Pelvic Pain....Need some encouragement.

I'm glad to say to you that I did nothing except living my life. No meds, no therapist, no meditation, no journal.

 

My first post here... I've been going through the same pelvic pains as well... mine started shortly after a fall on my tailbone last June. Shortly afterward I developed severe rectal stabbing/burning pains and pressure. Although mine isn't really with sitting like most people- its standing and walking that's so painful. Painkillers never worked. MRI of the pelvis showed nothing. Doctors didn't have a clue. I still worry about pudendal nerve entrapment since they can never really "prove" you have it or not unless they actually open you up and you read so many horror stories, but I've spoken with someone who was told they had PNE and had failed surgeries but healed with TMS healing, so that made me feel good at least...

I starting getting some good, pain-free days (or weeks) here and there from late Sept. to mid Dec. and I was fully buying into TMS, but right before Christmas it began flaring up. Then I started to get scared and doubt I really had TMS again and its reached excruciating levels all this month just like last summer. Its just hard to convince myself this time that its TMS for some reason... trying to stay calm through the pain but its hard and I keep getting scared that it'll never go away. Its like on one hand I can see the evidence that its TMS- I've had many of the equivalents in the past and my wife has told me all along its TMS too... but on the other hand I keep saying "there's no way pain this bad can be in your head, and it just happened to start a week after you fell? What if everyone is wrong? You're going to be in pain forever!"

Anyway its good to read that a lot of people have overcome this. I wish Sarno had written more on pelvic pain...

 

Oh boy does this strike true for me as well. When those thoughts come up now, I try to label them as fear thoughts. It definitely helps. I struggle with that to, the "this pain is too bad to be TMS"......BUT after having the MRN of my pelvis, seeing different PT's who say the PN is from tight muscles, I do believe it's TMS....nothing else makes sense, ya know? We should hope it's just TMS because this is our way out of this nightmare!

It's amazing that you had some pain free days!! That is your PROOF!! I can't wait to get to that place. I'm about 20% overall but not pain free days yet.

I hope you get back to that place...please keep in touch! Would love to follow your journey!

 

I wish I had actually written down my pain-free days... everything went away gradually last time and I had not paid attention to it. I probably should've wrote down every single pain-free day I had and put it on the fridge- it would have helped me now to look at that every day as proof. My mind will come up with all sorts of justifications now, like "Well you weren't really pain free that long, were you?" or "You were never really cured, you have some kind of nerve damage that will flare up forever"

The worst symptom is what they seem to call "tenesmus", God I hate that. And nothing works on it either. The pain has been bad and pretty much 24/7 (except I can sleep) for almost a month again but I find myself constantly thinking about what type of pain it is each time (is it burning today? stabbing? feeling like something stuck inside?) which probably isn't good either. Me panicking the last two weeks about it certainly didn't help, but I'm trying to stay calm now.

 

Hi Jason,

Your pain left last time because you quit paying attention to it. This is an important key to healing. Do not monitor and record your pain levels or other symptoms. This only perpetuates them. Just spend less than an hour day working on your TMS by reading, journaling, doing things to calm your nervous system, etc. and then forget about it. Be good to yourself. You are on the right path.

 

I've heard the same thing, Jason. Ignore it, live your life but pay attention to daily emotions, and help calm your nervous system. I'm trying it out and crossing my fingers!

 

Still been struggling, unfortunately... what still scares me the most is that all this rectal stuff started about a week after me falling down the stairs on my tailbone. A lot of the other pelvic pain people here just had their symptoms come out of nowhere, so its easier to wave off IMHO. I know if I didn't have that preceding injury this would be easy to accept and get rid of. It didn't help that I originally got nocebo'd from an urgent care Dr. last summer who told me my tailbone looked displaced (an orthopedic surgeon and an MRI both later said it was fine, but that didn't seem to make me feel any better). A colorectal surgeon got really arrogant and nocebo'd me too, telling me I had "an diagnosed, potentially serious condition" last summer even though his exam showed nothing but "tenderness"... I went to 6 different Drs. and every one told me something different (basically, that they didn't know).

I used to see a therapist up until last year for other issues but stopped going (I had moved away anyway). I tried calling her to see if I could come back but she said she isn't taking any more patients and treating chronic or psychosomatic pain isn't her specialty and I'd have to see someone else there. So that's kind of pointless- the only reason I'd go back there is cause she's familiar with me as a patient. I'd go to a TMS therapist but the closest one is 2.5 hours away.

I have some tramadol that was given as an Rx originally but I'm too afraid to take it- I'm sure I'll get all the side effects anyway. I have a big medicine and Dr. phobia which is compounding the problem. I get panic attacks in Drs. offices so that just makes it worse.

Believe it or not, my life is actually not stressful at all compared to previous years- if I didn't have this problem I'd be fine. Why is the pain so bad now then? I do admit I've had many of the TMS equivalents before, but this one is just so much worse and more persistent.

Sorry, this post probably sounds all disorganized, but I've just been worried at the moment over all this. Just seems like the pain is never going to go away...

