Chronic pelvic pain / levator ani syndrone

Hi all ,

Today marks two years since my life was forever changed... Im 26 and had a lot stuff going on , stomach pain (pre ulcers which are way gone now) bad anxiety from acne medication, wedding planning, and thought I had a UTI (never urine cultured ).. I was on anti biotics for a few weeks, and the pain never subsided. I remember the urge to pee all the time, testicular pain, penis pain, and rectum/Perinial aching.. I had MRI of the pelvis and every blood work/std test possible and every thing came back negative... I went to two different colon doctors when one doctor told me about levator ani syndrome .. i than went to PT for pelvic floor physical therapy . It didn’t get worse or better . Fast forward to now , I cut out caffeine two months ago and haven’t had any bladder discomfort or urgency.. no real complains other than the ache in my rectum/perineal area hours throughout the day. I’m not sure what my next step would be ? I have hours /moments where there’s no aching or when I drink alcohol it usually goes away .. I’m just really depressed and losing hope

thanks ,

sky

 

Hi Sky, and welcome.

You don't say whether you've actually read any of Dr. Sarno's, books, so if you haven't, that's kind of a prerequisite for effective participation here, because the forum was established in his honor, and his work is the basis of everything we do.

Here's a pretty good thread about success over pelvic pain, from a male contributor to the forum: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/pelvic-pain-success-story-kind-of.20394/#post-108365 (Pelvic pain success story... Kind of)

There's a link in one of the posts to Alan Gordon's program. You should also check out our Structured Educational Program. Both are free, and you can try either or both, as neither requires any kind of sign-up or formal commitment - only a commitment to do the work as honestly as you possibly can.

For anxiety and the depression that goes along with it, read Hope & Help For Your Nerves by Claire Weekes. She has saved many of us alongside Dr. Sarno.

I think you've come to the right place. Hang in there, have faith, and good luck!

 

Hi Sky, I feel your pain. Hang in there and take Jan's advice. It will get better. I have the exact same symptoms as you and I've notice a few others on here with the same as well. The only thing that is different with me is that my butt pain is 99% gone but it feels like my right lower ab is always sore and squeezing my bladder. Its been worse lately with all the Coronavirus stress. There is such a high correlation between stress and pain. With this said, I've improved a lot since reading my first Sarno book in October. I 100% believe that TMS is causing my symptoms and that I'm on the road to recovery.

 

Hey, I completely recovered from similar symptoms., they started when I was 23. You will recover too!
Many others did as well, you can go over my posts , also consider reading ezer's success story or C90danwaiel's story.
We don't know what caused it, I still don't know today.. all I know that prior to this I was super healthy, then one day I woke up with terrible pain in my bladder, later they found kidney stones stuck in the ureter near the entrance to the bladder. After those were removed my pain turned into more of a classic non-bacterial prostatitis with the only symptom - pain, I noticed that after I read about the pudendal nerve pain, my pain started to move towards my left side of the pelvis. Always worse with stress, when super stressed it can return even today, it doesn't stick anymore however.
Anyway, Alan gordons and ezer's ideas opened my eyes and gave me a different perspective.
How I view this; there was probably a sort of trauma, maybe a little infection or injury, this healed - however your psyche keeps the neural pathways active, something in your psyche is using this as a sort of stimulation or diversion from unconscious feelings. You might be totally unaware of this.
Ask your self a couple of questions.. are you a constant worrier? any sort of OCD? history of anxiety or depression? Overeating? Addictions? Other unexplained pains? All of these serve the brain a sort of stimulation/diversion from bad stressful feelings.
For instance I tend to pick my beard when stressed out or even when bored. My girlfriend when stressed picks her nails litterally till they bleed. Its a sort of brain's self stimulation when something is not alright in the conscious/unconsious psyche.
You mentioned it goes away when drinking alcohol, there's your golden ticket to get out of this.
Try to observe yourself and notice when it gets worse or better, soon you will realize the symptoms are a mere reflection of your "well being".
A couple of things that helped me:
Blocking all of the prostatitis and pudendal forums, those people on those sites are literally like the living dead, they will not help you whatsoever. You will spend a ton of money on their BS supplements and therapies just to get nowhere.
Reading Sarno's books, but what helped more was Alan Gordon's ideas.
Always finding a distraction, I noticed when distracted symptoms would reduce or completely disappear, this helped me embrace the ideas of sarno and others on this site.
Reducing stress as much as possible.
High-intensity interval training (HIIT), literally when stressed I notice how tensions builds in my muscles, HIIT kills the tension.
Tramadol, works like HIIT or alcohol for you, 100-200mgs would give me a mild high, removes anxiety, gives energy and reduces stress. Its my magic drug, although I noticed I was starting abusing it. Also its addictive, so careful going above 200mg for long periods. In essence it worked like an antidepressant for me.
Not spending much time on this site either, as there's too many ideas, approaches etc, I would stick to alan gordon's program and get out of here.
Time, over time this will fade away if you manage to reduce stress and bring happiness, satisfaction, well being into your life.

Hope this helps

 

Hey , thanks for taking the time out of your day to reply ! It seems like you were about my age when all this happened.. I will definitely view my pain with a different approach now and start reading the success stories, and re read dr sarnos book , “healing back pain” ... i listed to the audio version at work a year ago which helped me understand tms as a whole but I don’t think I absorbed it all .. I have definitely been hung up on the idea of “levator ani syndrome “ or pudendal nerve pain” and I need to let that go... and yeah if If I’m super focused on something the pain goes away but as soon as I’m “relaxed “ it comes back. I’ve noticed HIIT workouts have helped but just temporarily... maybe i just need some modifications and i will be on the road to recovery again... do you have any direct links for Alan Gordon’s ideas ? Or just all his content in general ?

 

Hi Skyman.
I had the same thing as you from August 2017 to May 2018 and like others have mentioned, I still feel it now and then but it always goes away. I also felt better after I drank alcohol.

I found Nicole Sachs when I was desperate and her work 100% helped heal me. Check out her videos when you get a chance.



I hope you feel better soon! You can do this!

 

Hey guys thanks for your posts. I am going through it too. Pelvic floor physical therapy for about 6 months got rid of most the of spasms. Totally stopped the rectal spasms, which were horrifying. There's just about 30-20 percent of it left right in the pelvic floor and I've been kind of stuck here. I met a TMS physician last week and I have begun looking into MB stuff and it has blown me away. Clearly stress has made it worse, and the scare of this corona virus has not helped lately. Now I'm off work for several weeks and I'm trying to look at this as an opportunity to heal, but as you said, I need a distraction and work was great for that.
Anyway, it is so extremely reassuring to read that two of you had this same issue and that you healed completely. I see so much about back pain but almost nothing regarding male pelvic pain.
I've been dealing with it for about a year now and your posts have given me hope that maybe within a few months I can be pain free again. Just what I needed today. Thank you.

 

Hi @Skyman824 , when we get a flare-up again, even if the symptoms are different, it's because something has happened in our lives to trigger it off. So, have a think what it was before your symptoms started with the urge to pee all the time, testicular pain, penis pain, and rectum/Perinial aching - was it the wedding? See if you can sort out, maybe journal, everything you can about those events. What was bothering you, what did you want to say but didn't, etc... I will private message you as there's a personal element involved here.