THANK YOU TO VOLUNTEERS WHO MADE THE SURVEY POSSIBLE:

First, thank you to more than 1500 patients who have taken the time to fill out our survey,

I owe my life to two doctors who practiced medicine primarily to help patients, not primarily as a business model: Dr. Howard Lutz, who first diagnosed food allergies and an overgrowth of candida in my intestine in 1981, and thereby ended several years of extreme gas and pain in the intestine, and thank you also to Olga Diamondes, a dear friend who saw this holistic internist on a TV talk show and insisted I see him, Thank you also to the doctor who used new, evidence based medical research and 50 years of experience to successfully diagnose and treat my chronic urgency and frequency (30 years) which began with urological surgeries - dilations of the urethra, silver nitrate instillations and many courses of antibiotics administered by urologists. He relieved me of my bladder symptoms by treating the cause of the problem, and without surgery or ongoing pharmaceuticals. See NWHN article for details, link at top of home page. This doctor is retired and wishes to remain anonymous,

Dr. Diane Churchill for years of encouragement and enlightenment,

Thank you to the doctors and leaders of women’s health organizations who made the publishing of survey data possible:

Doctor Elizabeth Kavaler for supporting www.cystitispatientsurvey.com from the beginning, advising me, and organizing the data analysis and writing of the article for UROLOGY (link at top of home page),

Doctors Jennifer R. Hill, Ginger Isom-Batz, Georgia Panagopoulos and Dr. E. Kavaler for analyzing some of the data from the first 750 surveys and writing the article, “Patient Perceived Outcomes of Treatments Used for Interstitial Cystitis,” which was published in the medical journal UROLOGY, 71 (1), 2008

Cindy Pearson and staff at The National Women’s Health Network, for a letter of support for the survey from the first day and for asking myself and Dr. Hill to write an article for them about the survey, www.nwhn.org. See the top of this page for links to the NWHN article about the survey,

Judy Norsigian and staff at Our Bodies Ourselves, for a letter of support for the survey from the beginning, for reprinting the NWHN article and producing a blog on the article, www.ourbodiesourselves.org See the top of this page for a link to the blog,

Mary Jo Keitzer, Professor of Nursing and the Director of the University of Minnesota Center for Spirituality and Healing, for early encouragement and current analysis of patient written answers on the survey, www.csh.umn.edu

Carol Sakala, Director of The Childbirth Connection, for advice and encouragement many times, www.childbirthconnection.org

The Director of the New York Academy of Medicine, Janie Kaplan, and the librarians who work with her, - NYAM is the last remaining medical library open to the public other than the New York Public Library, in New York City and I have been visiting them since the late 1970s (medical libraries are mostly closed to the public around the country now), www.nyam.org/library,

And to the Maine Medical Center Library and librarians, one of the few medical libraries still open and welcoming! to the public, Portland, and to the Librarian, Leslie Rounds, of Dyer Library, Saco, Maine for reading the NWHN article before submission to NWHN.

Anonymous surgeons and private urologists in England and Germany,

Several organizations for patients started and run by patients:

The Interstitial Cystitis Network and President Jill Osborne, for her encouragement and advice and for providing a link to the survey from the beginning and reprinting the NWHN article in the Magazine,
www.ic-network.com,

The Interstitial Cystitis Association for republishing the NWHN article. www.ichelp.org

Cystitis and Overactive Bladder Foundation, COB, a very large patient organization in England, for encouragement from the beginning of the survey, www.cobfoundation.org.

The International Painful Bladder Foundation, Jane Meijlink in the Netherlands for support and encouragement www.painful-bladder.org

Website design, programming, export of data to Excel, data analysis:

Professor Yelena Aronson for designing the website and ongoing, many hours of work on the site

Mikhail Markov for programming the survey and for ongoing, many hours of advice

Steve Davis, Net Vantage, who volunteered to export survey data to Excel and sent it to the analysts, and who helped with technical questions that put me over the edge,

Robert Green, who as a grad student at the University of Wisconsin Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, did a separate data analysis with an excellent report which I am using, and his Advisor, Brian Yandell who made it possible.

And thank you to friends and family who supplied essential professional expertise, inspiration and many hours of their time:

Rebecca Finnell for her friendship and incredible skills as executive editor at Natural History Magazine for 25 years, for editing the survey and suggesting I ask Maire Crowe, former Managing Editor at NHM, to edit the book – which she very generously agreed to do,

My sister, Linda Davis, for her listening, very good questions and encouragement since I began this in 2002.

My niece, Kristi Carter for arranging an interview for the documentary I am working on,

My father, Russ Zakariasen, and stepmother, Ethel, for asking me every time we talk how my project is coming and encouraging me,

Nandini Kotha, for help with computer issues and for recommending coconut milk to soothe the bladder, an Indian remedy – very helpful for dealing with bladder irritation at bedtime,

Kate Flax, a Graves’ Disease patient who inspired me with her book for other patients: HEALING OPTIONS, 1998,

Mary Rollefson, a friend and professional survey researcher, who advised me on how to write a survey. She now runs her own landscape design business,

Jennifer Miller, who advised me on how to position the survey on the web and on TM.

Fred Bogin and Gian and Miriam Cinquegrana, for patience and generosity on computer issues, my nemesis,

Last, but certainly not least, thank you to my husband, David Hanson, who endured and expertly helped me, too many times to count, with computer and other questions, and who encouraged me to do this even though it meant constant financial outgo and no income, for 7 years so far, and counting. And to my children, Nels Hanson and Kashi Hanson, who are my best and most patient life teachers.

Contributions:
I have been supporting the survey financially with family funds, thanks to my husband, in order to be independent of pharmaceutical and other medical interests which might be perceived to influence the outcome of the survey.
I could really use financial help if anyone is inclined, and would discuss which project you might like to contribute to. Zakariasen@verizon.net , 845-727-1957