Odd glans penis pain/ CPPS? (Alphalifestyle)

[webslave]

That is typical allodynia. It's also a very common problem with this disorder. It tends to go away once the whole condition improves. BTW, the associated TrPt for that pain (glans penis) tends to be in the upper insertions of the levator ani.

[robertpagen]

It is admirable that Dmcu took the time to guide that man with such an imformative post. I really respect that type of post.

[superuse]

Can a good therapy, maybe CBT for Anxiety Disorder really lead to a change where muscle tension just disappears. Can talk therapy be powerful enough to get rid of this long hold tension patterns?

On the forum numerous times the concept of anxiety disorders (usually OCD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) / Panic Disorder) have come up. Depression issues (and its companion anxiety) also. It is interesting when I was in psych class years ago that a chunk of the questions on the Disability review for Social Security to qualify for anxiety and depression centered around:

-Were you picked on in school? Did you feel persecuted in school?

Obviously there are others, but people with anxiety disorders are almost always depressed. The frontal part of the brain controlling the "fight or flight" response in the human animal in OCD, General anxiety, and panic disorder may be over stimulated. This has the patient on constant vigilance for threats to health and safety, including hypochondria. fear of poverty, social anxiety (control, safety) etc. This fear for safety can manifest as fear of failure (in job, marriage, sex, social situations) to the point of avoiding it. Such stuff can be really exacerbated by problems in the early years thru high school, especially in school or family. The chemical imbalance in the brain being analogous to the imbalance in the pancreas of the diabetic (but not as well understood). The stigma of mental issues is there also.

There is little difference between ages 26-36 however the years between 3rd and 12th grade are tremendous for the brain and experiences there combined with an underlying propensity towards anxiety disorder could have great affect. (thus the question on the SS psych eval questionnaire) People with OCD tend to carry things from the past forever, in an infinite loop. Sometimes people with OCD seem to **require** a current opponent/personality bad guy as they go along in life.

Most humans have normal fears of health, aging, death, however with an over-stimulated fight or flight mechanism these can become amplified and by different amounts, and doesn't need to be logical. Take the normal human stressors- loss of job, new job, moving, marriage, divorce, birth, death. A trained doctor who sees death every day may experience a near or full nervous breakdown before marriage or divorce. Sometimes the diagnosis of manic-depression, OCD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and appropriate medication only comes after revealed by one of these "breakdowns". According to the psychiatry journal most people suffering aren't properly diagnosed until their early 30's.

People with OCD may have many control issues, with money, tidiness, grades, ( especially perfectionism) , stalking issues etc trying to compensate for the over-stimulated FOF mechanism, the fear and insecurity it causes, trying to providing control and "safety". The control/ low self worth issues present in some may be compensated by control of money, grades, environment, appearance (weights, sports). People with obsessive compulsive personalities have launched rockets to the moon but when it becomes a disorder, anxiety and irrational rituals may take over more and more of the brains' "bandwidth"

I can't emphasize enough how a young man in his 20's or early 30's can have a tremendous amount of energy uncontrollably diverted in an infinite loop of tests, theories etc (the hypochondriacal manifestation of OCD/Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)/ and an overstimulated FOF mechanism) or other neurosis. The young have it to spare. People with higher IQ's may have a worse time of it. Someone of below average intelligence may be able to "toss back a few cold ones" (or more) and plod on but more intelligent people may be able to think of many more dangerous consequences and scenarios and obsess for quite a while. (years and years) The constant "what if" thinking common to anxiety disorders taking up an incredible amount of time.

There has been a lot learned in the last 15 years. About OCD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)/PD Autism (even mild) and schizophrenia. To the layman OCD and its cousins in the anxiety disorder coral could perhaps be considered watered down schizophrenia, the voices and delusions of a schizophrenic just as real as the debilitating isolation of a man with severe OCD wearing rubber gloves for everything and spending the day uncontrollably wiping off everything in a hypochrondriacal fit for germs. The people can be college professors or bricklayers.

For true cases, talk therapy is generally of not thought the most useful. As it is of no use for a schizophrenic. Numerous new drugs have come out to treat OCD Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) Panic disorder, in bad or milder forms. Sometimes it is combined with lithium. If you have cousins, uncles or direct relatives that have been hospitalized for mental problems, getting a disability check for mental or issues "unknown to you", and taking "lots" of pills, this is definitely something to look into if you suspect it. If one has a relative diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic all one needs is 10% of that issue in his own genes to cause anxiety and other problems.

