If Nothing Ever Changed, There’d Be No Butterflies

Why is it that when things aren’t going well, we dig in and refuse to try simple changes? Isn’t the fact that things aren’t going well a sign that you might need to try something new? A patient that I had known for several years called my office sobbing in pain. She had no idea what to do next and felt that no therapies had ever worked for her. We spent some time trying to determine what was triggering her pain. When I asked her if she was following the diet, she emphatically said “yes.” Her husband, however, was also on the phone and he said “No. She has never followed the diet. She drinks a pot of coffee a day.” It was actually worse than that. She also drank several diet cokes a day and ate chocolate candy. As you can well imagine, she burst into tears, furious that the truth had been revealed. “Why are you taking away the things that give me great joy? I don’t want to stop coffee.” I asked her “Didn’t every doctor you see tell you that coffee was bad for IC?” She said “yes.” she cried. With growing frustration I asked “Didn’t I tell you about the IC diet five years ago and how coffee and soda was so harmful?” She quietly said “yes” and cried for several minutes on the phone murmuring about how it would destroy her day if she couldn’t have her coffee. I had to try to explain it in a different way. I asked “Would you pour coffee or soda on an open wound on your hand?” She said “no.” I asked “Don’t you have Hunner’s Ulcers?” She said “yes.” I countered “Aren’t those wounds in your bladder?” She said “yes.” I asked “Why are you pouring coffee and soda on wounds in your bladder?” She didn’t answer. Then, with the big guns blazing, I asked “Do you realize that you’ve sabotaged almost every treatment you’ve tried because you were drinking so much coffee?” There is a happy ending here. Three months later, she called me back to report that her bladder pain was steadily improving with no daily coffees or sodas. She had finally accepted that she had to change her diet and life. She had also lost weight and was feeling much more energetic.