Well this event with the aneros seemed to be the straw that broke the camels back.Shortly after the aneros incident, I made the mistake of doing pelvic floor stretches way too intensely right out of the gate. First day I did 3 hours. I think I may have torn my labrum during this session? The following day, my whole pelvic floor felt like it was on fire. After that it was just a disaster. Nerve pain, spasms, sphincter spasm and pain, tailbone pain and spasms, my hip was spasming, back pain, SI Join pain. Just everything felt on fire. I went to the ER and they thought I had pudendal neuralgia. Referred to a urologist and he thought the same.
Pelvic MRI with contrast came back clean. Started going to PF physical therapy. Internal massage helps, but I tighten back up quickly. Overall my symptoms have decreased in intensity. I was at 9/10 pain for a few days straight 8 months ago, and today, I'm around 2/10 pain, but mostly am just feeling discomfort. My perineum spasms near my anus - it feels like the muscles down there are bunched up and hard. Pressing on them doesn't do much, definitely some pain though. My worst symptoms are in my rectum. My rectum feels like it's in spasm 100% of the time 24/7. It isn't extremely painful, but it feels crazy, kind of like my butthole is puckered and twisted deep inside of me all day. If I take a muscle relaxer (methocarbamol), it releases a bit but never 100% relaxed. Painful bowel movements sometimes with red blood coating the stool. I'm seeing a GI doc on the 19th of this month (possible hemorrhoid/fissure/fistula?).
Although I'm not in extreme pain, my quality of life is in the drain. I haven't been able to exercise in 8 months (I was extremely active prior). I haven't had sex with my girlfriend in 8 months either. I average 1 orgasm a month, and I usually have pain and tightness in my pelvic floor after orgasm. I have fear that sex will make me flare hardcore. I need to get over this.
Still have back and hip pain so got lower lumbar MRI, and the back doc said I have the spine of a teenager (I'm 37). I just had a hip MRI with contrast, and it shows a labral tear and hip impingement on the right hip. I have had pain in the hip for the last 8 months (ever since this whole thing started). But the pain is only in certain positions like child's pose or if I'm trying to externally rotate my hip a lot. I also get a sharp pinching sensation if I pull my knee up to my belly. Sometimes random burning pain in the hip just laying down or sitting, but it isn't debilitating.
So now the big question is .. do I get arthroscopic labrum repair in my hip in the hopes that it will solve my pelvic floor issues.
The hip surgeon is the best one in a somewhat big city I live in. He does hip surgery for the 2 major professional sports teams here, so I have confidence in his abilities. My concern is that getting my labrum fixed will do nothing for my pelvic/rectum pain, and could even possibly make it worse. I've read that some people get pudendal neuralgia just from orthopedic surgery alone due to the traction (pulling of the leg) and the perineum saddle used (crushes/stretches the pudendal nerve). This is rare (like 1-2%) and also will almost always resolve on its own. But I've read a few cases where the neuralgia did not resolve after surgery.
I asked the ortho surgeon if he was aware of the issue with pudendal nerve damage due to the surgery and he had a good response. They use as little traction as possible, use a large padded saddle, and give muscle relaxers to the patient prior to surgery. These were all the preventative measures that the Pubmed articles I read stated. He also said that he's done thousands of hip repairs in the office, so they are efficient and experienced, so less time in traction.
My fear is that I have this major surgery with a 3-6 month and possibly longer recovery period and find that it does absolutely nothing for my pelvic floor spasms/tightness/pain.
My current plan is to see the GI doc on the 19th of this month, see if I can solve the rectum issue. The rectum issue might be causing the tightness in the perineum. I'm guessing he'll want to do a colonscopy, which of course I'm fearful of. My internal sphincter is extremely sensitive and tight. I've tried dilation and the smallest dilator caused serious trauma (felt like scar tissue tore open in my internal sphincter, and I had ~1.5 weeks of pure hell of internal sphincter spasms and searing pain).
Lastly, my regular doc referred me to another urologist because he believes I may have prostatitis and wants to give me a month of cipro. I've avoided antibiotics throughout this whole ordeal because all of my bacterial testing came back negative. He says it's almost impossible to test positive for bacterial prostatitis. I'm thinking it might be worth giving the antibiotics a shot before doing something invasive like arthroscopic labral repair.
I'm also seeing a new PF PT starting next week and will begin to focus on strengthening my hip. Maybe that will help?
What do you think of the plan? Has anyone here gone through labral repair/hip impingement surgery and had a reduction in pelvic floor tightness/pain? I've done a bunch of searches on reddit and it's a mixed bag. I have found maybe 1-2 examples where it helped, but then others who say it made it worse or did nothing at all.
I feel so frustrated with the lack of clarity here. It feels like a such a crap shoot with such a major life decision.
