Chronic Testicular Pain (long read)

Thanks fridaynotes...I ve been having pain for 4 month now, it come and goes mostly in the mornings, and i noticed that the pain changes the place a little bit also I started to suspect it was stress related, but I Went to a doctor to discard something like cancer...the first doctor told me it was Just an inflamation, then went to another doctor and he told me that it was varicocele but there was no need to surgery, if I could deal with the pain, that time something clicked in My mind and I made the connection to the escoleosis example ...and I came here to see if anybody has talked about it ...and thanks again now Im pretty sure it is Tms, the strange thing is that i see doctors telling patients to go to surgery, thankfully mine didnt
 
I know I posted this back in 2016 but have any of you tried wearing a jock strap for a few weeks in lieu of your underwear? When I had this I of course thought terrible thoughts by my urologist convinced me it’s due to inflammation within the groin into the lower abdomen in later stages. Elevating the testicles somehow helps reduce the inflammation. I faced these issues in my 20’s and this did help for 3 week stints. I am 41 now and still can feel a dull/heavy pain in my left testicle but am able to ignore it since I know if it gets bad I have a process for healing if I need it.

Just remember, your TMS can make a small and common pain feel 100 times worse than it really is. I have learned that the hard way. There are things in life that you will have that are real issues and then real TMS where you have nothing wrong but feel pain that is brought on by your mind and your mind only.

Sore balls are fairly common so trying a few changes like the jock strap or ditching boxers for awhile might help even though they go against TMS logic of not associating remedies with mind based pain.

Great, now my left testicle is hurting!
 
Pingman said:
I know I posted this back in 2016 but have any of you tried wearing a jock strap for a few weeks in lieu of your underwear? When I had this I of course thought terrible thoughts by my urologist convinced me it’s due to inflammation within the groin into the lower abdomen in later stages. Elevating the testicles somehow helps reduce the inflammation. I faced these issues in my 20’s and this did help for 3 week stints. I am 41 now and still can feel a dull/heavy pain in my left testicle but am able to ignore it since I know if it gets bad I have a process for healing if I need it.

Just remember, your TMS can make a small and common pain feel 100 times worse than it really is. I have learned that the hard way. There are things in life that you will have that are real issues and then real TMS where you have nothing wrong but feel pain that is brought on by your mind and your mind only.

Sore balls are fairly common so trying a few changes like the jock strap or ditching boxers for awhile might help even though they go against TMS logic of not associating remedies with mind based pain.

Great, now my left testicle is hurting!
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I remember all too well how the wrong underwear would be painful. I'm happy to say I can wear any underwear, tight jeans etc so there is hope. I can't say I'm 100% but probably 80-90 percent which is very manageable. For me the symptoms improved once I accepted I had TMS and nothing else wrong. I started doing the activities I had given up, stopped looking for cures, and stopped obsessing over my condition. I know its easier said then done but you have to really believe what you have is TMS and then try to forget about it. I sincerely wish you a recovery I know you can have.
 
Ben117 said:
Hi everyone, this is going to be a long post so thanks to those that make it to the end!

To begin with I should say that until very recently I had never heard of TMS, but right now I think it may be the answer to the problem I will go on to describe. I would love to hear responses from people who've experienced anything similar, or any advice as to whether this could be TMS, or just any advice in general!

My name is Ben and I'm a 21 year old university student from the UK. As described in the title, I'm currently experiencing chronic testicular pain. The pain has been present for the past four months. For me, the pain is centred just above my right testicle, but I also have occasional inner thigh pain, hip pain, low back pain and lower abdomen pain - all on my right side. The pain can be anywhere from a 2/10 (more uncomfortable than pain) to painful enough that I've even been to A and E (accident and emergency) a few times.

I've been through the medical labyrinth trying to find a diagnosis and solution to my pain. To begin with I was diagnosed with Epididymitis (an infection) and I took multiple courses of antibiotics, the pain did improve, although it would always come back just as bad as before eventually, and to begin with I never showed any signs of infection that you would expect (urine analysis came up completely normal, for example).

After deciding it wasn't an infection, I began to look into muscular / skeletal causes. I researched trigger point therapy after reading about it online and got a few treatments. The therapist told me that I definitely DID have trigger points, some of which were known to refer pain to the testicles, so this was a great relief. However, once again I never experienced any long lasting relief. And now all the tender points/areas identified as trigger points seem to have resolved themselves, so I think this is unlikely to be the primary cause.

