IC Awareness: Not Always a Perfect Science

I am much more drawn to reading magazines about women's health, urology, entrepreneurship and the occasional foray into mid-century modern design, so maybe I have missing instances when IC and other women's health issues have debuted in glossy women's magazines.  Last week while I was eating my lunch at work (and after thoroughly chastising myself for forgetting my library book) I was mindlessly thumbing through one of the aforementioned glossy magazines that seem to contain more ads for fingernail polish and tooth brighteners than actual articles, but I digress.  Imagine my surprise when I came across an article about the female urinary tract smack in the middle of the November 2011 issue of Ladies Home Journal and an ever so small blurb about Interstitial Cystitis.  I think I actually interrupted one of my female co-workers with an "oh my goodness! I hate to interrupt but I just found a little something about IC in this magazine!"  Sadly my excitement was very quickly replaced with disappointment bordering on anger.  All of my hopes about IC finally going 'mainstream' were very quickly dashed by the tiny and very insignificant write up which glossed over the number of women in the U.S. alone with this disease, but how they made light of the sheer pain it entails, how many years it usually takes for a diagnosis, and how the quality of life for IC sufferers is greatly compromised.  I am also furious that the article claims that IC pain from urine in the bladder is somehow remedied, cited in the article as 'relief once you pee'.  If the writers had actually done some research they might have been able to provide information for women who might have IC but have not been officially diagnosed by providing the main symptoms of: chronic pain, urgency and frequency.  And instead of only citing that 'up to 8 million women might have IC' as provided by the Interstitial Cystitis Association they could have actually provided their website as a resource.  I am still reeling that the writers of the article left out so many important facts and factors about IC, leaving the reader to think that IC is not as devastating and as prevalent in our society as it actually is.