Symptoms And Diagnosis Of Interstitial Cystitis

Pain And Voiding Test

A pain and voiding test may be used in addition to other diagnostic tests to help make an interstitial cystitis diagnosis in an affected individual. The primary symptom that characterizes interstitial cystitis is frequent pain. A physician will administer a series of tests where the patient is asked to fill out several questionnaires to evaluate what their baseline pain value is. The evaluation primarily aims to identify the patient's locations of pain, pain characteristics, intensity or severity of their pain, and to determine the factors that cause their discomfort and pain to become worse or better. Part of this evaluation is the physician inquiring about how often the affected individual voids urine. A consistent but infrequent pattern of voiding urine can indicate the patient is being affected by another condition or problem. A pattern of the individual voiding high volumes of urine can prompt the physician to also consider other urological disease and conditions besides interstitial cystitis that could be causing their symptoms.

Read more about how interstitial is diagnosed now.