If you don't have insurance, ask your physician if it would be possible to lower his or her fee. Some additional paperwork may be involved, but If you explain your situation, some physicians will do their best to accommodate you. If you have not been working, or are now unable to work, you may be eligible for Medicaid. The physical aspects of chronic IC pain can be debilitating. Unlike acute pain, which provides a warning signal that something has gone wrong with your body, chronic pain serves no actual physiologic purpose, and can be very taxing on the body.
Nonmalignant pain can hurt as much as malignant pain.
The pain of interstitial cystitis can be more severe than some forms of cancer. CNP is pain that lasts for more than three months, and does not respond well to conventional medical treatment. This type of pain affects 40 million Americans, according to Dr. Russell Portenoy, head of the American Pain Society and of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. IC patients may be all too aware of the physical effects of chronic pain, but many people, including some physicians, don't acknowledge or understand the serious implications of chronic pain. Only recently has CNP begun to be investigated, and what researchers are finding underscores what IC patients have felt all along.