I just wanted to let everyone here know that I wrote the story posted here in the success forum "A Headache in the Pelvis, case history number 1" and emailed it to David Wise. I am continuing to feel fantastic and my symptoms are still at an extremely minor level. Most days I don't even notice them. When I do notice them they are nowhere near as intense as they used to be and I treat them as a reminder to relax and try to manage my stress in a healthy way. I still have many sources of stress in my life - maybe even more than I had at the height of my symptoms - but that stress doesn't translate into symptoms the way it used to. I don't think of myself as being cursed anymore. When you are starting out with the protocol described in David's book there are a lot of ups and downs -- it's always two steps forward, one step back - don't get frustrated, be patient. It has been almost 3 years since I started on the program outlined in _Headache in the Pelvis_. I found both the physical therapy and the relaxation therapy to be essential to my healing. At first I found the relaxation to be inconvenient since you are supposed to do it every day -- even twice a day. I listened to the relaxation tapes which David made which are each 30-45 minutes long. I started off doing it a couple times a week, but David insisted that if I wanted it to be of substantial benefit that I needed to do it every day. Eventually I learned to enjoy it, despite the inconvenience it posed to my normal schedule. I practiced it twice a day (morning and night), along with physical therapy once a week. When I started to slowly get better I imagined that it was mostly the physical therapy that was helping me. It was indeed helping me I believe, but I rationalized it so I wouldn't have to do the relaxation as often. I wanted to believe that I could get by without the relaxation, but in retrospect the relaxation training was absolutely essential for me to get better (when I stopped the relaxation my progress would stall). Believe me folks, you can be holding an incredible amount of tension in parts of your body without even being aware of it. It takes A LOT of practice to learn to recognize the subtleties of this tension and to accept it. The act of accepting it is what gives it room to heal. There is no easy way to learn it. It is a skill, and like other skills you can become rusty over time without practice but if you have put in a lot of time in the first place to learn it well you can sharpen it again with a little effort and the relaxed state can eventually become your new baseline. I know it sounds odd to describe relaxation as a skill but that is really a useful way to describe it. Also when you learn it well it will spill over into the rest of your life outside of the times that you are practicing the deep relaxation. That is the whole idea. The relaxation tapes were excellent training wheels for me. I don't have to listen to them every day anymore. Also I found diaphragmatic/abdominal breathing to be very helpful and an important part of the relaxation. This is not discussed as much in the first edition of A HEADACHE IN THE PELVIS which I found surprising since David stressed it to me when I went to see him, but he informed me there will be more information about it in the second edition of the book. The gist is: breathe deeply and slowly with your stomach into your stomach and not with your chest. This stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system which relaxes you, while chest-breathing causes a "fight-or-flight" response which tenses your whole body and releases adrenaline. This also takes practice. Most people who work at a computer have a tendency to hold their breath while they're concentrating.
I found the notion that I was somehow responsible for my tension difficult to accept at first. I have never suffered from deep depression and I have always been a well-liked and successful individual - comfortable in social situations from an early age and nearly a straight-A student (I graduated college with a 3.9 GPA, B.S. in biochemistry). I always thought of myself as being somewhat laid back. When I first saw David his suggestion that I was unconsciously squeezing my pelvic muscles was difficult to accept. I wanted to believe that it was something else - something outside my conscious control that required finding the right medication or procedure. If I hadn't already tried as many medications as I had and felt like I was at the end of my rope I probably wouldn't have started the A HEADACHE IN THE PELVIS protocol. It's definitely a blow to your ego to consider that you are responsible for your problem in some way. Don't be too upset by this though... as discussed in the book, people manifest stress in different ways - some people more physically than others and some people in different parts of the body - the shoulders, neck, head and back all being more common than the pelvis. Some people grind their teeth and develop TMJ. David calls chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome a "TMJ of the pelvis" as well as a "headache in the pelvis".
One interesting point about my case is that my maternal grandfather had identical symptoms to me for many years of his life, although his were not as intense as mine. For a long time I thought perhaps that I had inherited some kind of anatomical defect (I had a diagnosis of urethral stricture at one point). Now I believe that I inherited instead a propensity to manifest stress and tension in the pelvic region. I think like many inherited traits it can skip a generation or two, and probably often does or else we would see a lot more reports of fathers and sons having the same issues. My brother does not have these problems, but interestingly my mother has a history of chronic bladder infections that are always cured with antibiotics. It is not uncommon I believe for migraines or chronic back pain to be shared between parents and their children.
Another interesting point about my case is that my primary symptom was frequency and not pain. At the height of my symptoms I had horrible frequency that had been getting progressively worse. I think that perhaps more painful symptoms would have developed had I not started with the A HEADACHE IN THE PELVIS program. David has told me that a number of people experience frequency before pain, but not everyone's symptoms develops along the same lines. Apparently I am in the minority here as far as David and Dr. Anderson's typical patients go. When I first saw Dr. Anderson I did not have any trigger points and so he didn't suspect that the A HEADACHE IN THE PELVIS protocol was appropriate for me. After we tried a number of other things that didn't work I talked with David and he suggested I give the program a try. My point is: don't be discouraged from trying out the program if you don't fit the profile of the typical chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome patient. Clearly there are many manifestations of this syndrome.
I think that if this protocol can help you then you will find it the most satisfying resolution to your problems. You will hopefully not be dependent on any meds to manage your symptoms and you will not be afraid that at some point the symptoms will rise up and devastate your life beyond all hope. I know I'm starting to sound like an infomercial but I'm speaking from my own experience. Some things can help with the pain temporarily of course but I don't think many would argue that in the long run it's nicer to live without them. When I was starting the A HEADACHE IN THE PELVIS program I still took an occasional valium (low dose - 1mg) - mainly to calm my nerves when I was having a flare-up and becoming very frustrated. However, I also found it very beneficial to confront the symptoms head-on during the relaxation sessions and I feel that ultimately those drug-free confrontations are where I learned the lessons most profoundly (confrontation is an aggressive word to use in the context of the relaxation therapy but perhaps you see my point).
Even if you have found something that helps make your symptoms tolerable I think you should try the protocol. Your symptoms can feel better than tolerable - if this protocol works for you at all then you have the potential to feel normal again. It hasn't worked for everyone of course - nothing does - but I think in the future we will see a lot more success stories from people using the A HEADACHE IN THE PELVIS methods.
I wanted to make this post because I knew David had submitted my story to be posted on these forums. I haven't been on any of these forums for over 2 years but I used to visit them every day from work (I mostly inhabited IC forums b/c for some time I had a diagnosis of interstitial cystitis). I know it can be depressing to read about everyone's suffering. I told myself at the time that if I ever found something that helped me I would take some time to let everyone know about it. So, if anyone has any questions in the next few weeks or so about my story in particular or my experience with the A HEADACHE IN THE PELVIS program, please post them here. If you are seriously interested then you should contact David or Dr. Anderson of course... but I know it can also help to hear from someone else for whom the treatment has worked. So I'll only be around for the next 3-4 weeks... then I doubt I will come to these forums again. Best of luck to everyone in your quests for healing!! Don't lose hope
- Thomas
