IC You Podcast Episode 15
(Callie) Hey, IC warriors. Welcome back to another episode of IC You. I finally had the chance to settle in after my trip to Columbia so now I wanted to give you a quick update on my trip. Flying to Columbia was a disaster pro tip, [00:01:00] never fly spirit airlines. I actually didn't get a bladder flare with all of the craziness, however, I did have one stress related IBS episode. I actually get asked all the time, what my best travel tips are. So I did some thinking and I came up with six tips that I feel will be helpful for you all to keep in mind when you are going on an airplane to travel.
(Callie) So number one is get to the airport early. You don't wanna deal with the stress of being late or there's a really long line with TSA. We had to wait an hour just in the line so that can cause a lot of added stress that you don't need. So that would be my first tip.
(Callie) Second tip would be dress comfortably. You don't have to look cute at the airport. Don't be afraid to wear sweatpants [00:03:00] or loose leggings. You could even do a romper, something that isn't constricting your pelvis or your pelvic floor, because that can cause a lot of pressure that you don't want on that pelvic floor, especially during a flight.
(Callie) So number three, get an aisle seat. Especially if frequency is your biggest symptom. Sometimes it's worth paying more to ensure your comfort during an airplane ride. If you can't get an aisle seat, speak with a flight attendant or ask your seat neighbor to swap, so you can be more comfortable and they don't have to get up to let you out often.I know, I know, I've been in this situation before where. , you know, it's a stranger and you don't really wanna ask them, but, you know, honor your body. If you have to pee, you have to pee and do what you gotta do.
(Callie) Number four, bring your as [00:04:00] needed meds and take them. Don't be afraid to take them. This is what they're for. I know a lot of people do Valium suppositories, or you can take an anti-anxiety medication like I do.
(Callie) Number five, if you have issues with frequency, try not to drink water an hour before the flight. We don't want to have fluid in your bladder before getting on the airplane. Also, use the bathroom before you get on the airplane. I probably don't have to tell you guys that, but that's another huge tip that I have. And then if you're somebody like me who gets a lot of burning and not really a lot of frequency, I try to drink water right before the flight and right when I sit down so that when it gets to the end of the flight, I can go without having any pain or I can take my Pyridium [00:05:00] right when I get on the plane so that I prevent any sort of burning that may occur.
(Callie) Number six, have podcasts, music, guided meditation, a book. Have some type of activity to bring with you that will distract you. We all love distractions. We don't like to think about our bladders all the time, so that can be really helpful. And there are some really good apps that can take you through some guided meditations.
(Callie) My best tip is to not worry about what others think of you. This one is huge and I've had to learn it over time. You have to do you, you have to honor your body. You have to do what you need to do to get through the flight. And don't worry about what your neighbor is thinking or what the random person sitting across from you in the airport is thinking, don't even worry about that. I feel like most of us are really sensitive people. That could mean worrying about what others think of you, and there comes a point where [00:06:00] you just have to throw that mentality at the door and do what is best for you.
(Callie) I was really worried going into this trip about flaring since I was going to have a lot of potential triggers thrown at me. things like heat, alcohol, new foods with new spices, wearing a bathing suit, and all the travel that we had to do. When we got to Columbia, it was fantastic. The country's beautiful. We had a really great time, a lot of fun. The country is interesting in that you're not supposed to flush toilet paper, which i think is super weird, but when in Rome, right! You're also not supposed to slam car doors according to my boyfriend, but I did slam one or two car doors and nothing happened to me. So guess I will. I'm laughing because he was like, "do not, I repeat, do not slam a car door" as if the [00:07:00] worst possible thing would happen to me, but nothing happened.
(Callie) Every morning I drank a coconut latte at a place called Juan Valdez, which was referred to me by a fellow icy warrior who lives in Columbia. And it was so good. I can actually tolerate coffee every day and I don't need to take pre-lease. I didn't used to be like that. But over the years, when my symptoms started to calm down, I think that the inflammation in my bladder really calmed down and now I can tolerate a lot more than I used to be able to.
(Callie) The Columbian cuisine was also amazing. I took a more vegetarian approach during the trip as I've been trying to just in my life in general. So I lived off of coconut rice and fried plantains. I would sometimes eat a bit of fish or shrimp off my boyfriend's plate each day for protein, but they cook fish, like they literally just slap a fish on and cook it that way. There's skin, the eyes are there, bones are there. [00:08:00], it freaked me out. So that's kind of how I ate each day, I'm a creature of habit. I didn't drink much alcohol either. In terms of my bladder. I only had one episode where I had some burning after urinating. Maybe a 4 out of 10, but I packed my trustee fire crotch bomb made by the Fire Crotch Fairy. I tell everybody with IC this is my holy grail. It feels like icy hot without the hot. It's just like putting pure ice on my pelvic floor, like right on the outside. And it really is a game changer for anyone with burning. I will link that in the show [00:09:00] notes, but all in all the trip was really fun and a cultural experience for me.
