Pudendal Nerve re-growth?

[Smiler1962]

Hello,

I'm new to this site and hope someone will be able to give me some advice.

In February this year I was diagnosed with anal cancer. I began my radiotherapy and chemo in April and this is when the problems began. I started to feel more and more pain from an area around my perineum. This pain was worse when sitting and in the end I had to travel for my treatments in the back of friends cars as I couldn't sit down properly anymore.

The doctor prescribed me more and stronger pain relief as they thought it was my tumour misbehaving, the tumour is only about an 1'1/2" from the exit of my bottom so I can understand their logic. The staff at the hospital obviously thought otherwise and I was admitted straight away when the smell from the swelling became so disgusting that everyone took notice!

It transpired that the problem wasn't my tumour, I had developed a perinatal abscess. Following surgery the surgeon informed me that he had removed an area of gangrene the size of a tennis ball!!! The remaining hole was so deep that doctors were using torches to look into it and it stretched from just below my scrotum, along my perineum and eventually ended to one side of my anus. I spent eight weeks in hospital and I'm still having the wound dressed and cleaned each day by a district nurse.

The reason I'm writing all this is that everything below my perineum was obviously destroyed. My scrotum and penis feels clammy 24/7, I am unable to push in the same way when urinating. I have other problems relating to my penis in that it doesn't "inflate" in the same way when aroused as it used to and strangely enough is even a slightly different shape!! I'm aware that some of these problems may have been caused by the radiotherapy.

I'm assuming that my pudendal nerve has been destroyed by the abscess and gangrene. Could this be the case? Will it grow back and perform its function as normal? Any information would be greatly received.

[Violet M]

Smiler, I'm sorry you have had to go through this mess.

Peripheral nerves can regenerate but it's not a guarantee or an easy fix obviously. You might want to ask about hyperbaric oxygen treatments which have been shown in some peer-reviewed literature to assist in the regeneration of peripheral nerves. You can do a search in pubmed. Here is one article and I know there is another good one but I can't find it right now.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14605578

Violet

[Smiler1962]

Thank you for your reply, I'll take a look

[helenlegs 11]

Hi Smiler,
Welcome to HOPE,
You have had such an ordeal Just to mention that you do have two pudendal nerves and branches, do you think that the problems you have had, has affected both sides? Can the surgeon give you any idea of what had to be removed and how much?
This isn't something that has been asked before, I haven't anything to add in answer to your question, sorry.

Take care,
Helen

[Smiler1962]

To be honest Helen I haven't a clue how much has been removed. As I said in my first post, the surgeon stated he had removed an area the size of a tennis ball. Pretty much 90/95% of my perineum and the area behind it had gone by the time I woke up after the surgery.

I'm going to have to wait until I'm fully recovered from the cancer and then see if I recover normal functions. I'm fortunate that I'm not suffering any pain at the moment it's just that I want everything to be how it was before and I might not know that for many months yet.

Nick