I actually was looking up an old blog I had started to discuss my journey and decided to post a note of hope here for those who are newly diagnosed (or just needing some inspiration). 

So, in short, my symptoms are now nearly 100% in remission. 

I was diagnosed in mid 2009 with vulvodynia and IC. Dear Lord. Sex became excruciating somewhere around January 2009. I had been diagnosed with BV in the months before that, and while taking some antibiotics helped, the pain always returned. When I met my boyfriend in August of 2009 I started having the all too familiar UTI symptoms... without the infection. One morning in November 2009 it became incessant. Truly, I could not leave the bathroom for an entire day and was confined to my room for about two months, fearful of being far from a bathroom. My urethra was burning, I had a constant urge to pee and it felt as though my bladder was on fire. You know the drill, I'm sure! 

I moved in with my parents shortly after the symptoms began in full force. I gave up on life. I dumped my boyfriend, refused to get a job and devoted myself to finding a cure. My diagnosis was dire: IC. It will never go away. Well, I went to acupuncturists, IC specialists, surgeons, doctors, naturopaths, ayurvedic practitioners, massage therapists and psychics! HELP!!!!! No one could. Truly, nothing changed the pain I experienced day after day, every single time I peed. I changed my diet, fasted for two weeks on juice and one week only on water, moved, got a job, lost a job, tried different partners, started meditating, prayed my heart out, was celibate for a year, ate every herb I could find, tried douches and filled my medicine cabinet with various creams, pads and liquids. Truly, I think I spent somewhere around $20,000. Holy ****. Nothing made it worse. Nothing made it better. In May of 2010 I started experiencing rectal pain... and I spent a day screaming. Okay. It was bad. 

About a year ago I moved to Kauai. There, I met an exorcist who prayed with me daily in the name of Yeshua. I simply asked God to reveal to me, in the presence of another individual, barriers between me and Him (the Source), curses placed upon me, and any spirits associated with them. We renounced the barriers, we broke the curses and he rebuked the spirits in my soul. Listen, I was not quite a believer in exactly this sort of thing beforehand, but slowly I felt transformed. By the time I left the island, after about seven months, the pain was ever present but no longer plagued my thoughts and brought me down into a lowly depression as it had before. I had simply begun to accept that the pain was not something I could cause, cure or control. If I could, I would have! I simply turned my focus back on taking care of myself... a totally different thing than trying to change the pain I was in actually. I started treating myself with a little more love, like taking a hot bath and nurturing my body, as I would a suffering friend. Gradually, the pain ebbed. 

I moved back in with my parents about seven months ago. It's been a tough summer and fall, full of stress and challenges. I still experience pain from time to time (around my period, if I drink a seltzer water, if I'm dehydrated), but, weirdly, it's at about 5% of what it was. There are now times in which I can pee pain free. Whoa. Plus, I can have amazing sex again without suffering dramatically the next day. What can I say? This is something myself am struggling to believe, day to day. Little by little. However, I must let you know that there is hope. If you are a person who prays, perhaps find a good friend or priest to pray with you.