big breakthough after six months

[Caedar]

I couldn't tolerate the side effects of Elavil (amitriptyline), but there's a very similar medicine called nortriptyline that has much less obvious side effects and seems to be about as good. I've found it useful.

[webslave]

What other pain fighting drugs do you recommend?

None, really. I never used painkillers and those who do often become dependent on them. As for other drugs, you know all the usual suspects (amitriptyline etc), so if you like just cycle through them with a "suck it and see" attitude.

[SoothingSpaces]

OK -- so you don't advocate pain medication for this condition?

[SoothingSpaces]

Yes I asked about Elavil because it supposedly inhibits mast cells, according to some of what I have seen written on the forum.

[webslave]

Pain meds are an emergency measure only. Yes, that's true about Elavil, but there are pluses and minuses regarding Elavil (to hear the minuses, read Carl's posts on the topic).

[SoothingSpaces]

Yes there seem to be a few side effects...good times :)
http://www.drugs.com/sfx/Elavil-side-effects.html

[SoothingSpaces]

Off the chart flare post PT. Is this good or bad? And what does it indicate? She said I felt fairly loose down there but touched some trigger point. Drive home was agony.

[webslave]

Very good sign. You DO have trigger points.

[SoothingSpaces]

Good. I took a hot Epsom salt bath and that settled things a bit. She also did some biofeedback -- putting on patch on my thigh and two on my anus and had me lay on my back and belly breathe. This brought down the number.

[webslave]

That's a way of teaching you how to lower muscle tonus. All good stuff. So relax, your case is starting to sound pretty vanilla

[johnnyblotter]

Well, I'm back after a break and unfortunately I have still not been able to resolve my issues with rectal pressure. I posted quite a bit about the mind body work I'd done, which I got from Ezer. That work got from misery to about 75% better and was a huge leap forward. From there I ended up getting to about 85% and really thought I was almost out of the woods.

But I had a stressful event about a month ago...a bedbug scare (turned out to not be an actual bedbug infestation, thank god)..but required my girlfriend and I to do all the laundry and steam clean everything (etc). We also had the place treated with bug poison, which I had a bad skin reaction to. And I sort of went back to being about 60% better, and it's super frustrating.

I really only have one issue, and no matter how much trigger point and relaxation work I do, I can't seem to improve. And that issue is a pocket of tension in the rectal area which sort of moves around from the back right part of the rectum to the perineum. I can get the muscles to relax and drop all day, and I can feel the tension sort of moving and dropping down and out of the back of my rear, but it never actually leaves. It just sort of places itself in some other area. It's insidious, is what it is.

I've been doing about an hour and half a day of stretching, yoga, external/internal trigger point work with fingers and therawand, and relaxation audio per day, but I just can't seem to effect anything. When I do fairly aggressive sacroiliac types of stretches (sitting cross legged and leaning to either side over each knee, etc) I seem to get some minor improvements for a short time, but ultimately, I just don't see improvement. It's sorta like some bag filled with pebbles or something was sewn up in the muscle somewhere and just sorta slides around before just deciding to sit in the middle and just feel like a plug.

I cannot for the life of me make out the signals my body is giving me. On the one hand, I do feel tension very high up on the right side, and while I do use the therawand, perhaps I'm just not hitting the trigger points I need to hit. The muscles just are not in the right place. They can relax and drop, but something is preventing them from dropping to a comfortable place, and my brain can't interpret the signals. All I can sense is a feeling of something heavy sort of dropping slowly down.

On the other hand, it is very interesting the results that I got using the Sarno-type of approach Ezer suggested, but it seems there's a limit with the results I got from that. I got my perineum to drop enough to get me out of torture land, but once that happened, the muscles up inside still feel screwy.

I am also thinking about it a lot and spending a lot of time trying to combat it. Fortunately I work from home so I can put a few hours a day into this, but I also fear that I'm perhaps thinking about it too much.

I'm thinking of visiting Freedman again to see if she can help. At this point I'm definitely just stuck.

[webslave]

For bedbugs use diatomaceous earth (DE), completely nontoxic. I would never use pesticides in or around my bed

I am also thinking about it a lot and spending a lot of time trying to combat it.

Not good.

Here's a trick I can impart to you: if you have a 65% improvement, or any improvement on what you used to be, be content. Just congratulate yourself and accept that you are now on another plateau, and moving in the right direction. That gives the nerves a chance to adapt to the "new normal" and form a new base from which further improvements are possible. Bear in mind that flares can still happen, but that you should always be able to get to this new plateau after a flare.

The recovery from CPPS is never a straight line upwards. Never.

My own recovery took several years, with seemingly endless and frustrating "sticking points" along the way. That's due to the nature of nerves. One of the keys is being confident it will eventually go, accepting the level of pain you currently have, and patiently waiting for further change, no matter how long it takes.

Obsessing about the pain and making it a "project" is not, in my opinion, the right way to approach this. Having your mind focus on the pelvis, other than just dropping the muscles, is a recipe for problems.

[johnnyblotter]

I know. You're right...I'm obsessing over it, which is a reaction from going from 85% to 65%... I have to calm down and live life.

It's just that my personality is so based on jumpiness and energy and excitement...not what you need to tap into to combat this problem.

I'm working on it.

Thanks for the feedback.

[johnnyblotter]

I suppose one issue I run into is that I have a lot of time to myself. I work from home by myself. So I can make decisions like deciding to work lying down on my back in bed with pillows under my knees to avoid any perineal pressure. Not sitting is good right? And I break it up with at least 2 walks during the day.

But..combined with the "necessary" relaxation/stretching/tp work...that's still a lot of mental energy sort of put toward the problem. So I guess that's what I need to work on...following the protocol while doing my best not to let it consume my thinking.

[MajorSky1]

Johnyblotter,
I was just reading your post way back on this thread of something feeling like it gave during masturbation. I had that too, the first episode being back in January where the intense orgasm produced some sort of wrenching, or a give in the tissue as orgasm began. The next day was really sore somewhere in and around the bulbospongeosus, ischocavernosus, or even in the cremaster muscle - it was very hard to tell.
I've never had that feeling again like you describe since that time in January, the "something softly clicking or giving" but since then, I definitely do often feel a painful spasm cramping feeling just before, during, or after orgasm, sometimes it will linger for 10 or 20 seconds. After that, I'm mildly sore for the rest of the day, then the next day, very sore - though it's really hard to tell exactly where the source of soreness is coming from, but it manifests around the bspongeousus, an cavernosus, and maybe the cremaster.
It doesn't happen every time, usually the upon the first round of ejaculation after having taken a break from masturbation for a few days to a week. Then, if I masturbate once a day for a few days in a row (even though it's a little crampy) it seems to hurt less, even the day after.
But then eventually, it will hurt again the day after.
Not sure if that's because the muscle is already cramped up and stuck, or if because it works its way out from exercising that muscle.

It seems like just another specter of this condition, and will hopefully eventually fade with the rest of this stuff. Not to complain, but I'm getting really sick of it.

I was wondering if you've had any resolution with it, or if you've found anything to help? Are you still having that problem? Hope you don't mind me asking.

Best wishes for you!