Pain locations/symptoms

[MajorSky1]

I've just been wondering, after reading about so many different types of pain and symptoms on here, especially the ones that seem to be stress related - how does the brain decide where it's going to put the pain?

Why do some guys have urinary problems, while other guys have pelvic floor TrPs? Is it that part of the brain chooses each person's most vulnerable spot within the pelvis and then exploits it? Or does it depend on how the nerves and muscles are arranged in the pelvic floor?

I see that the bottom line is that when stress and anxiety rev up, so does pelvic floor OR urinary pain. I guess I'm curious as to why we don't all just get the same conglomerate of urinary pain, pelvic floor trigger points, and the entire gamut. Why do we each happen to get our own specific set of symptoms which may not include any of someone else's? Is it random? Or does it depend on the alignment of neurons in the brain and their proximity to each other?

I seem to have the front pelvic floor problem, with a little bit of left side spermatic cord/testicle problem, and sometimes, when stressed, some tailbone pain. So why would a different person have urinary pain, or frequency, and no TrPs?

Could this be a strong indication that the source of all the problems are in the brain - even though the pain and physical symptoms are real at the location they're felt?

Also, I suppose this might have something to do with the way pain channels are strengthened the longer pain is felt.

I'm just trying to find a way to cut the head off the snake, instead of the tail that keeps growing back.

[webslave]

In my opinion, the brain is the ultimate source of most cases of CP/CPPS. But knowing that does not necessarily make treating it easier. CPPS is a complex condition involving an interplay between thoughts, nerves, epigenetic regulation of gene expression, tension, mast cells, hormones and nerves. Where there are genuinely no muscular trigger points (a contentious issue because one therapist won't find them, but another often will), it may also have other etiological facets like mechanical irritation from urinary reflux, allergic triggers, post-infectious triggers, nerve cross-talk from other conditions (e.g. IBS), and more.

Pelvic muscle tension status can reflect human emotion. Dr Wise often talks about how a dog will show all its emotions in its pelvis: happy = wag the tail with the pelvis muscles, fearful = tense the pelvic muscles, pull the tail between the legs. Although dogs have muscles in the tail itself that assist with this, the movements of the tail are largely controlled by the pelvic floor.

Dogs express happiness, aggression, stress and many other emotions with their tail. By looking at the position and movement of the tail, you can often tell what dogs are thinking. When a dog wags his tail high and wags it back and forth, he's usually feeling pretty good. When he is interested in something, his tail is usually horizontal to the ground. A tucked tail indicates the dog is frightened or submissive. When the tail goes from horizontal to upright and becomes rigid, he is feeling threatened or challenged. A tail that is low and wagging indicates the dog is worried or insecure.

The pelvis is also heavily innervated due to the sexual and excretory functions.

Because we are all slightly different genetically, our bodies express this condition differently, and moreover symptoms can change radically over time.

[MajorSky1]

I think for me, it's emotional, anxiety and tensing - for some reason - in my bad spots when I'm stressed, or have been stressed for too long or too deeply. I've noticed it's ALWAYS when there is a new stressor that deep down I believe to be important. A test at school, being accepted by a woman I'm dating, money issues.

But I feel like something broke a couple years ago, and though it's getting a LOT better, it can too easily act up again - even though it really hasn't except for a once-in-a-great-while burning trigger point type of feeling in one spot of my pelvic floor, or side of tailbone, or the left side epididymis.

Just too many heavy serious life situations since 2013, and working on trying to not let them get to me.

Don't think I'll ever understand how you can go your whole life fine, and then it just happens, or why it's so hard to get back to being able to deal with life without it causing pain.

But also, I'm SO much better than I was, so close to being 100%. I feel like if I had a super easy, stress free 6 months with NO worries, that the residual crap that's left would go away for good, and after that I could again handle stress without it revving up pain and anxiety like it can now.
Maybe in more time.

Thanks for your note, Webslave.

[webslave]

The key is to escape stress or make the thing that's stressing you less important, which involves looking at things a whole new way. Lots of books on this are available.

[MajorSky1]

Very interesting because that's EXACTLY what I intuitively think - that looking at things a new way is huge.
I've been trying to figure out how to do that on my own and I've made a little progress, but maybe it's time to read a book to help things along.
Might you have any recommendations?

Thanks!

[scotcan]

Hi Major, maybe check this website out:

www.theconnection.tv

There's a documentary, book and blog. The blog is free but you have to buy the documentary and book, although you can watch the first 15 minutes free and get the first chapter in the book for free - If you like it then you can buy them. It's not about pelvic pain but about how the mind can help repair your body and make your overall health better

[webslave]

Listen to Alan Watts podcasts (you can torrent them), books like these:
https://www.amazon.com3

[European]

I think there is some predisposition regarding "weak" points which are individual. Then the combination of nerve crosstalk and other factors re-creates a unique combination of pain pattern. I do recognize the huge role of psychological factors in CPPS (especially depression related, catastrophising etc.) but there must be some predisposion e.g. muscular tenderness or so...I remember that I was fighting more than decade in my youth years with atypical facial pain which was nothing more than some muscular trigger points around temporomandibular joints..whenever I was under stress, the pain was sky rockeetingg without any objective found...e.g. before long flight my anxiety was out of scale...but flying home was comfortable...now I had feeling that everything moved "one storey lower" and my fights with temporomandibular disorder seem to me a walk in the park compared to devastating CPPS...

[MajorSky1]

Thanks guys! Will check it out!! :) One thing that been bugging me is there's another name for nerve crosstalk. I THINK it's called saltatory conduction, OR Electrical Transference.

Euro - yes, it sounds like you have it right. When we are stressed, I'm convinced the sympathetic nervous system causes involuntary tensing that goes unnoticed until the nerves start howling, and by then, things are past a threshold that is simple to reverse - but not impossible to reverse.
I'm making discoveries - it's MOSTLY the SNS!!! - and it overides the frontal lobe's natural process of letting the Parasympathetic kick in to relieve the SNS.