Three Common Medicines for Interstitial Cystitis

The cause of interstitial cystitis still remains unknown. There’s no treatment works for everyone as the reason that there might be several different causes of it. Thus, different patients are given different treatments according to their conditions.

Many medicines, such as oral hydroxyzine and oral amitriptyline, are prescribed to patients with interstitial cystitis, but most of them are not specifically approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for the purpose of treating this disease.

Only two medicines are approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat interstitial cystitis. One is oral pentosan polysulfate, but how it works for IC is known by no one. Many people think that it can build and restore the protective coating on the bladder epithelium and it may also help to reduce inflammation. But it also has some side effects, like nausea, diarrhea and gastric distress. Four percent of people will encounter hair loss which is reparable. After at least three to six months, a significant improvement can be noticed. It is effective in relieving pain in about 30% of patients.

The other is dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). Doctor will place it into the bladder through a catheter usually once a week for six weeks. It can do some help in blocking inflammation, relieving pain and removing a type of toxin called "free radicals" that can damage tissue. The main side effect is a garlic-like odor that lasts for several hours after using DMSO. For some patients, DMSO can be painful to place into the bladder which can be relieved by placing a local anesthetic into the bladder through a catheter first or by mixing the local anesthetic with the DMSO.

A new medicine called diuretic and anti-inflammatory pill was developed by Doctor Lee Xiaoping in Wuhan. Different from the two medicines mentioned above, this medicine is made of herbs. Those herbs can remove inflammation just like the pentosan polysulfate and eliminate toxins in our body. At the same time, it helps to promote blood circulation and Qi. But it won’t cause any side effect. Besides, it only takes about one month to improve the patients’ condition, and after about three months, almost all the symptoms will disappear. Now, this medicine has become a worth try for interstitial cystitis patients.

There are also many other IC treatments but less frequently than the ones described. In some cases, no therapy works, but patients can still have significant improvement in the quality of life with adequate pain management. The diuretic and anti-inflammatory pill can also relieve pain effectively.