Unfortunately in cases of OCD the perfectionism instinct may kick in, and as being on medication is less than a perfect person, the individual may avoid treatment for (already possibly problematic) self worth issues -- another circular loop. Psychiatry is hooey, anyone going for mental help is weak, (and I'll never be weak or non-perfect again since Buddy Jones picked on me in 1979 ) etc... The perfectionism, contrasting and comparing to others, and other issues can make one his biggest critic, and biggest enemy

For some unfortunate reason, one reaction of the body to these anxiety processes may be a host of weird physical symptoms, of course many times as noticeable and worrisome due to the subjects OCD, which is the indirect result of the OCD/FOF mechanism itself. A lot of one's life can be taken up. I believe Dr. Shoskes attributes this (at least pelvic pain symptoms) sometimes to an over worked adrenal system, or HPA axis. (possibly from the over worked FOF portion of the brain?)

Anyway, my 4c on the issue. Some may want to pursue this. Life is too short.

Get well
--jjf

[etaoinshrdlu]

The other night, I was cuddling with a friend. There's a mutual attraction, but there are reasons preventing us from ever acting on our feelings. But we were cuddling for a few hours and things got sort of intense without getting intense, and of course I was turned on for a lot of that time. Yep. Major flare. Whereas when I was in a relationship and having regular, fairly mechanical, sex? All was reasonably well.

[mach5]

Agreed on the post erection flare. Often its even worse for me if I have a long time erection that doesnt end in sex and ejaculation. After a certain point I will have a bad flare, but its slightly less if I actually finish. If its just a short time erection, then its less painful then after ejaculation.

As for the comment "My theory on this is essentially that we need a sustained period of non-aroused time (think this depends on the individual case, but I know for me it's at least a few months). My belief is that after my muscles have stayed loose and my nerves remained calm, I will be able to go back to having a normal sex life."

Thats not usually possible. Men naturally have 3 - 4 (avrg), erections a nite. If you dont, you should be considering the possibility of vascular problems, nerve damage, etc. However, many men just dont notice them. But lots of us do when we hump something in our sleep or wake up with a raging erection.

For me, the first pee of the morning is the worst. I used to think it was because of having more concentrated pee, or tensing muscles while I sleep (which probably is also a factor), but also likely the fact is that I have 3 or 4, 20 minute erections while sleeping.

For men who avoid erections during the day, or masturbation/sex, I would expect to see more night time erections and possible night time seminal emissions (ejaculating in your sleep). Man was designed to procreate, sperm was designed to come out. The body is going to attempt to make that in one form or another.

PS. I cannot do those long extended cuddles either than end up with long term erections, cause then afterwards I am in so much pain.... its like... ok, please go home now so I can cry myself to sleep. Ouch. Sucks.

[philDK]

Sorry for my english, i am from Denmark. I will soon make a post on this forum, where one of my main symptoms (well, main symptom, because you can see it) is, my swollen and red meatus. I did see your picture in one of your older post, i can tell you, that is nothing my meatus (penis tip) looks much worse. I will soon post a topic on the forum, about my symptoms, hope you will jump in and see then, thx, and have a nice day to all who read this.

[Alphalifestyle]

Yeah, I would like to see your pics to compare our symptoms. Good thing you found your way here. I will definitely reply, as our symptoms seems to not be that common so I hope we will find some way to relief that symptom together. But is your meatus just swollen and red or also painful if touched by clothes, girl, bedsheet, etc.?

[gmccormack]

Webslave is right, this is allodynia and it does go away or decrease as the condition starts to get better. I also think it is fairly common.

When I would take showers after a bath, the water raining down on the penis tip would cause a lot of pain and also when i got the cold and "wind" would cause further odd feelings and pain. Over the past year it has faded and I no longer have it, not to say my condition is gone but it is improved.

Hang in there, in time this should fade.

[Alphalifestyle]

Hey everybody,

As I explained before, I am from Germany and as a student cannot effort to see any PT specialized in internal massage. For that reason, I started exploring my pelvic muscles internally by myself. Here is what I found after several weeks of exploring and massaging:

1. The anal sphincter feels extremely sore all the time, the muscle is full of hard muscle strings and feels incredibly sore and painful, no matter how much I massage the muscle. If I press really hard into any part of the sphincter it can produce really deep pain.

