Pelvic Pain: An American Surgeon Liberates Himself
By Lea Wilson
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About this ebook
Lea Wilson discovered what many people suffering with the agonizing and emotionally stressful pelvic pain disorder already knew: Chronic Pelvic Pain (CPP) is a poorly understood clinical syndrome of related diagnoses AND research has verified huge difficulties in effective treatment. Affecting as many as 9% of men, Chronic Pelvic Pain continues to baffle the clinicians.
Her husband's suffering (>3 years) provided motivation to gain understanding about the cognitive-behavioral models of chronic pain and the mind-body implications as reported in research of the condition.
Excerpt from book: "A few years ago, I was watching as my husband's pelvic pain worsened in frequency and intensity. He could not take the long walks on the beach that were supposed to become one of the highlights of our retirement. He was okay during surgery but could not turn away from the operating room table without almost doubling over in pain."
The author recounts the daily practices of less than one year that allowed her husband to free himself from his pain. The practice addresses the roles of attention/awareness, intention, posture, position, movement, and breath. The practices are simple, utilizing the neuroplasticity of our human brain in altering brain "real estate" to pursue relief and resolution of this disorder. The book offers the specifics of the practice support offered daily.
The book also defines specific key practice concepts used to dispel "beginner's" uncertainty, reinforcing information as her husband actively engaged in applying new understanding during daily practices.
The author has written a book that is accessible to anyone seeking to understand and apply current understanding of human brain functions, to explore the possibilities for a compassionate transformative change in health and other areas of life, and to explore the possibilities of liberation from chronic pain.
Lea Wilson
Lea Wilson is a new to nonfiction publishing. She was writing a book about teaching meditation without the dharma in the Bible belt when she was side tracked by her husband's pelvic pain. She has degrees in sociology and clinical nutrition and is a Certified Public Accountant.
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Pelvic Pain - Lea Wilson
Introduction
A FEW YEARS AGO, I was watching as my husband’s pelvic pain worsened in frequency and intensity. He could not take the long walks on the beach that were supposed to become one of the highlights of our retirement. He was okay during surgery but could not turn away from the operating room table without almost doubling over in pain. He was beginning to have a haggard look and a gray color in his face, adding ten years to his appearance. I have pictures from this time to remind us.
I was scared. Our future was being threatened, but the scariest part was that his future was being threatened. The years of delayed gratification, the years of hard work, and the years of sacrifice! How could this be happening to him?
This low point came after almost three years of following treatment protocols (diagnostic testing, drugs, physical therapy, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine recommendations, dietary restrictions) currently outlined in world standards of care for the poorly understood male chronic pelvic pain syndrome. This low point just happened to coincide with a time in my life when I was avidly reading about three things – neuroplasticity, functional movement, and creativity.
As it turns out, this information formed the foundation of the plans for how my husband would work with his body and his mind in an effort to liberate himself. Success came in a much shorter time frame than we imagined.
This book is a telling of the work and practice of less than a year (June to November) that was successful.
This book does not represent medical advice.
[1]
Understanding Male Pelvic Pain
To be clear, the type of pain that this book reports about is specific to a male, non-specific in external or internal initiation, difficult to localize, and elusive in obvious pathology.
CHRONIC PELVIC PAIN: What It Is
The many symptoms that accompany chronic pelvic pain are associated with various diagnoses: urological (chronic prostatitis, interstitial cystitis, urgency and frequency syndrome, painful bladder syndrome) and non-urological (cancer, stones, infections, and other potentially life-threatening conditions).
This complex problem is recognized to have nociceptive, visceral and neuropathic components, and is a diagnostic challenge to all health care providers. Patients suffer considerable morbidity throughout their lives resulting in a significant decrease in quality of life for both the patient and his/her partner due to the physical and physiological impact…Studies involving a medical diagnosis suggest CP/CPPS (Chronic Prostatitis/Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome) affects as many as 9% of men while the prevalence of self-reported prostatitis-like symptoms has been estimated to be as high at 16%.
Ref: Urologic Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome (UCPPS) Research (R01). National Institutes of Health Web site. http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-DK-12-025.html. Published November 30, 2012. Accessed September 1, 2013.
There are currently no universally effective therapies available, so the medical practitioner ends up managing the symptoms of the problem with a specific emphasis on the management of pain.
I decided that liberation from pain was a better goal.
MY READING LISTS
I read a lot of material related to the mind and brain mostly because I like knowing about a lot of things. My reading focused on:
neuro-plasticity, brain training, effects of mental training, psychophysiological assessments and biofeedback based interventions, self-monitoring, self-referential processing, cognitive monitoring, self-regulation, emotional intelligence, attention, attentional processing, working memory, executive function, cognitive behavioral therapy, relaxation response, thought suppression, regulation of urges, focusing, negativity bias, mirror neurons, self-control, willpower, acceptance and commitment therapy, mindsight, learned helplessness, fear conditioning, systematic mental training using motor imagery, process-specific learning, cognitive-control skills, cortical engagement, interoception, neuroticism, ironic process theory
I was also exploring my interest in aging and physical fitness. I read about:
anatomy for fitness and wellness, biomechanics of resistance training, biomechanical precepts of posture, functional movement assessment, postural assessment, standardization of biomechanical alignment in yoga postures
About this time, I was listening to podcasts about learning, intelligence and creativity because my fifty-year-old brother had two girls under the age of four years. I wanted to remind myself about what I knew about kids and review what had been learned since the last time I needed to know about how not to mess with their heads.
Some of the things discussed on the programs I listened to had me reading more about:
creativity, transient hypo-frontality, sleep, human skill set as more than just IQ, the nature of insight, Aha!
moments, sleep-related insight, unlearning, cognitive and non-cognitive learning, non-conscious self-regulation, explicit, tacit and implicit memory
With the new incentive (my husband’s pelvic pain), I began to read through a mountain of medical and scientific publications about:
chronic pelvic pain, pelvic floor problems, myofascia, myofascial slings, trigger point issues, sensory gating, diastasis, non-relaxing pelvic floor, levator ani syndrome, breath mechanics, paradoxical relaxation, attentional bias, priming, over-applied core stability training, dietary implications, pain-related emotions, brain maps, cognitive modulation of pain
I expanded my interests in biomechanics to include:
postural causes of pain, regional interdependence, breath accessory muscles, extensor coxae brevis and pelvic tilt, lower extremity consequences of core dysfunction, normal human locomotion
CONCLUSIONS ABOUT NORMAL BRAIN ACTIVITIES
Eventually, I had an image of a brain that is capable of practicing something (in this case pelvic pain) so often and so thoroughly that the practice stimulates the brain to build neurologic connections both within and throughout the body that allow it to do the pain effortlessly and more efficiently. The brain apparently ignores some information, amplifies other information, and generates or imagines spontaneous information specific to the practice.
These normal brain activities are a BONUS if you want to improve your golf game or to play wicked guitar, but they are devastating if the object of the brain’s practice is pelvic pain. The brain can get very good at doing pelvic pain!
CONCLUSIONS ABOUT WHAT NEEDED TO BE DONE
1. This is very important to understand. It is not our fault that our brain is designed this way. Once we recognize our brain design though, it is our responsibility and choice to work with it.
2. We must admit that we don’t know everything we need to know, and that’s okay. Generally speaking, people who don’t leave their door open
to new information, rarely make great, new discoveries.
3. We come with a brain and body. That brain and body have practiced the NO pelvic pain
longer than they have practiced pelvic pain, and that information is still