 

Hi, Joel. I found the same wonderful thing as you have... back pain led me to Dr. Sarno's book, and that led me not only
to being free of the back pain, but a new understanding of myself and others.

As you say, "But I am a new man from this pain. And am thankful (who knew?) for my pain. It has opened new doors, as well as closing self-destructing doors that I've rejected closing long past their due date."

 

Jason: Being worried about health problems is something I understand very well. It sounds like you are creating a lot of anxiety for yourself. In your posts you aren't mentioning an outlet, a way of letting all this stress out. Therapy sounded good, but you aren't there right now, so, are you journaling or venting/recognizing your repressed feelings in any way? Maybe you need to revisit the idea of therapy as well. Claire Weeke's book Hope and Help for your Nerves is great, helps with anxiety and how to deal with it.

As Ellen said: "Be good to yourself, you are on the right path." I agree, step back and just see the good you have done so far, and what you have succeeded in.

 

@Jason32 ......TRY THE TRAMADOL!!! It has been a livesaver for me and I have NO side effects!

 

Hey Miss Shamrocks!

I realize this thread was posted a while ago, but just wanted to pop in and give you encouragement. It's so normal to have a flare after a bit of success. The mind likes to pull out all the stops and try to distract you! Tricky mind! As someone who has spent years coaching others after healing my own pelvic TMS, I just wanted to say IT IS SO DEFINITELY TMS and YOU CAN TOTALLY DO THIS! This is meant as a general boost to anyone who is struggling with pelvic TMS. HUGS!

 

Hi @Abigail ! (It's Galynne from the Mind/Body FB group) Thanks for your reply! I've gotten a bit side tracked from my mind/body practice in the last few weeks, so I've dedicated today to ME. Thank you again for that great blog post in our mind/body group, very helpful!!

 

There are many nerve endings in that area,I had a (still have) a pirifomis injury that gave me 8 months of rectal symptoms, after 8 months the worst of it left,but it also drove me crazy.....UNTIL, I learned some coping mechs.

 

This message above was directed at Jason32. Unfortunately I couldn't edit what i had written!

 

Hi Miss Shamrocks, I have been reading your posts with interest as I have the same burning pelvic pain as you had/have. I have noticed your last post was March 2015 and I am wondering if you have finally succeeded in healing yourself. I love to hear people's success stories as it gives me encouragement to continue travelling down this extremely rocky path (that is what it feels like for me!). If you can bring yourself to reply I would love to hear how you are improving or if you have healed. My very best wishes.

 

It looks like you have tons of encouragement, but I just wanted to add that YES, it totally works! I had pain with sitting and did the processes to re-wire my brain. Now I'm sitting here, pain-free! You can totally do this!

 

Thank you Abigail. Yes I have had tons of help, advice and encouragement from this brilliant site. I do have a TMS practitioner also (in UK). However, as I have had several different symptoms I tend to look up people who have had similar problems and how they coped or overcame them I started with Myofascial Pain Syndrome then along came burning pelvic pain and thighs, followed by IBS and now since I started to defy TMS by sitting down burning or not, (to break the conditioned response) would you believe I now am experiencing Dizziness (Symptom imperative) when bending or lying down! As I told Forest it's so bizarre that yesterday I actually laughed at it! I have learnt so much from this site and how Meditation/Mindfulness, affirmation visualisation are helping me. A brilliant way to deal with my anxiety.thanks to Eric who introduced me to Claire Weeks. I follow her advice which has made an enormous difference to me. Face the fear, anxiety, pain, accept it then "float" past, allow time. I found floating and letting go difficult in the begining as it was so alien to me as looking back (as my mum used to say) I always seemed to rush through life. However, I now am enjoying this lovely let go, do not fight any longer feeling. Sorry, I seem to have got carried away! I must add I have also visited our really supportive site. I cannot express my sincere thanks enough for where would we all be without this site and brave wonderful people who contribute to it. Our Doctors here in the UK have no knowledge or interest in it, all mine has done is dish out more and more painkillers and tranquillisers and make sympathetic noises. God Bless you all.

 

I'm also suffering from pelvic pain and burning and a lot of other problems. Since I started with SPE my pain got worse, it's moving in my pelvis and I developed some other symptoms in my body. I kinda hope that this is just TMS playing tricks on me to stop fighting it. It can be really hard and discouraging.

 

Hi Avy, I fully empathise with you. Like you my symptoms became unbearable when writing about my past, but believe me it does get better. You will receive so much support and help on this site, it has seen me through so much. Just keep positive and sticking to the program. I meditate, visualise, say all my appropriate affirmations and, I have taken on board Claire Weeks advice. "Floating past Fear, Anxiety Tension and Pain has become second nature to me. The program does work. Have faith in it. If you have any concerns or need help or encouragement ask for it!

 

Thank you Abbo for replying so quickly! My problem with the program is that for some reason I have aversion toward journaling. I think it's TMS trying to fight me. I use then other methods like meditation, feeling my emotions and affirmations. And I can't get past thinking there is no way all this pain after so long could go away. So, yeah, I have a lot of conflicts inside me which are probably prolonging my recovery.