Someone who has been a patient for over a year now and doing quite well brought up a question that I thought was really important. She said she had a traumatic event occur in her life just before she started having chronic infections in her bladder that led to instillations and treatments and ultimately IC. Interesting question! There was a study that we had come up back when I was in school that involved the affects on the urinary bladders of young children proximal to heavy bombin areas in World War II. Fascinating–to connect the relationship between the fear that these children were subjected to and the consequent reactions to that fear in their bodies. They all started having bladder and kidney problems. I need to search and dig up that research, it is burried somewhere in all of my notes from years past. But, this is an extreme example that validates my patient’s question. She went on to explain to me the incident that preceded her episodes of urinary tract infections, and it completely made sense, because it WAS traumatic. She seemed to narrate the story apprehensively as if she was embarrassed that it should have been so fear provoking, but, I thought it absolutely should have created a very intense level of fear that any young person of that age would have internalized into disease.

I am not suggesting that emotions are always the cause of IC or other disease, but, it can be one cause or a contributing factor.

Chinese medicine, as I said before, links emotions with physiology, but it is easy to be dismissive of this important factor. Fear is linked with the urinary system in Chinese medicine and the cause and effect, as in these cases may be profound. Many patients have issues of fear provoked by feelings of being unloved or judged. These two factors may not seem too destructive to most people, but over time and emanating from a parent, it can have quite an impact.

So, the moral of the story is that life effects us in many ways: inside, outside, energetically, and so on. Remember to think about these things in your life and address them in whatever you are doing in your pursuit of happiness and well-being.

Dr.B