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Pelvic pain/prostatitis

Discussion in 'Success Stories Subforum' started by Twistabone, Jun 26, 2016.

  1. Twistabone

    Twistabone New Member

    I want to share my story of hope so far. It is very long but I truly hope you read it all, don't skim lol. It was hard to write it but I really want to be helpful and I think it will be helpful for many. This is the kind of story that took me very long to find myself. In September of 2013 I was diagnosed with Prostatitis by an ER doctor. I had been experiencing some sitting pain on and off for a few months, but on this particular day, the pain was so bad and it felt like I could not urinate even though my bladder felt full. I was never told if I had bacteria but was given an antibiotic called Doxy. I assumed I did. The urination issues improved quickly but the pain stayed for about a week. Then it disappeared. Unfortunately while sitting in my car a week later, on lunch at my new job, the pain came back. And unfortunately never went away again until recently. Which is about 3 years of hell later since the pain first started. Unfortunately for me, I of course went back to see another Dr. He flat out told me that he did not see any bacteria but gave me an antibiotic anyway. But this time it was an antibiotic called Cipro. I had a toxic reaction to the Cipro which I now know was nothing rare. Cipro is a Fluoroquinolone antibiotic which is a class of antibiotics which is devastating peoples lives left and right. For me it caused nerve damage in my legs which made it brutally painful to walk and stand. So here I was not being able to stand without terrible pain because of the nerve damage, and I could not sit at all because of the pelvic pain. The two years that followed were the most physically and emotionally painful years of my life. I am getting teary eyed as I think about it. And just like many, suicide quickly became a word that floated around in my mind. I knew a couple years was not enough for me personally to actually make me act on it, but I would tell myself, 2 or 3 years no, but what if this turns into 5 years? 7 years? 10 years? How in the world would I be able to tolerate so much pain for so long? So although I would put it off as a very far away option, it was a real option in my mind. Because not only was the pain so bad between my legs and pelvis, but the fact that I could not do much other than lay in bed trying my best to be comfortable made it so much worse. I could not go to restaurants or movies or anything that I had to sit at all, or stand for long. And as many of you know, wanting to avoid pain took away all my motivation to even try going out and having fun. And romance? Forget about it. I can't even sit for a nice dinner on a date. Good luck finding a girlfriend as the 'sick guy" that can't do almost anything fun. Plus I started feeling pain after orgasms which added to the fear of romance and took away from the joy of it. By this time the fear of causing a pain flare was worse than the actual pain. But the pain was bad for sure, when I did try to sit, not only was it painful but it felt like some kind of vein or organ down there was going to burst or something. I had everything from perineum pain to rectal pain, buttock pain and pain on just my left side through out the years. But the fact that the pain moved at all, even just by an inch, for me turned out to be good clue. Anyway, about a year into all the misery, I went to get a massage. My body was a prison of pain so I did anything I could to help. The massage therapist striked me as kind of a hippie guy lol. So I did not take any of his hippie talk serious. I regret it now, but hindsight is 20/20. When I mentioned my pelvic pain, he asked me if I had any childhood issues with my dad. I looked at him with a confused look on my face. I answered the question only to myself in my mind. I thought "Well actually yes, a lot of issues, but what the f*** does this have to do with my pain????" I politely but with an annoyed look on my face asked if we could just proceed with the massage. Well a year of misery later, my legs seemed to be improving a lot but my pelvic pain/sexual/urination issues weren't budging. Even after months of pelvic floor therapy (not fun lol) and my savings account disappearing. Between pelvic floor therapy, knee therapy, massage, chiropractor, supplements, and dr visits etc trying to heal both of my issues, all my money was spent. The combo of fluoroquinolone toxicity and pelvic pain had beaten me down. One guy even messaged me on FB from a group asking me how I was dealing with both things because he also had both and was thinking of ending it. I did not have anything helpful to tell him and I panicked, so I was terrified to answer him. I never did. I can only hope he is ok. Anyway a year after my interesting massage, I read what was at the time the only healing story I could find when it came to pelvic pain. It was a story saying she healed by using mindbody techniques. Just like with most people I did not really understand it. But she recommended that I read Healing Back Pain by Dr John Sarno. All the confusion quickly faded. It made perfect