Health Organization for Pudendal Education

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21613956

Clin J Pain. 2011 May 25.
Safety and Effectiveness of an Internal Pelvic Myofascial Trigger Point Wand for Urologic Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome.
Anderson R, Wise D, Sawyer T, Nathanson BH.
Source
Department of Urology, Stanford University, School of Medicine, Stanford, CA.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES:
Pelvic muscle tenderness occurs often in patients with urologic chronic pelvic pain syndrome; symptoms frequently can be reduced with pelvic myofascial physical therapy. This open-label pilot study evaluated the safety of a personal wand that enables patient's self-treatment of internal myofascial trigger points in the pelvic floor and its effect in reducing pelvic muscle tenderness.

METHODS:
A specially designed curved wand served as an extended finger to locate and release painful internal myofascial trigger points; an integrated algometer monitors and guides appropriate applied point pressure. Patients used the wand several times weekly after education and careful supervision. Evaluations for adverse events and assessments of pain sensitivity were conducted at 1 and 6 months after commencing use.

RESULTS:
One hundred and thirteen of the enrolled 157 patients completed 6 months of wand use-106 men and 7 women; 44 patients withdrew before study completion but none for adverse events. Median age was 41 years and 93% were male. Baseline median sensitivity visual analog scale score (1 to10, 10=most sensitive) was 7.5 and decreased significantly at 6 months to 4 (P<0.001, Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test). Most patients (95.5%) reported the wand as either very or moderately effective in alleviating pain. No serious adverse events occurred.

CONCLUSIONS:
A multimodal protocol using an internal pelvic therapeutic wand seems to be a safe, viable treatment option in select refractory patients with pelvic pain.

PMID: 21613956 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

This wand is quite interesting and would seem to me to be easier to use on yourself and instead of working with a pelvic floor PT as you should be able to set levels of pressure yourself.

Seems like a really high drop out rate. Wonder why?

nyt wrote: Seems like a really high drop out rate. Wonder why?

This is a common tactic to produce a desired result and has been employed by drug companies in the past. Simply allow people that are not responding favorably to drop out of the study and follow up those who are reporting positive results.

In Wises previous study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21334027 he failed to follow up a massive 42% of his sample. Also what is not included in the abstract of the study is that after 23 months of treatment patients VAS score ( pain on a scale of 1 to 10) only dropped by 1 point. In addition CPSI (Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index) dropped only 7 points. Placebo has produced a 5.4 CPSI reduction and on that study they followed up all the patients. https://prostatitissurgery.com/Pollen_Extract.html. Would the Wise Anderson Protocol produced results less than placebo if all patients had been followed up? A leading prostate surgeon has reviewed this Wise Anderson study ,see the link below.

https://prostatitissurgery.com/Physical_Therapy.html

In regards to the above study there are the usual problems the main being bias. David Wise , Rodney Anderson and Tim Sawyer were in charge of the study. All three profit in some way from either the A headache in the pelvis book , clinic or wand. This is not an objective study.

Also it should be made clear that Dr Wise is not a medical doctor. He is a Doctor of Sociology. He has no medical qualifications. His doctorate is listed below which you can verify with this website. http://sociology.berkeley.edu/alumni2/

University of California, Berkeley
Department of sociology
David Thomas Wise
Entering Cohort: 1967
Dissertation: Dharma West: A Social-Psychological Inquiry into Zen in San Francisco

None of the patients in this study were treated at Stanford. They were treated at the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa, the clinic is not affiliated with Stanford University. David Wise and Tim Sawyer are not nor have ever been members of any faculty at Stanford University. Dr Anderson is listed as holding Professor Emeritus status. The definition of this title on wikipedia is ''A Professor Emeritus or Professor Emerita is a full professor who retires in good standing''

The President of the Interstitial Cystitis Network has made a statement on the Clinic.

http://www.ic-network.com/forum/showthread.php?t=68892

We discussed here the previous study from April of 2011 that reported that a group of selected patients had a pain reduction on the VAS pain scale from a 4/10 to a 3/10 following the Wise-Anderson protocol after 6 months, which is frankly in the noise or placebo zone:
http://www.pudendalhope.info/forum/view ... =23&t=1150

Now, this new study is interesting. It says:

Baseline median sensitivity visual analog scale score (1 to10, 10=most sensitive) was 7.5 and decreased significantly at 6 months to 4

But sensitivity is not pain. Of course if you treat your trigger points daily, they will be less sensitive when you press on them but that is not what we patients are after. We want to be pain free and the Wise-Anderson protocol studies are always very vague on this aspect.

Thanks Charlie and Ezer. I figured you two would have something to say on the subject.