In early 2006, I was diagnosed with chronic pelvic pain syndrome, or prostatodynia. The diagnosis was just a label without a cause, a hope of treatment, or a cure. I had continual, sometimes intense pain in my thighs, hips, pelvic floor, genitals, buttocks, and low back, and I had a urinary dribbling problem. I could not sit in a car for more than 10 or 20 minutes. I rode the bus standing up. At work, I propped my keyboard and mouse atop printer toner boxes so I didn't have to sit.

I spent the entire year trying to find some way to handle this situation. I underwent a spermatocelectomy. I took Flomax and large doses of ibuprofen, and then salsalate, a more powerful anti-inflammatory. I bought special chair cushions. I had healing touch treatments.

Finally, toward the end of the year, two things happened that opened the door to better health.  I finally found a doctor who seemed to understand what I was going through and could offer some hope.  The doctor, a neurologist, diagnosed me with piriformis syndrome and ischiogluteal bursitis.  More importantly, he referred me to physical therapy and to an anaesthesiologist. The P. T. stretching regimen seemed to help, or at least did no harm, and the ultrasound treatments to my external hip rotators provided real relief. The anaesthesiologist gave me two trigger point steroid injections over the space of a couple of months, the first treatment I'd encountered that resolved the urinary symptoms for any length of time.

The second thing that happened was that I gave up.  I finally realized that maybe my body might start to heal itself if I quit trying to do things to it to make it better.  I had to quit looking for a cure, quit looking for a way to fix myself, in order to get better.  It was the key that opened the door to wellness.  The search for the diagnosis, the cure, had left me frustrated, dejected, and still in pain.  It gradually dawned on me that my condition probably is the result of many contributing factors, many of them related to physical, emotional and mental habits that are not diagnosable or curable in any conventional sense.  I'd been continuing my daily yoga routine, my daily walks, my habit of climbing the five flights of stairs at work instead of using the elevator, my morning dose of vitamin supplements. I chucked all of that and focused on relaxing, letting go of anything that smacked of self-improvement and self-discipline.

I'd bought the book A Headache in the Pelvis early on, but now I reread the section on trigger point massage and began doing massage on my own. Gradually, it became clear that trigger point massage really worked. I sorted through the P. T. stretching routine, keeping what worked and discarding anything that didn't. More importantly, I began stretching very gently, listening intently to my body and easing off at the first hint of discomfort. As my muscles released, I realized that I'd been much too aggressive with my yoga routine in the past, but gentle, passive stretching was extremely healing.

A couple other pieces of the puzzle came from meditation, mindfulness, and movement therapy.  My meditation routine and a mindfulness-based stress reduction class I took at The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics helped me accept pain when it occurred, instead of fighting it, which usually leads to more pain.  Rachelle Tsachor, a movement therapist, gave me good suggestions about ergonomics and stretching, and she helped me learn how to mindfully move and use my body in a more healthy way.   I've begun to see how my body reacts to stress and tension in ways that aggravate my condition. I've begun to learn how to prevent pain before it occurrs.

Now I'm relatively pain free and have no urological annoyances. When pain does flare up, I'm confident that I now have the tools to deal with it.  My resources page lists these tools in more detail.