sense to me. It was so clear in my mind, and I knew immediately that I had a TMS equivalent. Prostatitis is even listed as an equivalent in the book so I knew I was onto something. Julie told me it took her a year to heal but knew she was on the right track after a couple of months. I made the decision that I was going to do every thing Dr Sarno and other mindbody drs recommended. I knew in my heart I had found the answer. There was zero doubt in my mind. A year is a long time but what other choice did I have? I told myself "I don't care if it takes two years!" I was going to heal no matter what! Well it has been nine months so far, and I feel like a million dollars so far. The pain is melting away, in both my pelvis and legs. I haven't felt this good in 3 years. I feel bad about how I acted towards the hippy massage therapist, because he actually had the answer. When I started studying mindbody/TMS, I thought back to when my pain started. It started out of nowhere when I was working the worst job of my life. I thought it was the long hours of sitting, but obviously that is bs, otherwise almost everybody would have sitting pain. I was working as a patient watcher. I had to sit in hospital rooms with drunk patients, patients on drugs, suicidal patients, mentally ill patients etc for 12 hours over night. The anxiety that job gave me was through the roof. I was scared for my safety, the patients safety, and the staffs safety. One night the pain started and I blamed it on the hard chair and 12 hours of sitting. Anyway, this job was just one of many things that was going on in my life. Looking back now, I realize my emotional health was a terrible mess. I had also just dropped out of college because the stress and anxiety had caused me to develop a panic attack disorder the year before. The psychotherapy I did with a college therapist and dropping out made my panic attacks go away and then boom my pelvic pain started. Now I realize it was the "symptom imperative" that Dr Sarno talks about. It was the same bullet, but new target. And I was probably headed towards an emotional breakdown, which is why my physical pain started as a distraction. Although dropping out of college took stress off my life, it made me feel like a failure. And I was ashamed to tell my dad. My whole life he put a lot of pressure on me to graduate college. I felt like I let him down and my self esteem took a huge hit. And as if this wasn't enough, I was also dealing with relationship issues. After five years of a complicated relationship with my ex, she dropped a bomb on me and said she was seeing someone. At this point we were not together, but I had so much hope that we were headed in that direction. I made a truly difficult decision to stop all contact with her. I could not handle being in her life and seeing her with another guy. I lost my best friend. That situation was heart breaking and made me feel inferior. I felt like I was not good enough to get her back. I honestly felt like I wasn't good looking enough, or cool enough etc. Anyway, all of this was happening at the exact same time when my pain started. That is why I was so positive that I had a mindbody disorder. Accepting the new diagnosis was the first step. I now had no doubt that the brain had the power to cause my pain. So I read every mind body book I could. The Great Pain Deception really helped me to see that it would not be an over night thing, but it would be worth the fight, no matter how long it took. In the book the author mentions a guy that had leg pain unless he wore a certain pair of shoes. It obviously turned out to be TMS. Well my leg pain was finally going away, but I also had to be wearing a certain pair of shoes. At this point I was embarrassed to be seen in those shoes because they looked so old and beat up. Anything to avoid the pain though. As soon as I tried on a new pair of shoes, my leg pain would return. At first I figured those shoes put my feet in a good angle or something, but once I learned about TMS I knew it was nonsense. The book Unlearn Your Pain, talks about how our brains basically memorize a certain pain, and even in only certain circumstances. I knew it was my fear and expectation of the pain that was causing it. So this past Christmas I told my sister my gift could be a pair of new shoes. Sure enough I put them on for a few minutes, and my leg pain flared up. It was Christmas eve so I wasn't able to wear them long before it was bedtime. Even in bed, my leg pain continued. But I talked to mind and body, and said "Bullshit!!!! you are not deceiving me any more. There is zero reason that this new pair of shoes should hurt me!" The next day I put them back on and decided that I was going to wear them no matter what. Sure enough, I felt zero pain. I have had no pain in my legs with any shoes since. This was still early in my mindbody healing, but I knew that I was going to defeat my pelvic pain the same way. I knew the pelvic pain was worse and would take longer, but I did not care. I have never been so confident in anything in my whole life. This was an amazing feeling of hope, because I had experienced over two years of complete hopelessness already. In fact the day before