2. If I put my index finger in so that my nail is pointing 6 o clock, to my back and I press anywhere against the tissue in the front (12 oclock) of my pelvic floor, I get very nasty sharp pain and it recreates urinary frequency and the burning I feel while urinating. It feels like everywhere I can reach around the front of the pelvic floor its painful and burning. Especially in the middle, but also when I press on muscles at 2 oclock and 1oclock. But nothing I would describe as a triggerpoint, there are "points" which pressed, create more sharp and intense pain, but there is no knot or hardened muscleball. It feels like if I could reach up even higher, there might be even more painful muscles but the range of my index finger is limited of course... but after massaging there it feels like I can breath deeper and relax better.

3. Somewhere around 1 clock I can feel a hard knot at the outside of the anal canal, it feels like hard muscle fiber or something like that, but pressing it doesn't create pain. Its strange so, because its a really big hard piece of tissue. I asked my general health practitioner about it, because I was afraid its a tumor, but she examined my rectum and said its all smooth and she couldn't feel anything... its because she didn't reach up high enough, but she didn't believe me and said there is nothing to worry about.

4. There is a muscle string between my anus and my balls, massaging there can also create intense, sharp pain.

Now to some new symptoms I developed recently:

Extremely premature ejaculation: This is unbelievable, but upon the shortest amount of stimulation, I get an strange feeling around my anus or the inner part of my penis and have to ejaculate, no normal amount of sexual intercourse possible. The weirdest thing is, that I even get the urge to ejaculate when I am massaged around my lower back, ass. One time I ejaculated when my girlfriend was licking my nipples. Is this some issue of nerve windup??? It drives me crazy.

Swollen veins around balls after sexual arousal: When I am kissing, making out with my girlfriend and getting aroused without ejaculating I get swollen, painful veins around my balls in the scrotum. It subsides after some time. It only comes with sexual arousal.

Erection strange getting worse and worse, even when sexually aroused not getting good, hard erections. But I get pretty good erections in the morning.

Still the problem of sticky, wired skin on glans and shaft. If I stretch the foreskin just a little it hurts, like I get tears, feels like the skin on the penis lost its elasticity. May this be due to bad bloodflow caused by the tight anal sphincter and pelvic floor muscles, and because of it I have a lack of oxygen and relaxing PE1 and PE3 and to much Pe2 in my penis tissue?

The skin of my penis, especially glans is not smooth and even like before, but feels wrinkled, dry and also kinda sticky. When I have sex I can only penetrate if I apply a lot of saliva or gel on my penis, because otherwise it won't go in. Its so strange.

I also get bruised EASILY. After intercourse I often have red dots on my glans and the shaft under the glans, sometimes little wounds.

All this problems relating to my penis are really the worst, because it makes having sex a nightmare.

I also have almost no "good" feeling in my penis anymore, after internal massage sometimes I get feeling back in the penis so.

Its strange so because most of the this sexual problem only developed in the last year. Before I could have sex, I only had the pain in the penistip issue and pain and flair-ups after ejaculation.

I am pretty positive, that this is a muscular problem, because I have this intense pain in the pelvis muscles and the anal sphincter. Its only very frustrating, because even after several weeks of daily massage their is no real improvement. After the massage sessions I am always a little better for some hours: I have a bigger urine stream, not so much urgency, my penis feels bigger and the skin feels more normal.

But there seems no long-term improvement. Also any kind of sexual arousal or stimulation seems to throw me back completely. My whole body feels inflamed and I feels sick.

I am not sure how to continue. I will definitely continue with daily internal self-massage in the morning and evening. I think about buying a tool to reach a little higher up muscles.

I want to start some kind of daily relaxation regime, but not sure what I should do: Feldenkrais, Progressive Muscle Relaxation, Autogene Training or the Paradoxical Relaxation (but I don't find a good description of how to do it) :

Also started the stretching regime.

I don't do any sport recently because of the penistip pain. Should I start running or light weight lifting?

[Burner2k]

Alfa,
I am certainly not as knowledgeable as some of the more experienced members; but I'll pitch in my .2 cents.

Have you considered anxiety contributing to your Premature ejaculation? 'Cause, I have PME as well to a certain extent. But I find that when I am involved in any kind of sexual activity, I am usually very anxious & focused on thoughts like 'How long will I last', 'Will I get post ejaculation pain/discomfort' or 'Will this sexual activity lead up to a flare' etc. You know where I am going with this...so certainly having an anxious approach while sex probably adds to extra stimulation (unwanted).

