What is Pelvic Pain?
Pelvic Pain is pain anywhere between your belly button to the top of your thighs.
It is simply the location of pain, and does not tell us about the cause of pain, or what systems could be involved.
What Causes Musculoskeletal Pelvic Pain?
Musculoskeletal pelvic pain includes joint pain such as
- Sacroiliac pain (the joints in the back of your pelvis)
- Pubic symphysis pain (the joint in the front of your pelvis)
- Lumbosacral pain (the joint between your low back and your pelvis)
If you have already had a lot of chiropractic, massage, and acupuncture for pain in this location, then the pain you experience is not really of joint origin.
Other Things That Can Cause Joint Pain
Other things that can cause sacroiliac, pubic symphysis, and lumbosacral joint pain but are not musculoskeletal in nature are
- Uterus out of position
- Bladder out of position
- Kidney out of position
- Ovary out of position
- Appendix out of position
- Adhesions of cecum
- Adhesions of sigmoid colon
- Venous congestion
- Lymphatic congestion
How Does a Women’s Reproductive System Cause of Pelvic Pain?
Many conditions related to women’s health cause pain because they cause inflammation and stagnation
- Endometriosis
- Endometriosis is caused by tissue being sensitive to too much estrogen and beginning to act like the uterine lining and have a period even though it is not in the uterus
- This pain is worse with your menstrual cycle
- Dependent on where the tissue is that is acting like the lining of the uterus, you can have pain in your GI tract, rectum, pelvic bowl. and bladder.
- You could have pain with sex,
- Because there is so much inflammation in the pelvis, manual therapy could create more pain.
- Fibroids
- Although fibroids themselves often do not produce pain, they can lean on other structures and thus create pain, inflammation, and adhesions.
- Fibroids can occur anywhere in the uterus.
- If they lean back, they can create sacral or SI pain.
- If they lean forward, they can create bladder discomfort or pubic symphysis discomfort.
- If they lean to the side, they can create sigmoid colon or cecum discomfort.
- Dysmenorrhea (painful periods)/PMS (Premenstrual Syndrome)
- Painful periods occur when too many inflammatory prostaglandins are produced.
- Ovarian Cysts
- Most ovarian cysts do not cause pain
- Endometriosis can cause painful cysts
- PCOS can cause painful cysts
- Ectopic Pregnancy
- Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (often caused by untreated sexually transmitted infections)
- PID is most commonly caused by untreated gonorrhea or chlamydia
- PID can also be caused by bacterial infections (including STI mycoplasma genitalium)
- PID can also be caused by Trichomoniasis (a parasite transmitted by sex)
- If left untreated, these infections can ascend into uterus and cause lower abdominal pain, low back pain, and pelvic pain
How Does Your Digestion Cause Pelvic Pain?
The following digestive conditions are inflammatory and can cause pelvic pain due to their proximity, or because inflammation and adhesions related to them constrain lymphatic and vascular return out of the pelvis.
- Irritable Bowel Disease
- Inflammatory Bowel Disease
- Crohnes
- Celiac
- Appendicitis
How Does Your Bladder Cause Pelvic Pain?
The bladder causes pelvic pain either because of inflammation and adhesions related to the following conditions, or because the bladder is not moving properly.
- Interstitial Cystitis
- Urinary Tract Infections
- Bladder Stones
How Do Pelvic Adhesions Create Pelvic Pain?
If the muscles of the pelvic bowl are not properly balanced, they can create pain around the vagina, the anus, or the urethra.
The pain could be sharp and stabbing and surprising and wake you out of sleep.
The pain could be related to an activity like sex or going to the bathroom.
The pain could be persistent.
Cancer
Some types of pelvic pain are caused by cancer.
- Ovarian Cancer
- Uterine Cancer
- Cervical Cancer
- Prostate Cancer
- Colon/Rectal Cancer
If your pelvic pain does not present as functional pain, or if it does not respond to intervention as anticipated, I will refer you out for diagnostic imaging.
Can Natural Medicine Help Pelvic Pain?
Yes, natural medicine and manual hands-on therapy can help pelvic pain.
Natural medicine will help to diagnose the underlying reasons for inflammation and offer drugless treatment options.
Manual hands-on therapy will work with adhesions, lymphatic and venous congestion, and organs that are not moving properly.
How Much Natural Medicine Treatment Will I Need for Chronic Pelvic Pain?
You will need approximately 20 hours of manual hands-on therapy to treat adhesions, lymphatic or venous congestion, and organs or viscera that is not moving properly. You will also need pelvic floor therapy with Dr. Caroline Peterson.
You will need 2-5 hours of functional medicine consult with Dr. Caroline Peterson and probably some lab work.
After that you will probably need to make some dietary and lifestyle changes, and perhaps take supplements, to resolve your chronic pelvic pain.