I read Healing Back Pain, I was in a lot of pain, and I remember telling my sister these exact words "I might not ever heal" before laying down in her back seat because sitting in the front was not an option. (I just took a few minutes break from writing because I started crying when I wrote that last quote) Anyway I did everything that was recommended. I did the 30 day Mindbody Workbook which guides you through journaling and then continued journaling on my own everyday since. I express my emotions honestly about everything that bothers me now or in the past, small or big. I talk to my body and subconscious all the time. There has been times when I exploded in anger and told my pain to f*** off already. I don't want or need it anymore. And then there are times where I calmly say things like "Nice try, but I know for a fact there is nothing serious going on right now, it is just my body reacting to a certain situation. A few months in I decided to drive with no support (at this point driving was unbearable and only possible if I pushed myself up with my right hand and up with my left foot when I was not pressing a pedal. But even with my butt barely touching the seat, it was terrible). I am sure you can relate when I say that the fear of causing a flare up is the scariest part. But I knew had to be courageous and face that fear. I went for a long painful drive. Sure enough it hurt just as much as I thought it would, and it did cause a flare up. But I talked to my pain and said "Is that all you got? I am in terrible pain even when I push myself up, so what is the difference? I might as well not bother protecting myself. What can you possibly do to me that you haven't already done in the last 2 and half years? You have already gave me every pain sensation down there that I could think of. I am tired of being scared of you" Well a few more drives and the pain was still pretty intense, but the flare ups were no where near as scary as I had imagined in my head. Then I built up the courage to do something I had not done in a long time. I went to the kitchen and looked at a hard wooden chair. I won't lie, I wasn't as courageous as I was hoping to be. I grabbed a pillow and put it on the chair. I told myself "lets build up to it" Even though I had the guts to sit in my car with all my weight coming down, the image of hard wood was still too scary for me. I sat down on the chair with the pillow and counted for 10 seconds and then stood up (still with more fear in my heart than some people can imagine) I was scared to sit longer but I could not believe that those 10 seconds were painless!!! I took things very slow. A few days later I counted 20 seconds with no pain!! I was so happy but still scared and still in disbelief. So many times I thought I would never sit again. I truly believed that I was destined to not sit again. The next time I drove, I went back to holding myself up because the pain was still pretty bad. The seed was planted though. The fact that I could sit on a chair with a pillow for 20 seconds gave me tons of confidence. Then one day the drive was pretty painful, and I started to picture myself sitting in the kitchen without pain. I would remember how it felt to sit for 20 seconds with no pain. I visualized myself smiling at me while enjoying those 20 seconds. I suddenly felt the pain decrease while driving. So I did that every time I drove and it seemed to help a little each time. Then I started consistently saying certain phrases that I made up for myself while driving like "You are losing your grip TMS! Say goodbye because you are losing your grip over me every day! I know I am healing!!!!!!" Well I wish I could say that my courage kept building but I did in fact kind of took a step back. For months I did not test myself anymore. I did not continue to practice sitting on a pillow and I always held myself up while driving. But I continued all my emotional work. If I had money for psychotherapy I would have gone in a heartbeat. But I kept journaling, talking to myself, visualizing things like me talking to younger versions of myself during tough times and giving myself a hug. I heard Sarno say it in a video. I have had self esteem and image issues since I can remember. I always felt ugly. There is one memory I have of being very young and being sad while visiting family in Mexico. One of my uncles commented on my eyes (they are not shaped the same) I remember even though I was so little I felt so ugly and I went outside and thought about jumping off a pretty high cliff behind the house. I kept visualizing myself talking to myself on that cliff and telling my young self to not be sad and angry. I also finally expressed myself to my dad. I did not express the anger I had about how he treated my mom throughout my childhood (I was still too scared) but I told him how much all the pressure he put on me affected me negatively. He said he did not realize that and he only wanted the best for me. He came from poverty in Mexico and did not have an education so he just wanted to push me to build a better life. I realize that now but it overwhelmed me growing up. And when I dropped out I did not want to tell him. My relationship with him