This all started at the beginning of 2020. A close family member passed away, then the pandemic happened so I was stressed out and spending a lot of time home, then eventually started working from home on my PC and sitting 14+ hours a day.
Around ~6 months ago I noticed I couldn’t sit anymore than a few minutes without extreme sit bone pain. Also, around this time I developed chronic constipation which I was able to alleviate with a change in diet and lifestyle. I started walking ~1 hour a day, stetching and exercising.
So while doing a lot of the common exercises for the pelvic floor I noticed stiffness and achy pain in my hip around the trochanter, near the TFL, and around the back near the buttocks and gluteal tendons. At first this was a feint pain that would only flare up after long walks, bike rides, squats etc. But these flare ups started to last longer to the point where it was limiting my activities.
It eventually got so bad and now my hip pain is debilitating. My hip constantly aches, it feels like a never ending charley horse. I can’t walk more than 20 minutes, I can’t sit at all, I can’t do anything anymore. I’m waking up in pain and going to bed in pain even after days of resting with no activity.
I’ve tried fighting this with exercise and strengthening workouts because every doctor mentions that my pelvis is misaligned and my lower body is weak but I’ve had no luck.
I’ve been to PT, chiropractor, mutliple orthopedics, rheumatologist, pelvic floor specialist, had a hip and pelvis MRI, bone scan, hamstring ultrasound, EMG, steroid injections near my sit bone and trochanter etc.
Every test has been normal.
The last doctor I seen was an OMT who does manipulative therapy to fix muscle imbalances. No luck either, but he’s been very curious about my issue. He just called me the other day. He said he gave it more thought and since this started with sitting he thinks there could be something wrong with my pudendal nerve. So now I’m here.
My main symptoms are hip pain, sit bone pain on the left side, and now I’m having some sharp pain in my si joint. I’m at my wits end and don’t know what to do anymore.
Possible to have PN without genital symptoms? Help please
Re: Possible to have PN without genital symptoms? Help pleas
Welcome to the forum, Lostin89. The sitting pain is common with pudendal neuralgia. Do you have tenderness at the ischial spine? (Our anatomy pictures can help you see where that is if you don't know). That is also common. I don't think hip pain is common with pn, but maybe your hip misalignment is the indirect cause. Maybe it's making it so the ligaments around the pn are pinching it. I'm not sure if that's possible, but I would ask your doctor about that. Also, a physical therapist who specializes in pelvic pain and has experience with pn should be able to help determine if your misalignment is creating pelvic problems for you. You can also request a nerve block to help with the diagnosis. They inject a numbing agent into the nerve, and if that reduces your sitting pain, the doctors have additional evidence indicating the pain is caused by that nerve. It wouldn't tell you what is causing the pn pain though (e.g., misalignment or something else).
April
April