Though DMSO is FDA-approved, and available over-the-counter, most doctors don’t use it or recommend it because this medicine poses a threat to modern medicine in a general way. You see, DMSO is a powerful solvent, so it can be combined with other medicines to strengthen them, thus allowing for doctors to administer a lower dose of medicines that are normally given at higher, toxic doses. A good example of the use of DMSO to potentiate medicines such that lower, less toxic doses can be given is DMSO-Potentiation Therapy for cancer, also known as DPT. In DPT, patients are given low-dose chemotherapy that has the same force and power as higher-dose chemo except without the toxic side effects.
Methylene blue is another FDA-approved, over-the counter medicine that can be used to treat recurrent urinary tract infection, overactive bladder, and cystitis. Methylene blue was the first pharmaceutical ever developed by Big Pharma and like DMSO, it has an extremely broad spectrum of medicinal action. It should not ever be combined with DMSO, however.
Methylene Blue can be combined with methenamine, an over-the-counter antibiotic that has been used to treat and prevent recurrent UTIs at home. Methenamine works by being broken down into formaldehyde in the bladder. The formaldehyde is toxic to bacteria which makes it valuable as a treatment for UTI. Unfortunately, however, formaldehyde is also toxic to human cells. Nonetheless, we discuss the use of methylene blue and methenamine as non-prescription antibiotics for UTI that work to reduce bladder pain and inflammation too.
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Cystitis During Pregnancy
Though DMSO can be safely used during pregnancy, methylene blue and methenamine should generally be avoided during pregnancy as a treatment for cystitis. However, there are a number of treatments that we discuss here that women can use to safely treat bladder irritation during pregnancy without harming the baby or themselves. Cystitis during pregnancy requires special attention because the kidneys are the most important organs, second only to the uterus, in maintaining a healthy pregnancy. The major, life-threatening complications that cause issues during pregnancy involve the kidneys, so it’s important to choose medicines that support kidney health when treating cystitis during pregnancy.Summary
Interstitial cystitis / painful bladder syndrome, overactive bladder, and recurrent UTIs can all be treated successfully at home. In fact, conventional medicine offers very little in terms of treatment options. Prescription antibiotics, for example, generally do a lot more harm than good. But if you’re new to the idea of finding a cure for overactive bladder syndrome, cystitis / painful bladder syndrome, or recurrent UTI, you should know that Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and a variety of other models of medicine regularly cure cystitis, overactive bladder, and recurrent UTIs permanently. It can take some time to find the magic formula that will work for you, but cystitis and overactive bladder cures and recurrent UTI cures do, in fact, exist.Resources:
• Soliman, M. (2023). The link between sleep apnea and overactive bladder. Retrieved March 4, 2024 from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/sleep-apnea-and-overactive-bladder
