Can weight loss cause pn?

[Dusty_in_Hope]

Hi everyone,

I am new to the forum and to pn.

I was just wondering whether weight loss has can cause pn and if anyone thinks that it caused, or was a contributing factor, in them getting pn. I am post-menopausal and had just managed to lose about 42lb in weight when pn struck. I have googled about this and have seen that extreme weight loss (possibly much more weight loss than I have very gradually managed to achieve over many months) can cause nerve damage, but can't find anything about weight loss and pn.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Dusty

[stephanies]

Hi Dusty,

Welcome to the forum. I have not heard of weight loss contributing to PN. Did you have any pelvic surgery or suffer a bad fall prior to your pain beginning? Were you engaged in weight lifting or a strenuous exercise program? These are some of the more common "triggers" I seem to read about as contributing to the onset of this type of pain.

Sincerely,
Stephanies

[Violet M]

Dusty, I haven't heard of weight loss causing PN, either. Congratulations on achieving this much weight loss but I'm sorry to hear you now have a new problem to deal with.

Violet

[Dusty_in_Hope]

Hi Stephanies and Violet

Many thanks for your replies. I'm pleased to hear that my pn is probably nothing to do with my weight loss - especially as I have more blubber to lose and wouldn't want to make matters worse.

Stephanies: I haven't had any surgeries (but I do have a rectocele which has recently got worse and might need surgery) and I didn't do any weight lifting or other strenuous exercise leading up to my pn. (I've suffered with fibromyalgia syndrome for many years and the muscle pain and stiffness and muscles spasms that I experience with with my fibro restricts my ability to exercise - I can only do a bit of slow walking each day.)

I did, however, suffer a very painful muscle spasm (associated with my fibromyalgia) in my right sacro-iliac area, which made me unable to weight-bear. The muscles involved 'splinted' hard like concrete, so I spent about a week and half just lying back on my recliner armchair in a lot of pain and only getting up when necessary, while I waited for things to relax and improve. (I've had such bad muscles spasm before - in various places on my body and in my right sacro-iliac area in particular - and resting as much as possible is the only thing that has enabled me to recover as quickly as possible, otherwise the spasms continue for months on end.)

Then, only a couple of days after my painful muscle spasm ceased, stupidly I didn't move around as much as I could and should have done and, about two weeks post recovery from the severe muscle spasm, the pn started with a vengeance. Also, not long after my muscles relinquished their vice-like grip, I returned to my routine of using e-stim for my stress and urge urinary incontinence caused by a weak pelvic floor. I am wondering whether all of these things were contributing factors to my getting pn - a kind of 'perfect storm', so to speak.

Kind regards
Dusty

[Monica123]

Dusty,

I am also post menopausal and just lost 27 lbs myself and that's when my pain started. I was wondering the same thing you are. I actually had to stop cardio on my elliptical because when I got off the machine the pain starts up pretty bad. If you ever do find an association between the two let me know, I have been very curious...

Thanks!
Monica

[Dusty_in_Hope]

Hi Monica

Thanks for posting to let me know that I am not alone in experiencing and wondering about nerve pain and weight loss.

This is going to sound weird, but during the last couple of years I had two attempts at losing weight...The first attempt saw me losing weight at a faster rate than I have done recently, i.e. 2-3lbs a week (as opposed to an average of about 1lb a week). I was eating healthily (a well balanced diet) during that first attempt but, after about a month of eating smaller meals, I suddenly got a really irritating tingling of the nerve at the tip of my nose...it went on constantly for about 2-3 weeks and, although only a small thing, it was getting me down. I ended up using capsaicin cream (pepper cream that they prescribe for diabetic neuropathy) to numb the tingling and resumed my normal diet for a while and - coincidence or not - the tingling went away after about two weeks. I then waited a couple of months to cut down my portions again, but not as much as I had done before, and all seemed to be okay, but then - after losing 42lb - the pn-like pain suddenly started

I will certainly post to let you know should I find out any information re a scientific explanation or whatever.

Dusty

[Violet M]

Monica, could it be the elliptical rather than the weight loss that is the problem? The elliptical contributed to my PN problems.

Violet

[srinmav]

Is it possible that loss of cushioning (around the butt region due to loss of weight) can put more pressure on the nerve and induce PN in susceptible persons? Most of us feel better sitting on a cushion isn't it - so loss of natural cushion can be bad for some people? I personally feel more nerve pain whenever I experience loss of weight.

[Dusty_in_Hope]

Is it possible that loss of cushioning (around the butt region due to loss of weight) can put more pressure on the nerve and induce PN in susceptible persons? Most of us feel better sitting on a cushion isn't it - so loss of natural cushion can be bad for some people? I personally feel more nerve pain whenever I experience loss of weight.

Thanks for your reply, srinmav. I am indeed much less padded in that region now - plus the flesh is more saggy - due to my weight loss and also due to post-menopausal thinning and laxity of the skin. (It's not a pretty sight and a recipe for things not being what they used to be! )

I also wonder whether with reduced food intake - with food (some foods more than others) known to raise serotonin levels - it makes for a propensity to feel pain where you didn't feel it before (or to feel pain more intensely in areas where there was previously already some pain or discomfort). (Before I dieted I had been experiencing fluctuating coccyx pain, which has become much more profound since my weight loss.) Serotonin apparently regulates food intake, appetite, gastrointestinal, endocrine, pulmonary, cardiac, urogenital systems and vascular biology and it has a major role in modulating pain perception http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h1771/rr-12 I guess, with dieting, I may well have upset a somewhat delicate balance.

[Monica123]

Violet, to an extent the elliptical does cause flair up however, I also get flair ups when not on the machine. I thought I read somewhere that any exercise increases the pain (my guess would be that the muscles that the nerve runs along or against get tensed from the exercise). Sometimes I will just insert a vaginal Valium after exercising which helps.
Also, I've been noticing that the pain is not as bad when I am working. I've been trying to pay attention to a lot of things that I do different at work than at home. Everything from my posture, to how I sit and stand. (I wear a uniform that kind of forces me to stand with a different posture than when I am not in uniform). I have also found that if I am driving and I begin to feel the shocks, if I sit up a little straighter and lean forward just a bit the shocks stops....

Monica