(Callie) This week's episode, I intentionally planned to tie into the Columbia theme, because when I think of Columbia I think of coffee! So this week you'll hear an interview I did a little bit ago with Tyler of Tyler's coffees! Let's get into the interview. I hope you enjoy it!
(Callie) Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of IC You! Today I have Tyler from Tyler's acid free coffee here with me, and I just wanted to say thank you so much for coming on Tyler.
(Tyler) Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. First and foremost, it is acid free. The world's first, only acid [00:10:00] free coffee. We actually work with people directly that have Interstitial Cystitis, and they love it. They absolutely love the product.
(Callie) Oh, absolutely. I've tried it. I love it. I tell everybody that I know about it and it's fantastic. So how did Tyler's coffee get started?
(Tyler) So the way that Tyler's coffees got started is that my father came to me when I was 14 years old and said, "what's the second largest commodity in the world", and at the time, I didn't know. So I went to Google and first was petroleum oil, second was coffee, and it still is. I know for a fact in 2016, it was 1.6 trillion. I think we've now gone over the 2 trillion mark as an industry. 300 million cups of coffee are drank each and every day in America. It's[00:13:00] insane! So, coffee is an inherently problematic issue for people that have Crohn's, colitis, leaky gut, overactive bladder, or any other stomach issue of that modality. Even though it gives them pain or heartburn or whatever modality that really is affecting the person at the time, it's habitual, it's an addiction. Long story short, we figured out a way where you can have your coffee and drink it too, is what we like to say. That is that we don't bloom the tannic acids and lipid acids in the roasting process. We're able to use a neutral pH. Coffee is [00:14:00] inherently acidic, so when you have a neutral pH coffee, you can drink it without having adverse side effects.
(Callie) That makes sense. I see it as coffee is kind of that double edged sword, where it has caffeine and it has acid, so it's a double whammy for us. So you're at least taking out the acid aspect.
(Tyler) So let's talk about that real quick. A lot of coffee companies, somewhere in the neighborhood of 95% of coffee companies, use a methylene chloride process to decaffeinate their beans. We use a Swiss water process, all our decaf is Swiss water process certified. What that means is that you're only decaffeinating the coffee using hot steam. The problem is that when you have methylene chloride, it has that bitter or disgusting flavor. Well with Tyler's coffee. we're USDA certified, organic, Swiss water process, and we're also acid free. So people that can't have any caffeine in their diet, they absolutely obsess over our decaf.
(Callie) Okay, so decaf has no caffeine at all, or very minimal? [00:16:00]
(Tyler) It depends on the decaffeination process. We're 98.6% decaffeinated and that's across the board. People say we're prescription, not subscription, because Tyler's Coffees so finally tuned that it's a medical product, it's specifically designed for people that have medical conditions. I know a lot of people drink Tyler's Coffees because of the flavor, the non bitterness, the boldness, the smoothness, and it's fantastic! I personally have GERD, so I can't drink normal coffee at all, it destroys my stomach. I have to be careful with tomatoes, with citrus, with alcohol. I actually don't eat red meat because it's so acidic.
Fun fact for your listeners, an alkaline diet is so important for your health. People that are on an alkaline diet have a much lower chance of harboring cancer cells than people that have inflammation in their body.
(Callie) What research have you seen supporting the alkaline diet?
(Tyler) All right, it's really simple. Acid bad alkaline good.[00:18:00] Essentially, 90% of your body is made up of water and so your kidneys do all the filtration for your body to make sure that all of the negative free radicals or bacteria or whatever your body wants to get rid of goes through the urinary tract. If you have any of these issues you have to make sure to drink an absurd amount of water, but your body will thank you so much. Your body will be in equilibrium, in balance. People need to realize this, that every morning when they wake up and they drink their coffee, they're behind the eight ball because they are inducing acid, and now your liver, your pancreas, everything has to work. People don't drink just one cup of coffee. They drink pots of coffee. It's insane how much Americans drink. So when you drink that much coffee you're really hitting yourself hard. Same thing with soda. I strongly suggest you do your own research and make sure that you understand how important it is to be alkaline, because if you're not alkaline, you're gonna get sick.
