Bill Taylor, physiotherapist (UK)

[graeme]

All I can say was what Bill found and the pain was all the proof I needed 15 -20 trigger points

Are you saying that he found 20 internal trigger points?

Yes, according to Bill, and I felt them. Now only 2 remade my symptoms, others created symptoms which I don't currently have (like golfball etc)

Referred pain in predictable regions as a result of pressure is a hallmark of trigger points, and a key diagnostic criterion. This is basic and well documented.

Can they not create local pain then ?

Where does it state that you have to do Paradoxical relaxation (or any form of relaxation) for 2 hours plus a day for CPPS?

He was pointing out that it was ok for Dr Wise to do this to treat himself 2 hours as he was wealthy and had the time (not working).

Hey I'm not saying this will cure me but I've only been once !

[garyholc]

How are you feeling today giving it being a few days after seeing Bill?

[rafalution]

Does anyone have a number for Bill, or know of anyone closer to London?

[graeme]

Just to let guys know I've now seen Bill 4 times the last time a few a week ago marked a real improvement, Bill worked on my final trigger points just left high up by the prostate (out of my reach ). The pain when touched at first was bad (burning local and referred to my symptoms) but by the end of my session Bill had rid me of these triggers and really stretched the muscle, since then I've been pain free a lot of the time with the odd twinge after peeing now and again (just a reminder that they have shortened a little again ). Not touched a pain killer all week and all though not 100% I believe I'm on the mend.

I've had this long enough to know things can change over night so I'm maybe be being a little to optimistic time will tell !

[webslave]

I'm going to post some negative remarks about Bill Taylor (BT). I'm doing this for two reasons:

• I have been aware of negative feelings about BT for a few years, but because I did not want to bag any PT doing this work, it was kept quiet. But on the other hand, the members have a right to know.
• A lot of men in Europe travel to see BT as a result of reading about him on this forum. Yet when I asked BT recently to put a link on his website's "Links" page to this website, he refused. That sort of dismissive arrogance towards an ally like me denotes something about him we all need to be aware of: over-confidence and clearly, stupidity. This aspect of his personality emerged in other comments about him by others, see below.

So here are the comments I previously deleted (actually I moved them to a forum ordinary members cannot see):

We both (BT and I) essentially stumbled across internal trigger points as the cause of my CPPS. Looking back, I realise I was probably the first person who he performed internal work on.

He had a choice: He could have said this is really interesting, I'm going to be humble and go and learn about this from people with experience etc. Instead, he invented himself as a chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome expert, began teaching courses in it for other PT's and began slagging off certain aspects of the Stanford/Wise-Anderson Protocol. I wouldn't have a problem with his questioning this if he were experienced, and his questioning would lead to any advances in the protocol. It's just that he thought knowing about chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome seemed to put him on an equal footing with Guys like Tim, who worked with David Simons himself for 10 years, and has around 20 years experience of treating CPPS.

Like I said, he had a choice which way was he was going to go. In relation to him going over to Stanford, he mentioned it numerous times, but I'll be surprised if it ever happens.

He also charges double for seeing chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome patients, which, quite frankly, pisses me off.

If you look at Bill's post, he stated that he has 20 years of treating pelvic pain. However, he cites me as motivating him to learn about chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome (3 years ago!). Looking back I realise that I was probably the first person Bill treated internally, and he has pursued no formal training since then. Having a 'busy practice' is the typical kind of excuse and cop-out I would expect to hear from Bill. My concern is that it's not just that he can't find trigger points: he is disorganised; does not take notes and has about 4 patients on the go at once!

Bill also actually seriously hurt me and caused a serious injury to my pelvis which he then failed to spot for 4 months, until I went to another physio who couldn't believe the position my pelvis was in and fixed it immediately.

I've kept quiet in the past, my reasoning being that if someone in the UK goes to Bill and even experiences a 30% improvement, then this is positive given that no one else in the UK seems to treat CPPS.

