Pyramidalis anyone?

[lightningbolt]

Hi, long time sufferer (about 15 yrs), been to several urologists who did nothing and visited a PT in Scotland who taught me a bit on self treatment by stretching and releasing trigger points. Both external and internal. This helps me a bit when I do it but I've never felt completely healed.

Ok so to my question, these last few months I´ve been doing self treatment with the Theracane and tennis balls to help relieve tension in my pelvis. I always look for new trigger points and a while back I found two spots right next to each other about an inch above the root of the penis. When pushing these very sharp pain starts shooting both up my bladder, down to the penis and scrotum. A few days ago I hit these spots quite hard with the cane and massaged/pressed for about 5 minutes on each. Now I'm really worried these aren't trigger points at all and that I messed something up. The pain in that area is very bad and constant, has been like that for about three days. I also feel some pain in my groin, scrotum and penis that wasn't there before, also some spasms in the perineum area. Also have a harder time getting an erection (might be from worrying and being in pain rather than physical though).

So can someone relate to this and what are the spots that I've found, from reading and looking at the illustration in A Headache in the Pelvis I'm thinking that this is the end of the pyramidalis muscle. I've either found a spot that really needs to be worked on or it´s something I shouldn't be messing with at all. All help would be really appreciated since I'm worried sick. And please don´t reply with "go see a physical therapist" there aren't any specialized in this here in Sweden.

[European]

Hallo, my pain areas are very similar to yours. I guess there might be trigger points in m. rectus abdominis, which are prone to refer pain to shaft of penis, uretra etc. Whole pubic area is very painful also for me, but I consider that to be secondary pain to the initial spots somewhere deep in pelvis (maybe pubococcygeus, ischiocavernosus, bulbospongiosus etc.). Dont think that you messed a nerve, becuase there is pretty fatty layer of ligaments in that spot. so my guess is - either m.rectus abdominis trigger points or suspensory penile ligaments (which are overworked and fragile in our case of course).

[lightningbolt]

Thank you for replying, after reading a bit on the suspensory penile ligaments I think that might be exactly what I was working on. And this might sound really weird but my first erection after working on that area was really crooked, it was like one side had trouble keeping up. It straightened after a while but boy did I panic! That's when I really thought I messed something up.

So if I have trigger points there then this is the worst flare up I've had in years! I really don´t know where to go from here though, I've taken a break form all TP work/stretching for now, the pain is too much at the moment.

[European]

Crooked erection (as well as temporary low quality of erection) to one side might be influenced by trigger points in ischiocavernosus. Suspensory penile ligaments (pubic area) is one of the most troublesome areas in my case, highlighted allodynia makes sometimes a day in long trousers real inferno... Don't panic, every flare-up has its end.

[webslave]

I hit these spots quite hard with the cane and massaged/pressed for about 5 minutes on each.

Generally it's not advisable to go at trigger points 'hammer and tongs' like this, unless you want a flare. If you do this, then follow-up massages are advised to push through the flare. Do not press too hard in this area. Hold each trigger point for 90 seconds, then stop. Then move the head of the cane to find another trigger point, and if there are none, withdraw. Repeat again in a few hours. Keep this up for a day or two.

Having one big 'go' and stopping just aggravates the trigger points.