is so much better in the last few months. I don't feel angry at him anymore. Then less than two months ago, while driving I noticed that I did not feel any pain. I built up the courage again to not push myself up. And it turned out to be the most painless drive even without support that I have experienced in 3 years. I decided that I was going to fight the fear again, and this time I was not backing down at all. Sure enough the pain returned in the next few drives but my confidence was at an all time high. So instead of waiting for a good day, I decided on a bad day when the pain was definitely bothering me that I was going to sit down on a hard chair. I stopped by to get some food and noticed the wooden seats right away. It was an image that gave me butterflies in my stomach right away. I knew that I had made so much progress in the last 7 months prior to that day. Fear was the only thing in my way now. I knew there was nothing structurally wrong with my pelvis. I sat down (without a pillow) on a hard wooden seat for the first time in 3 years. I told myself "there is nothing wrong with your body, you will NOT cause any further damage" and "I don't care if I get the worst flare up of my life!!! it wont compare to the misery that the last three years was. All the fear, sacrifice, loneliness, hopelessness etc" I could not believe that I felt zero pain or a sensation of something getting inflamed down there. I could not even feel the emotion of happiness, I was in total disbelief. The next day I went to a family bbq and almost backed down, but said screw it I am siting down again. I felt a tiny bit of sensitivity down there but I can tell that it was my fear. I was so used to being scared of sitting and expecting the worse. Overall I still ate and talked and felt like a normal person. This was over a month ago. Since then, I have sat and ate at two more restaurants without pain. I sat at my sisters long graduation ceremony without pain, I sat at another bbq without pain, I am still in disbelief but I knew in my heart it would happen the very moment I stopped reading Dr Sarnos book. My frequent urination is also gone. And although it is early, I have not had any issues with ejaculation in the last month. It is as if my brain is finally turning it's attention away from my pelvic area. Something interesting happened though. I no longer pushed myself up while driving at this point because my fear was disappearing by the day. But I noticed that I felt a small very bearable pain while driving. You might be thinking "what is the problem? You went from unbearable pain while pushing yourself up to very mild pain without pushing yourself up" That is very true, but I felt no pain while sitting on a hard chair. At first I figured the angle of my car seat was bad and it was making it so that more pressure was on my butt. But then I once again said "Bullshit!!!!!!!" I immediately starting digging for reasons why it would hurt to drive but not sit a restaurant for example. The answer was clear but I just never thought to put direct blame on it. I have been called a grandma driver since I started driving. And I refuse to go on the highway unless I absolutely have to. The road for me is a death trap. I always get anxious at least a little bit while driving. Then it all came back to me. When I was in middle school I ditched to ride my my new bike with my best friend. We ended up causing a very bad accident. We got in the way and made a man break in the middle of turning at an intersection. I vividly saw as a car struck the side of his car at a high speed. I can still picture the moment of impact and see the man in his car as he was hit. I don't think he got seriously hurt, but I don't know because we took off immediately since we were scared to get in trouble. Since then I witnessed way too many live car accidents for my own good. So for a week straight, while driving I would talk to myself and say things like "the car seat or your body have nothing to do with why you feel pain while driving, your subconscious is trying to protect you and distract you from the anxiety and fear you feel while driving. You might still feel guilty about causing that accident and you obviously have some trauma" And sure enough for over a week straight now I have had zero pain while driving with no support. It is hard to believe how TMS/MB syndromes work, and what it takes to reverse them, but if you haven't fully committed yourself to a mindbody healing approach, then I want to strongly encourage you to give it a real try. If you are in this group but don't actually understand how mindbody syndromes work, please keep studying until it clicks. And for those who are already in progress, please keep going. (Oh as a bonus, a few days ago, something happened that me made very anxious. But my subconscious mind no longer having my pelvis as a good target for distraction, caused me weird pain in the right side of my face. Between my jaw and cheek bone. I did not freak out though, I knew exactly why my body was reacting. It lasted all day, until the situation was fixed that night, which eliminated the anxiety %100. Sure enough, the pain disappeared by the time I woke up the next day.