I then looked into more structural issues, I read about how problems with the hip and spine could cause testicular pain. Once again I thought this was my answer, so I saw both a physiotherapist and a chiropractor (despite being fairly skeptical of chiropractic treatment). Both the physio and the chiropractor identified issues which they said could be causing my pain. They said I had very tight muscles in my hip, and my lower back was not as mobile as it should be, which could apparently irritate nerves in some way causing the pain.

Once again I felt fairly relieved, so I began treatment feeling relatively optimistic. I was instructed to do plenty of stretching of the involved muscles, and the chiropractor carried out manipulations of my spine.

The stretching has mad little difference, but I have to say that the spinal manipulation did improve things, which I began to notice in the 48 hours after treatment. The pain seemed to almost completely go from my testicles and instead centre in the middle of my lower back. However, this effect was also temporary and once again I found myself back in exactly the same position - with exactly the same symptoms I began with.

I'm still keeping up with the physiotherapy and seeing a chiropractor. If there is a physical cause, I feel this is it. I have bad posture and did injure my lower abdomen/hip falling off my bike a few weeks before my symptoms started, which apparently could have led to the muscle tightness and stiffness in my hip.

That brings me pretty up to date with where I am now. Although there is a plausible physical cause, I still feel something like TMS is a possibility for me. The physio and chiropractor (and all the doctors/urologists/specialists I've seen for that matter) seem very vague and unsure - it's always 'could' or 'maybe', and none of them have seen something like this before, at least not something they managed to completely treat (although there are accounts of this online).

One of the main reasons I feel like this could be TMS, or at least TMS related, is just due to my personality and circumstances.

I'm a very anxious person, despite rarely showing this outwardly, I worry about all manner of things and at previous times in my life have suffered from panic attacks and crippling anxiety - to the point where I didn't want to leave my room and became very withdrawn socially.

This came to a head in my first year of university, and in a way is continuing to this day. Before university I had a very secure and stable group of friends and family life. However, perhaps because of this, I found it very difficult to fit in and meet people once I began university. I became very lonely, anxious and withdrawn. To top all this off my parents split up that Christmas. I had always valued having a 'secure' family life, and felt very lucky and grateful for this when other things in my life weren't going to plan. It felt like a huge blow that the secure part of my life that I could fall back on was suddenly not there anymore - at least not in the same way.

I also had relationship trouble with my girlfriend of 5 years, I don't think theres any need to go into detail but as you can imagine this did not help my overall psychological state.

Anyway, It's only now I'm making the connection between my emotional state and the chronic pain I've been experiencing. The pain is definitely worse in times of increased stress (although I understand this is the same with all pain) and I definitely feel a bit better when I manage to stop worrying about it so much (rarely)

It's only now I'm really realising the degree of catastrophic thinking and obsession I've had over this pain, I've spent countless hours googling and reading though pages and pages of medical forums (which of course did not help). I suppose I'm just terrified of having this pain my whole life, and it's only now I'm realising that my emotional response to the pain (and other things in my life) are in fact the reason, or at least part of the reason, I'm not feeling any better.

Seeing a few other threads on here that seem to provide situations similar to mine that have resolved after realising they were caused by TMS and taking the appropriate action has been greatly encouraging. There's more than one but this was the one that made me decide to actually post myself

http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/my-complete-story-warning-this-will-be-long.4176/#post-25490 (My complete story -warning: this will be long.)

Anyway, thank you so much for reading all that. I'm sorry it was so long!

Any responses would be greatly appreciated!
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Hi My son is 15 and his story sounds like yours .We are desperate for help but are just passed from one gp to another with antibiotics and now just morphine .How can i explain the benefits of tms to him .We also live in UK .
 
Pauline said:
Hi My son is 15 and his story sounds like yours .We are desperate for help but are just passed from one gp to another with antibiotics and now just morphine .How can i explain the benefits of tms to him .We also live in UK .
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Hi Pauline,

I’m sorry to hear about your son’s problem. And sorry to everyone else who has been posting on this thread who I haven’t responded to - I haven’t been keeping up with it, partly, I think, because it was a difficult part of my life that I don’t want to dwell on too much.

As far as explaining the benefits of TMS to your son, I’m not sure I’m the right person to do that - there are many more experienced and knowledgeable people on this forum who I’m sure can you help you with that.

