Gloria Prater - The founder of IC Action and the IC Friends Community. She has been independently
studying nutrition and natural health for the last ten years. Gloria's
interest in nutrition and natural health stems from overcoming a thirty year battle with chronic urological pelvic pain which included, Interstitial Cystitis, Endometriosis and Pelvic floor dysfunction. As the years past she would be diagnosed with fibromyalgia, multiple chemical
sensitivities, and lupus. She is founder and host of a live internet radio show and she has spoken publicly on many occasions regarding chronic pain, social security disability, housing for the disabled and patients rights. She is an advocate, educator and
consultant, covering several different aspects of nutrition and health.
Healthy living, advocating for those who suffer with chronic bladder and pelvic pain are just some of her passions. In her spare time she enjoys creating new recipes, crocheting, sewing, yoga, traveling and spending time with her family and close friends.
Simply
put, she loves sharing with others, teaching healthy living, and seeing
the beauty in all things despite of having interstitial cystitis and
lupus.
Gloria brings
years of bladder and pelvic pain syndrome experience and compassion to
every person she works with, to every article she writes and to every edition
of the "Improving IC with the Essential of Healthy Living" radio show.
Creating
the I.C. Action is her way of giving back the gifts that
were given to her by so many wonderful IC patients, family, friends
colleagues and people who not only treated her but taught her the benefits
of complimentary health care.
Traditional
doctors were unable to improve nor resolve her symptoms associated with
Interstitial Cystitis or the Lupus symptoms she was dealing with. After
suffering for over 25 years with chronic pelvic and bladder pain she had
lost all hope in traditional medicine. Gloria had been sent to every
specialist you can think of and even when test results proved positive
they were unable to give her clear answers or useful treatments. She was
often shown very little compassion and treated as if the pain was all in her head.
There was no specialist left to see and 25 years later she was in the worse pain ever. Gloria had received the Interstim Implant for frequency and after having the implant for approximately 4 years it became infected not once but twice which brought her out of a 3 year remission. She was experiencing new symptoms and the pain was worse than it had ever been. After 6 surgeries she insisted that the Urologist remove the implant permanently. Today, she admits that she did not think through getting the implant, it hardly helped with her frequency and that she was never given the option of bladder retraining nor physical therapy. Once learning that bladder retraining and physical therapy were an option she took advantage of both and still uses these treatments as maintenance.
Although she had success with physical therapy it became painfully clear that no one treatment or self-help technique was
going to resolve her health issues, which was a difficult pill to
swallow. She knew that the underlying causes of her
condition had never been address but rather masked with medication. It
was time to address the emotional pain, negative thinking patterns,
historical trauma, and her sedentary lifestyle which lacked a healthy exercise
routine and her unhealthy eating habits. There were times when she would binge and times when the pain was so bad that she feared eating food of any kind. Here weight went up and down for years. She was disheartened by the fact that the medications,
treatments, Interstim implant and gluten free diet were not working and she
did not want to spend the rest of my life battling this debilitating
pain that had stripped her of any decent quality of life.
It was time to take responsibility for her health care. Once
again she found herself on a journey, but this time the journey began
within. It became apparent that she had to heal from the inside out and
not the other way around. The road became long and bumpy but at the
same time and it was full of excitement because for the first time her symptoms began to improve. She thought "It's A Miracle"!
Gloria's journey took her from denial to acceptance, fear to love, shame to
honesty, anger to letting go, controlling to serenity, self-will to a
higher power. She realized to be aware was good
but acting on the awareness was even better. Like many of us, she had
become conditioned to look for the quick fix , the magic pill which,
deep down, she knew didn't exist. It was time to take responsibility for her own health care and stop hunting for the cure. The fact was she had a
myriad of symptoms that could have had any number of causes and looking
for the cause became secondary to improving the quality of her life through
healthy lifestyle changes.
Gloria had many teachers and she was taught that if she wanted to resolve and
prevent health issues she had to adopt a organic, clean nutrient dense diet and healthy lifestyle.
The
success she experienced within just a few months of changing her diet from the Standard American Diet to a clean, organic, nutrient dense diet was truly amazing. She said it inspired her to continue taking care of her body, mind, and
spirit because, for the first time in her life, her symptoms were both improving and even resolving themselves.
Gloria started the IC Action and the IC Friends Community because she just had to share her success with all you who have been suffering way to long.
Although the medical profession claims to be advancing and using the
most up-to-date treatments for patients with bladder and pelvic pain, she prefers to practice healthy living to resolve symptoms rather than
continuing to take drugs that simply don't work, mask symptoms, cause
uncomfortable and/or dangerous (possibly long term) side effects or
surgeries that made no difference but, more to the point, caused more
health issues.
Gloria knows your pain and she wants every person with bladder and pelvic pain syndrome to feel
confident in choosing methods to care for their symptoms. This site is
meant to educate about the essentials of healthy living and assist
individuals in accomplishing their goals to resolve symptoms related to
bladder and pelvic pain without drugs or surgery. However,Gloria and those who assist her with the site are well aware of the fact that there are times when medication is necessary!
Attended:
North Shore Community College, Danvers, MA -93-94 Technical Nursing Program /Surgical Patient Care
The New England School of Whole Health Education, Boston, MA 95-96 - Whole Health Educator
North Shore Community College, Danvers, MA - 2003-04 Legal Administration
Volunteer/Advocate
for over 15 years - woman's rights, tenants/landlord rights, special
education, rehabilitation for juvenile offenders and IC patients rights
to health care and disability benefits.
What qualifies her to help others?
Battling
Lupus and IC/CPP for 29 years without a doubt is the experience she
has used to build this site, the IC Friends Community and the IC radio
show.
One day at a time!
