John's Story

Disclaimer: John does not proclaim to be a medical authority. Any treatment options or medications should be discussed and monitored by your physician.

John is a trial lawyer in Tennessee. He was a college athlete and rugby player. He had years of discomfort misdiagnosed as prostatitis, for which he was treated with antibiotics. It would recede for a while and then come back. At one point it came back and did not go away. His symptoms were frequency and a nagging, sharp pain in his lower back and prostate area. He would go to the bathroom and not be able to urinate. He was miserable. A doctor did look around but only found inflammation, which he did not think was IC, and again antibiotics were prescribed. The doctor did not suspect IC because it was thought to be primarily a women's disease.

John went everywhere looking for relief. A branch of the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, UCLA and Columbia Medical Center. He had all sorts of terrible tests done. His prostate was massaged, drained and he even had surgery on it. Nothing helped. He was still miserable. A Urologist in Nashville finally did a cystoscopy and diagnosed IC with Hunner's ulcers. This was in 1998 or 1999. He was put on Elmiron. John did see a gradual improvement with Elmiron.

In '98 or '99 John found Matia and came out to Los Angeles to see her. She has supervised him ever since. He continues on Elmiron but also takes the herbs prescribed by Matia. He did double the dose of Elmiron (recommended for males). Also, when he comes to Los Angeles he has acupuncture treatments with Matia. Matia monitors his progress and adjusts the herbs as necessary.

John has continued to make steady improvements and does not want to stop either the herbs or the Elmiron. He got much better after he did what Matia told him, although he does not follow her instructions to the letter. He tends to cheat a little on his diet. He knows that if he were stricter he would be doing so much better. However, even his bad spells are better than his best days before. John has a great deal of confidence in Matia. He knows that everything she does, if it does not make him better, is not going to hurt him. She has always been very kind to him.