However, I can give him some advice. I am now 100% better. The issue that dominated my life, and obsessed my every waking moment, is now completely gone. I can’t even remember exactly when it went, it just did. I reached a point where I just decided to stop letting it dominate my life, and started to focus on other things.

During this time, the pain would still be there, but I didn’t let it stop me doing anything, and tried my best not to obsess over it. Of course, this is very hard - and I failed and failed and failed, and felt like I was getting nowhere. But in time, it worked, and one day it was gone.

If there’s one bit of information your son needs to know it is this:

Your pain WILL get better.

As impossible as it might seem at this moment, sooner or later all this pain and doctors visits will just be a distant memory.

Of course, any medical issue needs to be properly investigated, but if you’ve been through the works already - as it sounds like you have - just move on. Go outside, go for a run, a swim, see your friends, read a book. Find something else to obsess over. Accept your pain is there now, but accept that it will go.

You might not be ready to do this yet - but sooner or later you will be, and you will get better.
 
Ben117 said:
Hi Pauline,

I’m sorry to hear about your son’s problem. And sorry to everyone else who has been posting on this thread who I haven’t responded to - I haven’t been keeping up with it, partly, I think, because it was a difficult part of my life that I don’t want to dwell on too much.

As far as explaining the benefits of TMS to your son, I’m not sure I’m the right person to do that - there are many more experienced and knowledgeable people on this forum who I’m sure can you help you with that.

However, I can give him some advice. I am now 100% better. The issue that dominated my life, and obsessed my every waking moment, is now completely gone. I can’t even remember exactly when it went, it just did. I reached a point where I just decided to stop letting it dominate my life, and started to focus on other things.

During this time, the pain would still be there, but I didn’t let it stop me doing anything, and tried my best not to obsess over it. Of course, this is very hard - and I failed and failed and failed, and felt like I was getting nowhere. But in time, it worked, and one day it was gone.

If there’s one bit of information your son needs to know it is this:

Your pain WILL get better.

As impossible as it might seem at this moment, sooner or later all this pain and doctors visits will just be a distant memory.

Of course, any medical issue needs to be properly investigated, but if you’ve been through the works already - as it sounds like you have - just move on. Go outside, go for a run, a swim, see your friends, read a book. Find something else to obsess over. Accept your pain is there now, but accept that it will go.

You might not be ready to do this yet - but sooner or later you will be, and you will get better.
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Thank you so much for that .I will show him this x
 
Thank you I was delighted to find this forum I was seriously contemplating suicide over this pain i read it two days ago felt mentally better straight away so I brought my family on holiday much appreciated but unfortunately only lasted one day back home now crying in pain long driving is a killer I’m sick searching google sick praying I’ve lost my job my dignity and probably my marriage I’ve been to A and E 7 times wore out two GPS plus have to go pay private urologist tomorrow for a guess diagnosis I’m 38 and my life is over I really don’t care if they cut them off at this stage not cumming the rest of my life I will gladly do to keep my family sick of it now i had this condition back in 2005 lasted 10 months was playing bowling in tight jeans bad mistake now it’s back again over3 months just finished antibiotics to no avail God help the people who suffered this before medicine I’m going to try harder with TMS if theirs no answers tomorrow I post this as a thanks any more advice much appreciated thanks again
 
Hi
My son has now been referred for a denervation of the spermatic cord operation. Has anyone else had this. I have just taken him tonight for acupuncture and herbal remedies in the hope it can ease his pain and give him something to focus on .
Pauline
 
Thanks for posting this almost 4 years ago now! I had very similar symptoms, left testicle, towards the back, left side and perenium area. It started a few weeks after a car accident. CT Scan, DRE and ultrasound of testicles revealed nothing. New to this forum and this way of thinking.
 
Four year update on my testicle pain issue it turned out to be caused by my pudendal nerve which was being affected by my Pelvic Floor disfunction, my pelvic floor was extremely tight cause by stress and mostly by SI joint dysfunction. I constantly go out of alignment causing stress on the pelvic floor and a constant effort to stabilize, which in turn when it got bad enough would trap or irritated my pudendal nerve. I went into pelvic floor therapy which confirmed my issue and thanks to therapy it did improve. It also turned out that I had an infection in my perineum which made the issue way worse. Once the infection was treated my life got much better. However, the infection did come back and I did have to have surgery to get rid of it. Good luck everyone hang in there !
 
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