Its good that you have points inside which reproduce your symptoms. So you know where to target now. Also good to read that you are getting relief after internal massage. Yours might be a case which is slightly more stubborn and may require longer duration of treatment. Just hang in there (I know its not easy)...

Yoga with meditation might help you as well as Paradoxical Relaxation (I ain't sure how to do it as well). Anything to get your mind off from CPPS. I find that breathing exercises help me a lot...at least during the exercise period. Too bad I can't do it everyday without attending the class.

I hope this helps you...

[Alphalifestyle]

Have you considered anxiety contributing to your Premature ejaculation? 'Cause, I have PME as well to a certain extent. But I find that when I am involved in any kind of sexual activity, I am usually very anxious & focused on thoughts like 'How long will I last', 'Will I get post ejaculation pain/discomfort' or 'Will this sexual activity lead up to a flare' etc. You know where I am going with this...so certainly having an anxious approach while sex probably adds to extra stimulation (unwanted).

No its not sexual anxiety, I had enough sex. ;) It also happens with my 2 year girlfriend. Its a pure physical thing. I am almost sure that its caused by tense muscles and irritated nerves, it must somehow effect my ejaculation. Its just triggered much too fast and like I said even if my penis is not touched. From touching my nipples or massaging my lower back I can get an ejaculation. Its super annoying. I dont even have to be that aroused, its just that I kinda feel a tightness in my muscles, I think the anal sphincter and than I get this sudden urge to ejaculate which I cannot hold back.

I can really say, that normal sex is impossible right now. My penis hurts easily and almost everything is uncomfortable, I hardly get a decent erection and I can come from the lightest stimulation. Its REALLY frustrating. But for some wired reason I am not that desperate. I don't think there is any permanent damage and I believe in the chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome diagnosis, I also believe I can heal. But it amazes me how much dysfunction can be caused by tense muscles and irritated nerves. I am also a little afraid, that I will not have the courage and discipline to further try to learn internal self-massage by myself without any guidance and to do it daily long enough to improve in the long term. Its kinda scary because I have no real-life support for this whatsoever, as German doctors are totally clueless about this disorder and I cannot afford to go abroad to find a doctor who is in the know. So my only support is my willpower and this forum. :)

Another thing I just remembered is that I get a lot of loose stool. This symptom also gets worse after sex and better after internal massage. So it seems to also be a symptom of tensed muscles?

[webslave]

Premature ejaculation can be linked to chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome via the nerves. chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome can result in nerve-induced inflammation of the epithelial tissues of the urethra and ducts in the prostate, which can result in faster ejaculation because of the increased level of nerve impulses on this circuit.

Some of the old fashioned aphrodisiacs, like Spanish Fly, acted in a similar way (by irritating the genital tract with the poison Cantharidin)

[Alphalifestyle]

I was wondering if flare-ups can last for several days or even a few weeks. Some weeks ago I started experimenting with internal self massage and over time I found more and more painful, sore, inflamed muscles and even so I felt better on somedays and overall I can breath better now, because the muscles in my lower abdomen and pelvic seem not so rigid anymore I think my pelvis and anus feel more inflamed than ever and my symptoms are getting worse.

Is that a flare up? I mean I have chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome symptoms for roughly 10 years, is it natural that the inflammation and irritation gets worse for the first few weeks of massage?

What exactly happens in a flare-up? Why does massage of the irritated tissue first lead to a worsening of symptoms and then gradually gets better?

[critthinker]

Yes, this has definitely been the case for me. Here's how I would describe it:

Let's say I'm starting at a 6/10 pain on a 1-10 scale. I will do internal massage and will feel my pain increase to 7-8 for usually 2-3 days and then it will drop to 4-5 afterward.

However, if I am particularly aggressive with treatment (something I would recommend AVOIDING!), my flares can last much longer. I'm in the middle of a flare right now that has been going for 8 days. The longest one I had prior to this was 6 days. The reason this is especially a bad idea is that you lose confidence in the process when you have flares that last this long. I know my flare-related pain will soon subside, but after 8 days, a part of me gets insecure about things.

One tip that Tim Sawyer had for me, which I've found to be effective, is to take a hot bath after treatment (I actually do this before treatment too).

[lugnut]

Actually, I have found that many treatments, protocols and exercises that have positive effects in the middle to long term (for example, yoga, acupuncture) can cause increases in pain immediately afterwards (that is, for a day or two). That leaves folks in a quandry because they're not sure whether to trust the approach or not. Just another reason why it's great to have a forum like this to share experiences!