Bookmark

In January 2016, at the age of 23, I came down with severe pelvic pain that would go on to cripple and debilitate me for the next two years of my life.

Even thinking about it just now is a difficult experience because it causes me to relieve all the suffering that I had to endure. But I've decided to tell my "story", in the hope that it will encourage others not to lose hope (trust me, if I can recover from this given the severity of the symptoms, anyone can).

After initially being diagnosed with prostatitis in June 2016 and spoon-fed a useless cocktail of antibiotics (one class of which, ciprofloxacin, temporarily damaged the tendons in my legs for a whole year), I was subsequently diagnosed with both CCPS and Pudendal Neuralgia by different urologists.

I underwent test after test (digital rectal exam, prostate massage, cystoscopy etc.), with every result being negative for any sign of structural defect, infection or physical cause.

All the while my symptoms were unrelentingly painful, often meaning that I felt the need to either consign myself to bed or bathe in a warm bath. I had burning uriniation, sharp shooting pain in my rectum, perineum and sometimes testes along with ejaculatory discomfort. As you might expect, the pain severely impaired my quality of life and interfered with my career moves, which were at that time just beginning.

For a long time, far too long, I got caught up in the inevitable and understandable quest for a definitive structural explanation for my agony.

Then, one day last year, I read about both TMS and the research of Dr. Lorimer Moseley and decided that I had nothing left to lose. I began posting on this forum and trying to practise a set of mental techniques.

Firstly, I got over my "fear" of sitting or engaging in a range of physical activities out of deeply-seated apprehension that I would further 'damage' myself in some way (i.e. pudendal nerve, pelvic floor muscles etc.). I would sit and walk and run and ejaculate and do all these other things, no matter the pain - with the understanding in the back of my mind, the constant message to myself, that the pain (while very real) did not arise from structural damage.

Over months, I purposefully relaxed and reduced all signs of perceived danger whenever I experienced a bad "flare-up" in pain. In time, I disengaged myself from the 'narrative' that I had built up in my psyche - by which I mean, every time I felt the 'pain' I would usually 'rate' it i.e. "that was worse/better/the same as last time and I'm feeling this way because I did xyz physical activity and I'm going to feel really bad in the future because of the way I'm feeling right now".

It was hard, really hard to fight against the narrative that I'd allowed to play out in my head. But I did. I stopped worrying about whatever pain I'd experienced an hour, day, week or month ago. I stopped fearing that I would experience that same pain in the next hour, day, week or month. I stopped telling myself that I was in pain because I'd sat down for too long, or ran too fast, or lifted something too heavy, or ejaculated or whatever. And I stopped fearing that I'd be the same in the future.

I lost my fear. Lorimer Moseley's scientific studies were instrumental in helping me to believe, against all my inclinations to the contrary, that pain did not need to have a structural cause. That's why I credit him along with Sarno and the other TMS literature.

And after many months, losing that fear gradually led to a rapid reduction in both the magnitude and frequency of my symptoms. I stopped experiencing pain while sitting, whereas before I could only lie down or risk provoking a flare-up. I stopped experiencing any great pain while urinating or ejaculating, save for the odd flare up or two. I started to go days, weeks and now even months, without any or hardly any noticeable pain.

When the pain went away, sometimes I'd get a burst of excitement. "This is working, my pain is gone, I used to have pain every hour of every day and now I don't!" And then I'd get a major flare-up and all my confidence would ebb away. I'd fall back into the same negative thought-patterns and have to pull myself back up from the deep, back onto the road of progress that I was slowly but surely travelling down.

Eventually, I stopped feeling dejected and depressed when the pain flared-up and contrarily happy, elated when it went away. I became sort of apathetic, with practise, not reacting to one or the other.

And, to cut a long story short, over the past couple of months - with the odd flare-up here and there - I've been doing great and feeling fantastic. For days upon days, week after week, I've gone without any pain - which is apparently impossible if I really had PN or some kind of other serious structural defect.

In other words, IT works guys. This is no "pipe-dream" for chronic pain patients, as some doctors I now realise wrongfully assume or allege. It really was the "cure" in my situation and thanks to practising the mental techniques and honing the state of mind that I've just described to you, my brain appears to have been gradually re-wired - neuroplasticity, if you will. And the results for me have been nothing short of astonishing.

By conventional structural explanations, how is one to account for my dramatic improvement as a result of practising a set of psychological techniques and reducing all feelings of being in danger?