Chronic cystitis or bladder pain: What is it, what helps?
Pain is incredibly annoying, and if you suffer from chronic cystitis with chronic bladder pain, it's no fun at all. In 90% of cases, women have chronic cystitis with chronic bladder pain, incredibly annoying because it has a lot of impact on your life. To ensure that you can have a pleasant life despite the inflammation, in this blog I will discuss chronic cystitis and how hypnosis can support your treatment
Cystitis
With a bladder infection, you often have bacteria or fungi—such as candida—in your bladder that cause the inflammatory response. This results in pain and pressure on the bladder. It’s incredibly uncomfortable.
Treatment usually consists of antibiotics because it often involves bacteria. To determine which antibiotics you need, your urine is examined with a culture. So it may take a few days before you receive the antibiotics from your doctor as well.
You can also do a lot yourself, for example, by drinking a lot of water. Finding out which drinks irritate your bladder and by putting a warm jug or something similar on your lower abdomen to reduce bladder discomfort.
Chronic bladder pain
More annoying is when you suffer from chronic bladder pain with no apparent cause. For example, your bladder infection is (finally) gone, but you still continue to suffer from pain similar to that of a bladder infection.
Many women with chronic bladder pain also suffer from pain during sex.
Unfortunately, there are few treatments for chronic bladder pain when there is no obvious cause. Anti-histamines are sometimes prescribed so it can be stopped in case of an allergic reaction, if this also does not help there are other treatments that are given.
Keeping a bladder diary
One way to better manage bladder pain is to keep a bladder diary. In this journal, you write down what you drink and how your bladder reacts to it. Triggers of bladder pain can be identified with this.
For example, if drinking soda makes your bladder pain worse, you’ll know to avoid it in the future. Adjusting your diet can already have a tremendous positive impact on a urinary tract infection or bladder pain. If you find it difficult to adjust your diet, a hypnosis expert can help you with this.
In addition, you can also check whether certain events during the day—such as stress, laughter, or similar factors—are causing bladder pain. Stress is also something that can be treated with hypnosis.
Make a list of all the medications you take
It is also wise to check what medications you are taking and whether they have bladder pain or weakening of the immune system as side effects. You can also send the list to your doctor so he can check if your medications have anything to do with chronic bladder pain.
Your doctor can then help you by changing your medication.
How hypnosis can help with chronic bladder pain
Hypnosis has long been an important tool for treating all kinds of pain, from chronic pain to pain relief during tattooing. That’s why hypnosis can also be a way to reduce the discomfort of chronic bladder pain.
For example, when it comes to whether your bladder pain bothers you and if so, how does it manifest itself. Is the pain just irritating or does it also affect your daily activities. In either case, hypnosis can help you suffer less from bladder pain.
Changing beliefs about pain
Pain is experienced subjectively. This is also why everyone has a different pain threshold. By influencing your subconscious, you can also influence your pain threshold, which can help reduce bladder pain.
Therefore, a hypnosis expert will always have a conversation with you about how you are experiencing pain. This can be very functional on a scale of 1 to 10 and then to what extent the pain is affecting your life. With this information, the hypnosis expert gets the input for using different hypnosis techniques to reduce pain.
Repetition of hypnotic suggestions
Depending on how bladder pain affects your life, a hypnosis expert can help you address your beliefs about the impact of pain on your life. By repeating hypnotic suggestions during self-hypnosis, you can already do a great deal to manage the pain. In addition, practicing self-hypnosis daily can help you reduce your daily need for medication to relieve the pain.
These can include hypnotic suggestions such as:
"I can still be sociable with family and friends."
"I can prepare my own food."
"I have freedom of movement with my car."
"My character is independent of circumstances."
These are just examples, depending on your beliefs and issues with bladder pain, you may be given other suggestions to repeat at home during self-hypnosis.
Guided visualization against bladder pain
A small study on the effect of hypnotherapy for bladder pain, involving 22 participants, showed that hypnosis was effective in reducing the use of painkillers by one-quarter to one-half. In this study, guided visualization was particularly effective.
There are several guided visualizations that can be used with pain. For example, one visualization against pain is when you visualize a kind of volume knob under hypnosis that allows you to turn down the pain.
Sometimes it can also involve lifting. Then the pain scale 1 out of 10 is used. For example, if your pain is at level four, you take the elevator to level 1 or even the basement, thus making the pain smaller.
Of course, practice is required for this visualization, which is why it is also done under the guidance of a hypnosis expert.
Guided visualization for relaxation
Relaxation exercises also work very well for bladder pain. This is also shown in the 2016 study Complementary therapies for bladder pain syndrome: a systematic review. Relaxation is an important part of hypnosis, and hypnosis helps you relax even further with pleasant guided visualization.
A guided visualization for relaxation often uses important symbols in your life. For example, colors that have a particular meaning for you. For example, your favorite color often stands for positive energy or warmth while a color you find ugly stands for negative energy. Or of certain places that you have once visited where you have completely calmed down.
A guided visualization for relaxation can take the following form.
"You're at your favorite vacation spot where you unwind. The pool at the campsite in the south of France where you go every year. It's nice and quiet as usual and the sun is shining. You feel the heat on your skin so you almost don't need clothes for warmth. You hear the insects in the grass and the birds singing. You smell the scents that are so characteristic during your vacation and the pool radiates wonderful refreshment. You lie down on your sun bed. The umbrella keeps the sun from shining into your eyes and you can relax. Your muscles slowly relax from your toes, to your legs, your stomach and back, your arms and your face. Pressing your tongue against your palate relaxes it as well. You breathe quietly through your belly and doze off in the wonderful warmth."
This is just an example of a guided visualization for relaxation. Depending on your place of relaxation, the hypnosis expert may choose to give a different guided visualization.
Performing self-hypnosis at home
Most hypnosis experts will put the guided visualizations and other hypnotic suggestions on an mp3 for you to listen to at home during self-hypnosis. Unfortunately, it does require more than just plugging the mp3 into your amplifier and simply turning it on.
It is important to really take some time to unwind. The induction of hypnosis may also be on the mp3, but if you're going to cheerfully do the dishes that's not going to help either.
Therefore, find a comfortable place in your home, such as the couch or your bed. Make sure you have comfortable clothes on and that you can listen to the mp3 undisturbed. So give everyone in your home clear instructions that you will be unavailable for the next 20 minutes.
Sit or lie down in a comfortable position and relax your muscles. Focus on your abdominal breathing and play the MP3. The rest will happen naturally, and you’ll notice that your bladder pain is much less severe than it was before listening to the MP3.
Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis works and how you can use it to help yourself and others? Then join our free online masterclass or attend one of our other events.
Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:
Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4947099/