- I've read Teach Us To Sit Still by Tim Parks. Very good read, describing a similar situation to mine (though definitely not the same, and more severe), and what an arduous journey it was to "fix" for the author, leading him as far as a buddhist seminar. I wouldn't say it drove me much closer to solving the issue, but it does include some ideas to consider in a pinch, and a quick rundown of the Wise-Anderson protocol.
- calling PN psychology-related is kind of a copout, but it could have a kernel of truth to some degree after all - I've noticed that when I forcibly push down my pelvic floor muscles (a not-quite-Valsalva maneuver), I can feel it better on my healthy right side. I can kind of mentally "force" both sides to feel equally pressed down if I give it a little focus, but it felt uncomfortable in a very bizarre psychological way, almost like there was something "dishonest" about it... like forcing yourself to smile when you're angry, not sure if I can describe it any better. I've had a little experience with (probably) psychosomatic spasms before, but never like this. Also if I stop focusing, it seems to return back to its usual tone.
- the aforementioned "back mouse" pain in the back has pretty much disappeared. It lasted for maybe a week or so. What I did in the meantime was taking several waist-deep hot baths (very hot, not like scalding hot, but at least to the point where it's starting to sting), did some quadratus lumborum stretches, kept massaging that "back mouse" nodule basically at every opportunity I got (the nodule is still there, but painless), and slept on a softer sofa instead of my usual mattress (which alone might've done more work than all of the above).
- the pain in my hip kinda comes and goes. It tends to aggravate with some hip stretches, but right now I'm taking things lightly and it seems to have calmed down at least for now. One suspect that I didn't consider too seriously until now for the hip pain is trochanteric bursitis, despite the initial MRI not showing this, but the trochanteric bursa roughly lines up with the spot where my pelvis used to press on the mattress the hardest.
- what remains is the pain in the left side of the penis and the perineum, and I think I have a new prime suspect. I needed to narrow down PN to a more specific affliction of one of its branches, because I was missing a lot of PN related symptoms. One nerve that neither I nor any of the doctors I've visited appears to have paid much attention to up until now is the dorsal nerve of the penis, whose anatomy correlates well with the presence of edema on the last MRI and its branches also seem to closely match the spots where my pains keep happening. And! There's a spot where the nerve passes under the tiny superficial transverse perineal muscle, and that's the epicenter of my current burning painful sensation:
So should I suspect to possibly have a superficial transverse perineal muscle spasm/tear/fibrosis/something that could lead to impingement of my dorsal penile nerve? Unlike the Alcock canal, I can find very little info on this tiny nameless anatomical space, not that I've been able to look very deep this soon, but I believe there could be something more to it. Interestingly, the superficial transverse perineal muscle attaches very close to the ischiocavernosus. It could also explain my hypothesized "ischiocavernosus pains" as being reactive secondarily to the penile nerve inflammation and the surrounding edema.
Of course, the question would still remain how to fix it up the best. We're way beyond the scope of "everyday evidence based medicine" at this point. We're at "grasping at straws medicine".
I'd also like to ask Violet to perhaps move this thread into a more relevant board, since it has passed the "introduction" point long ago and perhaps it might prove more beneficial to somebody at a more frequented spot.