(Callie) I have a couple things to say about everything that you just went through. So first of all, you brought me back to my last career. I was a dietician in a weight management center and I would carry around my baggies [00:21:00] full of sugar that shows you how much sugar is in a can of soda. It would just blow people's minds. In terms of the alkaline diet, or just acidic urine versus alkaline urine, with IC it seems that people struggle on both ends of the spectrum. The more acidic urine will cause more problems, but I've also noticed through speaking with people, that if you're on the other end of the spectrum and it's too alkaline, they could also experience symptoms of IC and even put themselves into a flare, so it's all about finding that balance. Also, are you saying that if you drink coffee in the morning that maybe you should drink a cup of water before you get into that?
(Tyler) So think of it this way, for every reaction, there's a reaction. If you're going to drink an acidic product, have it be wine, soda, coffee, then you're gonna cause issues and those issues are going to essentially stack on top of each [00:24:00] other. So you go, okay I want X, I'm gonna have to do Y to counteract that. And it just becomes kind of everyone's different conversation. If you're gonna have coffee then you should have water, but on the other hand, you shouldn't shouldn't have coffee with acid in the first place and that's the whole aspect of this. You're not doing yourself any favors to say, oh well I can just have this, and then I have to down my water. I mean, I'm not gonna tell your listeners, or I'm not gonna tell anyone what they should or should not do, that's not my prerogative here. I'm just gonna tell you what you, quote unquote, should be doing and then leave it up to the individual.
(Callie) So, could somebody theoretically drink a pot of your coffee and feel a whole lot better than they would if it was regular coffee?
(Tyler) Absolutely. A hundred percent.
(Callie) How much caffeine is in your caffeinated coffee?
(Tyler) So that's a great question. We can't quantify the caffeine because it's roast to roast. Anything that's come from the earth, there's always gonna be a variant, t's never gonna be exact if it's not manufactured. It's a natural process. So generally speaking, we have more caffeine per serving than normal coffee. The reason why we say that is because we don't over roast the coffee, which we don't burn off the caffeine. So when you have caffeine and you over roast, then you lower the caffeine value. They add artificial caffeine, so on top of the acid, you're also getting artificial caffeine. Guess what, the FDA does not regulate the coffee industry at all. There's zero regulations from the FDA. Now here's when the FDA gets involved. If you add anything outside of coffee, so if you have coffee and creamer, if you have coffee and sugar, if you have coffee and flavor, now you have to have nutrition facts. Now you have to have all the guidelines, but coffee in general, just standard coffee, is not regulated. Tyler's coffees is like a gradual, very gradual [00:30:00] upbringing. And then it just lightly brings you down. one thing about Tyler's coffees is we do not add anything. And people say, "oh, you use a chemical process to make it acid free". Absolutely not, it's in the roasting process. It's all natural. It's a fully natural USDA certified, organic it's all natural.
(Callie) Okay, if you're decaf coffee has virtually no caffeine in it, would it be bladder friendly, would it be appropriate for somebody that is going through an elimination diet? Like a transition from somebody drinking two cups of coffee a day going into an elimination diet where they're gonna be removing that, maybe that would be a good place to go to[00:31:00] it sounds like. They might need to wean themselves off of the caffeinated version before they do that, but does that sound accurate to you or realistic?
(Tyler) Absolutely. I mean, if you're gonna drink, let put it this way, I'm here telling you that if you don't drink Tyler's Coffees, you're probably going to have flareups and issues, especially with people that have IC. Now, I also will say, if you're not able to drink caffeine, then obviously you have to take the decaf. But the good news is our decaf is the best decaf.
(Callie) So yeah, it sounds like it's a viable option for somebody who is just really into having coffee in the morning and is kind of mourning or anxious about the thought of giving that up for what could be many months or the rest of their life even. I think that's something that is really overwhelming. When somebody gets diagnosed with IC, just being handed this list of foods and beverages that they should be avoiding, [00:33:00] which it it's similar to a GERD type diet, so many people go through all those stages of grief that they're never going to be able to have those things again, when in all reality, maybe years down the line, they can.
(Tyler) Well, and I think that's where beyond meat got the evaluation it got, because people are like, "I really miss meat". Well, now beyond meat offers an option that you can have, and it tastes just like meat, and that's healthy for you, right?
(Callie) Yeah. That's a good comparison. I think that would be good to keep like a morning regimen, you know, keep that similar. I remember when I was in college and I tried to go off of coffee, it was horrible. I didn't do it right. I was getting withdrawals. I was struggling to [00:34:00] find a tea that I liked. TMI, but my bowels were impacted by it. Like, there's a whole lot of things that you go through when you quit coffee.
