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Interstitial Cystitis: The Estrogen Connection, Heather G. Kuruvilla

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

Interstitial cystitis (IC), or painful bladder syndrome, is an autoimmune condition with an unknown etiology. Common symptoms include urinary urgency, frequency, and bladder and urethral pain and burning. This condition, like many autoimmune disorders, disproportionately affects females; therefore, female sex hormones are hypothesized to play a role in the disorder. My hypothesis is that estrogen, both endogenous and synthetic, affects the severity of IC symptoms. Through surveying the available literature on interstitial cystitis, I have found that IC symptoms often correlate with low estrogen. My hope is that by understanding more about how hormones affect IC, we can come up …