Possible to have PN without genital symptoms? Help please

[lostin89]

This all started at the beginning of 2020. A close family member passed away, then the pandemic happened so I was stressed out and spending a lot of time home, then eventually started working from home on my PC and sitting 14+ hours a day.

Around ~6 months ago I noticed I couldn’t sit anymore than a few minutes without extreme sit bone pain. Also, around this time I developed chronic constipation which I was able to alleviate with a change in diet and lifestyle. I started walking ~1 hour a day, stetching and exercising.

So while doing a lot of the common exercises for the pelvic floor I noticed stiffness and achy pain in my hip around the trochanter, near the TFL, and around the back near the buttocks and gluteal tendons. At first this was a feint pain that would only flare up after long walks, bike rides, squats etc. But these flare ups started to last longer to the point where it was limiting my activities.

It eventually got so bad and now my hip pain is debilitating. My hip constantly aches, it feels like a never ending charley horse. I can’t walk more than 20 minutes, I can’t sit at all, I can’t do anything anymore. I’m waking up in pain and going to bed in pain even after days of resting with no activity.

I’ve tried fighting this with exercise and strengthening workouts because every doctor mentions that my pelvis is misaligned and my lower body is weak but I’ve had no luck.

I’ve been to PT, chiropractor, mutliple orthopedics, rheumatologist, pelvic floor specialist, had a hip and pelvis MRI, bone scan, hamstring ultrasound, EMG, steroid injections near my sit bone and trochanter etc.

Every test has been normal.

The last doctor I seen was an OMT who does manipulative therapy to fix muscle imbalances. No luck either, but he’s been very curious about my issue. He just called me the other day. He said he gave it more thought and since this started with sitting he thinks there could be something wrong with my pudendal nerve. So now I’m here.

My main symptoms are hip pain, sit bone pain on the left side, and now I’m having some sharp pain in my si joint. I’m at my wits end and don’t know what to do anymore.

[Violet M]

When you saw the pelvic floor specialist did they do an internal exam (via anal area if you are male - or vagina if you are female) and press along the course of the pudendal nerve to determine if you have any sensitivity or tenderness there? Were your pelvic floor muscles tight?

My experience was that I had pain just inside the sit bone area but not right on the sit bone. Eventually my entire pelvic area felt like it had been hit with a baseball bat because the surrounding muscles went into spasm. I had pelvic misalignment and SI joint dysfunction from chronically strained ligaments after weightlifting. Not sure what your age is, but as you age, your ligaments can become hardened and sclerosed. Ligaments don't heal easily because they don't have a great blood supply so I tried prolotherapy which was helpful in stabilizing the pelvis. You might want to research that option, although you don't want to overdo on the prolotherapy either because you can develop scar tissue if you get too much of it.

Violet