Let me apologize up front, this is going to be long. We have been dealing with this for over two years and it has come to the point where the doctor says there is nothing left to do but remove my wife's bladder. I am looking for alternatives. I have used CS for years and used to frequent this group but it has been a few years tho I do read it upon occasion to try and keep up. I use the silver puppy ( thanks Ode) to make my silver and it has done well for me and my family in many ways. Now to the problem.
My wife has been dealing with bladder problems, frequency, pain, occasional bleeding and in the past two years we have seen two specialist. In fact the one we are working with now is the head of the department in Dallas. The first urologist we went to did a cystoscopy and found that the inside of her bladder was inflamed and had red splotches in several places. He also said that he would have just burned the places while he was in there but he would have had to do it to basically the whole back wall of her bladder. She was put of antibiotic regimens none of which have worked other than the pain would start easing up about the time she would reach the end of the pills. Then about a month later the doc would take a look but of course anything that was getting better would be relapsed by then ( never understood why it took a month or more to see if anything was working or not ) and it would be worse in places. It got to the point where we were told the inside of her bladder was 75-85% hamburger meat. He also said that it was not IC but it was similar symptoms. She also has what can best be described as Hunners Ulcers that bleed occasionally in three or four places in her bladder. The doc said he had never seen anything like this before and didn't know what to do. He even consulted with colleagues and all were stumped. As we were leaving our last visit I asked if there was anything at all we could do other than go to Dallas where he was referring us to. He said not really unless we wanted to try using silver protein. I had been thinking that CS would probably fix the problem all along but I didn't know how to get it into her bladder other than drinking it which was not working. When the doc suggested the silver protein I thought maybe that will be close enough. I had to buy it from a pharmacy at $40.00 for 40cc and they had to order supplies and make it. I asked the pharmacist what was in it and was told distilled water and silver and that was all. This was a dark brown liquid that was put into my wife's bladder via catheter and she had to hold it in for fifteen minutes and lay in different positions every five minutes. This stuff caused her much pain. It was like pouring acid in her bladder even if they used lanacane to numb it first. She hated it every time. I tried to get her to let me try my CS because I believed it would do better and not burn like the other stuff but she was afraid to do that and wanted to see it through with the doc. We did these treatments once a week for six weeks then the doc took a look to see if there was any change. Sure enough it went from 75-80% hamburger down to 25% and she could tell the difference. So we are thinking we are on the right track. Something is finally working and showing signs of improvement. So he says let's do six more treatments and try and knock it out all the way. So we did the six treatments over the next six weeks and checked again but no change. Still at 25%. So then he says let's try eight more treatments and at thirty minutes this time. I was in the room with my wife during every treatment holding her hand and watching how things were done. It was a good thing too because the bill was really adding up and turned out the insurance wasn't paying what we thought and the weekly visits were adding up fast. They finally called and told us that we had to pay $150.00 every time she had a treatment. Plus $40.00 for the meds. No way we could do that so they said they would write the script for the silver protein and teach me how to do the treatment ( now I know how to get the silver into the bladder). So we do the eight treatments but still no change. So now we have to go to Super Specialist in Dallas. This doc has been very good to us. He has been gentle and caring with my wife and tried everything he can to help. We have done fulgurations twice but no luck. This last time he told us that the inner lining of her bladder has no flexibility at all. Her bladder is brittle and he can put as little as two ounces of liquid in her bladder and it will start bleeding. So basically everything medically that can be done between fulguration and diversion/bladder removal he says that her bladder is in too bad of shape and doesn't think anything will work or even help. He has encouraged us to seek out and explore everything we can before we make the decision to do the removal. And that's why I am here. She has agreed to trying my CS now. We have already completed one treatment. There was no pain or burning and she is amazed. This is where I am going to need some help, suggestions, advice. I don't think the CS will get the job done on its own. After a few more treatments ( we are doing two treatments a week about three days apart for now with 40cc CS ) I was thinking of starting to add a few drops of DMSO to the CS thinking that may help the CS penetrate the bladder wall better. I was think of starting with a couple of drops and the adding a drop or two until I reach about six drops or it becomes uncomfortable for her whichever comes first. I am also wondering if adding a little MSM would be helpful in any way. Also I am thinking that I would like to try pulsing at the same time and would like thoughts on that. This is a last ditch effort for us and we would appreciate any and all help, suggestions, or experiences you would care to share. Thank you for your time. Jeff
