New Member with Chronic Pelvic Pain

Hi,

I am a new member and have been suffering with chronic pelvic pain for the past 4 years. The pain started one night and no one has yet figured out why. I had a lap. to look around for endo. but none was found. A year later, at the age of 30, I had a hysterectomy. But the pain came back a month later. 2 years into all this mess, I had my ovaries taken out. This time the pain went away for about 4 wonderful months. The last surgery was about a year and a half ago. They went in and scraped, helped for about a month.

The pain is always there - but gets worse standing and exercising. Other than is stupid pain I am a healthy mom of 1 and wife, age 34. My pain is on either side of my pelvic area near my hip bones and near my scares. My PT can feel trigger points. I also have pain from my pelvic floor. I have had trigger points done in all of these ares with and without steroids. They help for about 3-4 weeks but then things get bad again. My docs can feel the spasms on the vaginal wall so I am hopeful we are getting somewhere with the trigger points there. But nothing seems to help on the outside.

I am currently on: 120mg of cymbalta, 60mg Oxycontin, 35-45mg Oxycodone, 50mg Wellbutrin, 3200mg Gabbapentin, 10mg methylphenidate, Estrogen per day. For the past 12 years I have been teaching 7th grade and loving it. Last year I had to take off because of the pain and it almost cost me my marriage. This year seems better but the time and pain is messing with my head. I want one magic pill that gives me back my life. I feel 20 years older most days and probably look it.

If anyone has new suggestions for things to try, please let me know. My insurance has just denied botox for the trigger points.

thanks
P.B.

PB,

First, welcome to the board. I'm glad you are here.... but, of course, I wish you didn't have pain issues. The people on here are very supportive and encouraging....

I have some pelvic pain as well - it sounds like you've had trigger point injections? Did you have a hysterectomy due to the pain?

I can identify w/ you - as most of us can - that we would all like one "magic pill" to take away all the pain. Unfortunately, it rarely happens that way. It usually involves a myriad of things to help decrease the pain. And, as far as looking 20 years older - I get that one, too! I'm 38.... and I often times feel like I look/feel about 68. Chronic pain will do that to you.

Do your meds help decrease your pain in any way?

I'm sorry that I don't have specific ideas to decrease the pelvic pain; maybe others here will have ideas. You can also go to the "search" box above (upper right) and put in "pelvic pain" and see if you can find old posts that might offer you ideas.

Chronic pain has changed my life entirely. I have 8 children - 6 while I was healthy and then "surprise" twin daughters. I'm a completely different person than I was before chronic health and pain issues entered my life. That being said, I've found a way to accept this "new life" and just do my best, and take it day by day. Coming here for encouragement really helps. I hope you will find the same.

Oh, and chronic pain can absolutely lead to depression issues. Many of us deal w/ that as well.

How old is your child? My kids are almost 17 down to 8 (the boys) and the girls are 18 months old.

Anyway, welcome to the board.... and I look forward to getting to know you. I hope you can find something that helps w/ your pain issues. Living w/ chronic pain can be very, very frustrating. We can all relate to that, for sure.

Take care.... --Tina

Hi PB

I`m so sorry you are in so much pain. I have chronic pelvic pain too vulvadynia but my symptoms seem more like yours. Mine came out of the blue like yours and I have no signs of any damage or anything wrong with me.

I also take oxycontin/oxycodone. If you have spasms perhaps a muscle relaxer could help, especially on top of what you already take. I found valium helped for about 2 months when I took it before I was put on oxycodone. Though I got very tolerant to it very quickly. But taking it with other meds is sometimes helpful. The other thing I found that helped was raspberry leaf tea. You can buy it in some health stores. It`s taken for period pain and labour pain. It doesn`t taste nice, like pepper, but I found once it started helping with pain I associated it with pain relief and began to like the taste. The only thing is I found I had to drink a lot of it for it to work but once it did it was great. If you can buy it in leaf form it`s better as you can make it stronger. Also I had some success with valerian tea too which you can also get in health stores.

I guess you already know this but heat helps a lot. I find heat packs, hot water bottles, heat patches and baths help a lot. Also I don`t know if it would help considering where your pain is but I had some relief from an anaesthetic gel called xylocaine, it totally numbed the area. It`s available only by prescription in US but I think there are some alternatives (there is another thread by october3 where we have discussed them a lot).

I really hope you get some more relief soon. Love Di xxx