However, these reports which point to his inability to treat chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome patients who have spent a lot of money travelling from abroad have made me rethink this.

I can only speak from experience, but here are a couple of key points:

• Bill treated me internally at least 30 times and found ONE (although it was a major one) trigger point internally. He never treated a single abdominal trigger point.
• Bill (as with many Physios) works on his own and never has his worked judged or evaluated by anyone on a regular basis. Consequently, he develops bad habits and builds up an unrealistic picture of where his skills really are. How can anyone, in any profession, develop really good skills in such conditions?
• My girlfriend, with absolutely no training, was able to find several internal trigger points after this, in areas of my pelvic floor where Bill never went anywhere near. This also supports Mike's point.
• Tim Sawyer was then able to find and release countless TP's internally and externally, the vast majority of which re-created many of my symptoms.
• Bill has 3.5 years of experience and is completely self taught. Tim has 20+ years of experience and trained for many years under David Simons.

[Hacksquat]

Bad news for me!

I´m planning on travelling to Scotland seeing this PT shortly. He is, from what I know, the ONLY one in Europe for this condition. Fortunately he seem to have helped some as well (Graeme?), but it´s not promising about him seeing 4 patients simultaneously. And him not grasping the whole concept of SP.

I haven´t been properly diagnosed with intrapelvic TP´s yet, so for me it would be a huge step forward if he can recreate at least some symptoms, and / or confirm that I have short and tight muscles in there.

[webslave]

Yes, it really is bad news that this is one of the only PT resources in Europe. I think I'll email DW and ask him if he and his team have trained anyone there yet.

[scotsman]

Whilst I do understand and agree with Mark's desire to put some balance on the forum regarding Bill, I also have to make sure that we don't end up thinking that Bill isn't worth seeing.

I had over 40 sessions with Bill during the early stages of my treatment, so I'm well positioned to give comment to this thread.

Negatives:

* Yes, I agree that he does charge double for seeing chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome patients - but the sessions do last for anything up to a couple hours (rather than the 30 mins you get for other physio treatments). I don't like the double cost but I can understand the economics.

* Yes, he does treat others when you're with him. You'll get 10-20 mins worth of treatment, then he'll leave you to rest (sometimes with some acupuncture in place) and he'll be off treating others (for 10-20 mins) before coming back for some more treatment, then rest/wait, then more treatment. I have to say that I didn't really like this aspect of it, I'd prefer to have someone give me 100% attention for the hour I'm paying for, rather than share that time with others and get 2 hours. Towards the end of my time visiting him this aspect annoyed me more and more.

* He didn't keep any notes for me - and I missed that thought out and clinical approach as I think my progress would have been better with longer term planning. No mapping of my triggerpoints either.

* The one main trouble spot that I still have left has been there from the start and we never really approached or treated that area right in my opinion. I feel a bit let down to be honest. Don't know how fair that is of me to feel that as part of that might have been down to a lack of explaining by me, or down to his lack of experience of treating this condition back then (4-5 years ago) - as he was learning with us in those days. I'm still frustrated though that the trouble spot wasn't caught back then.

Positives

* Incredibly nice, genuine and caring guy - very supportive and in the dark early days of this condition made all the difference to me. The mental side of our condition is a big component and, to be frank, Bill gave me hope and belief.

* He did find and treat a lot of my triggerpoints, e.g. got rid of my frequency and urinary issues.

Of course, I'm still not better, and I wish that he had treated some areas differently (i.e. lots more skin stretching/rolling for example) but I don't and haven't had a problem recommending Bill and I still do.

Would I recommend Bill if Stanford and Tim (who I've never been too) was down the road? No, I wouldn't as I've never read or heard a negative comment about Tim's work - but they aren't just down the road, and the cost and time to visit Stanford doesn't always make it an easy option for some.