    I want to add a quote from Dr John Sarno. He says it in an interview and I love going back to hearing his words all the time.

    "Ladies and gentlemen, you have physical symptoms and for some of you they are severe. But there is nothing wrong with your back, or your shoulder, or your knee, or your foot. They are perfectly normal from the standpoint of how your body works. Your pain is the result of a process initiated by the brain to protect you from feelings that you have inside that the brain considers to be too painful, too sad, or too threatening. Now i admit that your brain perhaps ought to give you the choice as to whether you want the pain or the sadness or the emotional pain. But unfortunately the way the brain is organized today, now at this point in time, you don't get that choice. The brain just goes ahead and makes a decision. BUT remember this, we have demonstrated in thousands of patients that the same brain that brings this on can make it go away"
     
    Gusto, Vouthon, kbarlow and 11 others like this.
  2. Karrie

    Karrie New Member

    Thank you for sharing your amazing story! It is such a fantastic achievement, you have worked so hard it must be so rewarding to see such results. You have given another pelvic-pain/TMS sufferer great hope :)
     
    Twistabone likes this.
  3. Renee

    Renee Well known member

    Thanks for sharing your story and the Sarno quote. I especially liked his last sentence.
     
    Twistabone likes this.
  4. Ines

    Ines Well known member

    Thank you for your story. What a journey to go from suicidal to completely normal. I'm having a hard time getting over the fear that TMS will not work even though I've seen improvements. Thanks for the success story and encouragement. It's really going to keep me going through this week. Thank you so much and I wish you a pain free and happy life. : )
     
    Twistabone likes this.
  5. JanAtheCPA

    JanAtheCPA Beloved Grand Eagle

    Absolutely awesome post, and thank you for telling us not to skim because you are right, it was worth reading every word! I hope that you will stick around and help others who are struggling. Heck, all you really need to do is point them to your story, because it illustrates perfectly so many aspects of TMS and the mind shift that is required to travel the path to recovery.
    Again, absolutely awesome, Twistabone, great work dancea
     
    Twistabone likes this.
  6. Tassie Devil

    Tassie Devil Peer Supporter

    What an amazing, strong, deterred man you are and what a difficult journey you have related here. Thank you so much for sharing and I've just given you three very big cheers. All the best for your new life.
     
    Twistabone likes this.
  7. Twistabone

    Twistabone New Member

    Thank you so much everybody for the very kind words. I am very happy that my story was helpful to you. I have no doubt that everybody here reading the success stories for inspiration can heal themselves as well. And I look forward to reading your future success stories.
     
    JanAtheCPA likes this.
  8. CarboNeVo

    CarboNeVo Well known member

    Great story man!
    How are you doing these days ?
     
  9. Twistabone

    Twistabone New Member

    I am still doing great! I just went on a date with a very nice woman the other day and had an amazing time. I am getting my life back more and more everyday.
     
  10. birdsetfree

    birdsetfree Well known member

    Three cheers from me too! I'm excited for you and your new life. The detail in your story will help so many.
     
  11. jaumeb

    jaumeb Peer Supporter

    Thanks for your story and for the updates.
     

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