ChronicPelvicPain88
Newcomer
How didn't I think of this before?! It's so obvious now.
I'm currently on day 8 of the SEP and this is my first forum entry. I've suffered a lot for the past four years with chronic pelvic pain. Mostly in the inguinal and genital region of my groin. The pain came on fairly suddenly, but was not associated with any given activity that I recall. I had hurt my pack pretty roughly about 2 weeks prior, but that's about it. The pain got so bad that eventually I assumed I must have a hernia, though one could not be seen/detected. The pain there has subsided somewhat, but it's always there, always uncomfortable and sensitive.
This all happened during a very stressful time in my life, I had just completed my graduate degree and as a reward, treated myself to a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. While it was perhaps the most amazing experience of my life, I came back to a world of stress and challenges and I often wonder if this duality of these two things helped initiate everything. That is, I came back from a carefree, rugged existence and then was thrown right back into the rat race and couldn't even get off the starting line. I was in a hyper-competitive field that never paid very well and jobs were hard to come by. I searched for months nationwide while eating through my savings and every day left me more depressed and stressed than the previous. I ended up living at my girlfriend's (now wife) grandmothers house and it was this time period when everything hit and the pain started. That was Christmas of 2017.
Over the years I saw every doctor I could, multiple urologists, osteopaths, general practitioners, neurologists, chiropractors, massage therapists, even tried a round of acupuncture. Nothing a doctor has done has ever TOUCHED the pain, much less relieved it. As time went on, eventually my left foot started aching in the heel (the groin pain is on the right side). This made no sense to me and still doesn't, that is, outside of a TMS diagnosis. TMS can explain just how illogical that pain addition is, but I didn't know that at the time. Eventually my back followed suite. In the time, I had a hip surgery and a year later, had an inguinal hernia surgery (surgeon says he actually found one too...but the pain persisted).
I think now that the pain might have been initially started by the hernia and then my emotions just took over and hypersensitized everything. I don't really care though if it started structurally or not, because at this point I'm convinced that this is a mind-body disorder I'm suffering from. Nothing else can explain the continued pelvic pain and the heel and back pain additions. It's so simple too and I'm surprised I didn't come to this conclusion before. I have always been a fairly anxious person (though I think most friends wouldn't say that about me). It's true though, I worry far too much and it's actually caused me other psychosomatic issues in the past. I actually had Hystericus globus for two years, where I felt like I had an object stuck in my throat. I suffered the same way (seeing multiple doctors) until I started having panic attacks (another indicator of how the mind can affect the body) which caused me to seek therapy. I have had other physical manifestations of this stress as well that were clearly psychological/emotional in origin.
Now that I've been reading about TMS, I'm realizing just how obvious it is that this is my issue and for the first time in a long time, I have hope.
Thanks for reading
I'm currently on day 8 of the SEP and this is my first forum entry. I've suffered a lot for the past four years with chronic pelvic pain. Mostly in the inguinal and genital region of my groin. The pain came on fairly suddenly, but was not associated with any given activity that I recall. I had hurt my pack pretty roughly about 2 weeks prior, but that's about it. The pain got so bad that eventually I assumed I must have a hernia, though one could not be seen/detected. The pain there has subsided somewhat, but it's always there, always uncomfortable and sensitive.
This all happened during a very stressful time in my life, I had just completed my graduate degree and as a reward, treated myself to a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. While it was perhaps the most amazing experience of my life, I came back to a world of stress and challenges and I often wonder if this duality of these two things helped initiate everything. That is, I came back from a carefree, rugged existence and then was thrown right back into the rat race and couldn't even get off the starting line. I was in a hyper-competitive field that never paid very well and jobs were hard to come by. I searched for months nationwide while eating through my savings and every day left me more depressed and stressed than the previous. I ended up living at my girlfriend's (now wife) grandmothers house and it was this time period when everything hit and the pain started. That was Christmas of 2017.
Over the years I saw every doctor I could, multiple urologists, osteopaths, general practitioners, neurologists, chiropractors, massage therapists, even tried a round of acupuncture. Nothing a doctor has done has ever TOUCHED the pain, much less relieved it. As time went on, eventually my left foot started aching in the heel (the groin pain is on the right side). This made no sense to me and still doesn't, that is, outside of a TMS diagnosis. TMS can explain just how illogical that pain addition is, but I didn't know that at the time. Eventually my back followed suite. In the time, I had a hip surgery and a year later, had an inguinal hernia surgery (surgeon says he actually found one too...but the pain persisted).
I think now that the pain might have been initially started by the hernia and then my emotions just took over and hypersensitized everything. I don't really care though if it started structurally or not, because at this point I'm convinced that this is a mind-body disorder I'm suffering from. Nothing else can explain the continued pelvic pain and the heel and back pain additions. It's so simple too and I'm surprised I didn't come to this conclusion before. I have always been a fairly anxious person (though I think most friends wouldn't say that about me). It's true though, I worry far too much and it's actually caused me other psychosomatic issues in the past. I actually had Hystericus globus for two years, where I felt like I had an object stuck in my throat. I suffered the same way (seeing multiple doctors) until I started having panic attacks (another indicator of how the mind can affect the body) which caused me to seek therapy. I have had other physical manifestations of this stress as well that were clearly psychological/emotional in origin.
Now that I've been reading about TMS, I'm realizing just how obvious it is that this is my issue and for the first time in a long time, I have hope.
Thanks for reading
