New to this- which nerve blocks?

[NewButHopeful]

Hi everyone, I'm a little lost so I thought I'd come here for some help!

I had exploratory laparoscopic pelvic surgery 7 weeks ago by a wonderful endometriosis specialist. My symptoms were severe constipation, some pelvic bloating and pain, amenorrhea, severe vulvodynia and some incontinence. They ended up finding endometriosis/adhesions, scar tissue and a large mass on my right fallopian tube. All were removed. I also got a pelvix floor botox injection.

The interesting outcome of surgery was that for almost 2 weeks afterward, my life-long severe constipation (I was only going once per month) was absolutely gone. In my entire life, I had never experienced this before. My vulvodynia and severe genital pain was gone as well, which was so severe that I couldn't even be touched with a q-tip. It was amazing, but unfortunately it all came back 2 weeks later. So we're thinking that it was the nerve blocks that helped me so much and that I may have pudendal neuralgia.

But now I'm lost. I don't know much about pudendal neuralgia and I'm not sure if I'm in the right hands for treatment. We're going to try more nerve blocks but only pudendal nerve blocks. I'm wondering if I should ask for a hypogastric one too, based on my symptoms and just for safe measure (I had one for my surgery, so what if that's the one that helped?) because I don't want to have to go under anesthesia more times than I have to. All of this has to be done under anesthesia because of the severity of the vulvodynia.

Anyways, if anyone has had pudendal nerve blocks (or any kind of nerve blocks) for these kinds of symptoms, intestinal peristalsis issues, pelvic pain and genital pain, I would love to hear your experience. I'm just not even sure where to begin! And in the meantime, while I wait for these blocks...I have new rectal incontinence and spasms after the surgery and the first nerve blocks wore off as well as worsening constipation/intestinal pain so if anyone has any experience in dealing with that I'd love some advice for those issues too.

Thank you so much!

Thank you!

[janetm2]

Welcome to the forum NewButHopeful,
So sorry you are having issues post surgery. Given that you have spasms maybe a PN aware PT could be someone for you to see while you await the blocks. They can also help I believe with incontinence particularly if anythibg is muscle related. There is a list of PTs off the homepage to find one near you. Just going from basic testing in general if you try to do too many things at once you may not be able to figure out which helped. Good luck.
Janet

[stephanies]

Is it possible the incontinence could be related to the Botox relaxing the muscles? Just a thought.

[Violet M]

Anyways, if anyone has had pudendal nerve blocks (or any kind of nerve blocks) for these kinds of symptoms, intestinal peristalsis issues, pelvic pain and genital pain, I would love to hear your experience.

I had e pudendal nerve blocks before surgery but the relief I got from them was pretty short lived. I think it's reasonable to try several nerve blocks, especially for diagnostic purposes, but Dr. Robert cautions against having more than 3 in a series due to possible nerve damage. http://www.pudendalhope.info/sites/defa ... Robert.pdf

Good luck with the nerve blocks. Hope they will be effective for you.

Violet