I am petrified of the bladder biopsy I am about to have..... Can anyone help?

[Chablis]

I have been suffering with persistent abdominal pain which has in the past been treated as a uti but in January I managed to see a urologist who upon listening to my tail of woe agreed with me and suggested that I had developed interstitial cystitis. In order to be 100% sure about this, they want me to have a bladder biopsy under general anaesthetic. I believe that this could be because they need a lot of samples.

As the time draws nearer, I am getting worried as the pain is excruciating when I have an attack and the thought of them taking bits out would no doubt aggravate the whole system.

Has anyone had one? Can you shed some light on it????

[shaws Administrator]

Reallyfedup could be right - it could be due to not being on sufficient medication. Just for info this is an excerpt re Ovarian Cysts. Female problems are rife with hypo:

Multiple Ovarian Cysts as

a Major Symptom of Hypothyroidism

The case I describe below is of importance to women with polycystic ovaries. If

they have evidence, such as a high TSH, that conventional clinicians accept as evidence of hypothyroidism, they may fair well. But the TSH is not a valid gauge of a woman's tissue thyroid status. Because of this, she may fair best by adopting self-directed care. At any rate, for women with ovarian cysts, this case is one of extreme importance.

In 2008, doctors at the gynecology department in Gunma, Japan reported the case of a 21-year-old women with primary hypothyroidism. Her doctor referred her to the gynecology department because she had abdominal pain and her abdomen was distended up to the level of her navel.

At the gynecology clinic she underwent an abdominal ultrasound and CT scan. These imaging procedures showed multiple cysts on both her right and her left ovary. The woman's cholesterol level and liver function were increased. She also had a high level of the muscle enzyme (creatine phosphokinase) that's often high in hypothyroidism. Blood testing also showed that the woman had primary hypothyroidism from autoimmune thyroiditis.

It is noteworthy that the young woman's ovarian cysts completely disappeared soon after she began thyroid hormone therapy. Other researchers have reported girls with primary hypothyroidism whose main health problems were ovarian cysts or precocious puberty. But this appears to be the first case in which a young adult female had ovarian cysts that resulted from autoimmune-induced hypothyroidism.

The researchers cautioned clinicians: "To avoid inadvertent surgery to remove an

ovarian tumor, it is essential that a patient with multiple ovarian cysts and hypothyroidism be properly managed, as the simple replacement of a thyroid hormone could resolve the ovarian cysts."[1]"