Lets also not forget that Stanford is 100% set-up for the treatment of chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome and I imagine Tim spends a huge % of his time doing triggerpoint work - which means he's probably seen and treated almost everything given the experience. On the other hand Bill runs a large general physiotherapy practice - and I'd imagine chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome patients make up low single digit % of his patient group.

It's been over 3 years since I was last treated by Bill - so I can't comment on how he has progressed with his treatment - but I'd recommend people still see him, but with the comments on this thread in mind.

Richard.

[webslave]

Bill has agreed to link his site to ours. That's good because we send a lot of people to Bill. And that allows his chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome patients use our site for support.

Regarding the issue of expertise and training, Bill is one of the very few people in Europe who does this work, but Bill has never had formal training in this particular area if specialization, as far as I know. I do know he has told many of his patients that he will go to Wise/Sawyer for training, or to Kotarinos, but he has not followed through (again, as far as I know). I urge Bill to take the time to visit Stanford and get properly trained in finding and treating internal triggerpoints. I don't agree that this is an area where a PT can simply become self-taught on a hit-and-miss basis, or muddle through on their own, relying on intuition or an extrapolation of their basic physiotherapy training.

Once Bill has the Stanford training, he could bill (no pun intended) himself as Europe's proponent of the protocol, and charge commensurately higher fees. And patients would get the best treatment. A win-win.

[webslave]

One month later, and although he has sent many emails to me reassuring me that the reciprocal link from his website to this forum would go up soon, it never has happened, and clearly never will. He was "having a laff" at my expense, it appears. So if I were suffering from CP/CPPS, I wouldn't go to him for treatment if he were the last PT on earth. Anyone who plays this kind of game is a little strange, and I wouldn't want his fingers up my bum, to be perfectly honest.

So in summary, my thoughts on, and others' experience of, Taylor:

• Overconfident and dismissive of real experts
• Self-trained in this area, misses key trigger points
• Disorganized, according to patients, and in my experience too
• First chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome patient was Alprost a few years ago, but he tells people he has been treating chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome patients "for many years" (one patient said he claimed 20yrs experience with chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome patients!)
• Likes to announce that he "doesnt believe the Wise-Anderson Protocol is the be all and end all of treatment like some people tend to believe". This illustrates the overconfidence I spoke about above. Who is this mere physiotherapist, who is trained to treat sports injuries, to pass judgement on a protocol devised by urologists, psychologists, master physiotherapists and sufferers? Taylor knows very little about chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome and has NO training in the field of internal TrPt treatment. And yet he bites the hands that feeds him, bagging the W-A protocol while profitting handsomely from it.
• He charges more because he can. Supply and demand. If this treatment were commonly available in the EU, he'd have to charge much, much less.
• You have to ask yourself why Taylor has never taken a week or two of his time to get properly trained at Stanford by the team over there, who specifically offer to train PTs. Overconfidence once again, it appears. Or maybe he doesn't care if he's doing the best job for you or not.
• Does not follow through on promises. Can play "mind games" with people he doesn't like, and (in my experience) will lie without blinking (reassured me numerous times he would do something that he had no intention of doing). I even offered to update his site for him. It's a 2-minute job. He strung me along for a month with BS stories about his missing webmaster. I suspected he was toying with me from his first email, in which he asked what the name of my website was (he visits this site at least weekly), but I gave him the benefit of the doubt, for a month. After a month of emails, he still couldn't contact his web person, and that clinched it for me. Game over, Bill.

If I lived in Europe, here's what I'd do:

1. Get Wise's book
2. Try self-treatment
3. If it fails, save the pennies and try to have a short visit to Stanford for a week during which I (and/or my significant other) would be taught how to treat myself

Note: some of the moderators asked me to tone this post down, and I've complied to an extent, but I've kept most of it because I feel my impressions of this guy — someone I've been promoting for years but who can't lift a finger to reciprocate — and the negative impressions other people have of him, need to be aired, especially when he is charging premium rates.