(Tyler) Absolutely, and that's I think where with Tyler's Coffees, you won't get headaches if you stop for a couple of weeks or whatever, it's natural so it doesn't give you any withdrawals. There's no withdrawal symptoms, but anyone else's coffee, you're probably going to have some withdrawal symptoms, like you're saying.
(Callie) Yeah! So I was looking at your website and I saw that you have this chart that compares your brand to other brands, like Dunkin or Starbucks, and it says when you make it with purified water versus alkaline water, I thought that chart was really interesting could you expand on that? [00:35:00]
(Tyler) Let me explain that a little bit. So tap water is horrifically bad for you. It has bromine, chlorine, it has fluoride, it has a lot of really bad things for your body, then you go, "well, wait a minute, why would the government or the regulatory agency allow that?" Well, it's because it's mainly for agriculture. It used to be, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago, then no one would talk about bottled water or purified water because all the water was purified and all the water was natural, naturally found. Over time, water usage has gone up because of population growth and it's changed. If you drink our coffee with tap water, you're gonna have a bad experience because the bromine, the chlorine, etc. will show up because our coffee's so pure. It's because you're not drinking it with purified water. So on our bag and on our website and on pretty much all our marketing material, we say must use purified water. So that's the best way to drink coffee. If you can't do that, which completely understand, buy bottled water, buy purified water, and then you'll have a great experience with Tylers.
(Callie) And if they want to raise the pH even higher, they can use alkaline water?
(Tyler) Yeah!
(Callie) That's good to know. I actually didn't realize that until a couple months ago and I felt like a light bulb went off in my head. I was like, "oh, that is really cool!" Was there anything that you wanted to share with the listeners about your brand that we haven't talked about yet?
(Tyler) We launched Liftted Coffee here. What it is, is acid free CBD coffee. So this is full spectrum, organic, CBD coffee. So it has all the deltas that you need and everything for pain management to relaxation, to blood pressure relief, to all the things CBD is really well known for. So Liftted coffee and it's on lifttedcoffee.com, you can go check it out, [00:39:00] it's awesome, I mean, it's fantastic. We have it only in the Kcup version right now, but we are looking to do whole bean and ground. The only issue is the oil that we use. It gets absorbed so fast that it becomes an issue with with manufacturing and mass, but we can do the CBD Kcup, and let me tell you, it's great. It's just mellows you out. It just calms you down. If you have any pain, it's wonderful for pain management. It's good stuff. I strongly suggest people go check out. Liftted Coffee, at Lifttedcoffee.com.
(Callie) Yeah, I'm definitely gonna try that, that sounds really interesting! So I wanna know what's the difference between getting it in a whole bean and grinding it yourself versus getting it already ground?
(Tyler) Great question. So whole bean it keeps the [00:41:00] flavor. It's like a flavor lock. And when you grind it, it expresses the aroma of the flavor of the coffee. Whereas ground is kind of just a dry flavor. So the ground is very, very flavorful, but to grind it yourself is so much more of an aromatic experience that you're going to receive. You could drink a coffee that's pre-ground or you can drink a coffee thats just been ground and it's night and day, they're absolutely night and day. The flavor profiles are different. The aroma's different. If you do an espresso, you're gonna have a thicker crema.
(Callie) Okay, that actually leads me into my next question. [00:42:00] Can Tyler's Coffees make an espresso that is acid free. I don't understand the difference.
(Tyler) Yes, absolutely. Our beans are phenomenal for espresso. Actually so much so that if you took Tyler's Coffees and you took a standard coffee of any brand that you want, and you did the exact same grind in the exact same process and the exact same tamp pressure and the exact same extraction and the exact same bars on the machine,
you're gonna receive a higher crema on top when compared to the other. That's because of the quality of our beans, the quality of our product. [00:43:00]
(Callie) So is your product in any stores or is it only online?
(Tyler) Yeah, Venture grocers, in March of this year we're gonna be in all of Sprouts,
We're in Hy-vee in the Midwest, we're on Amazon, we're in Walmart, on eBay. We can ship internationally. We're in Japan, in South Africa, in Europe, in the UK. Yeah, we're national, we're international.
(Callie) I hope you enjoyed that interview with Tyler and that you learned more about coffee, cuz I know I did. If you want to give his coffees a try, you can head to [00:45:00] tylerscoffees.com and use code CKN2021 at checkout, and that will get you 10% off. So use code CKN2021 for 10% off your order at tylerscoffees.com.
You can find the audio version of this podcast episode below!
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/15-my-top-tips-for-flying-why-you-may-be-able-to-tolerate/id1604016381?i=1000556377568
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