A's Mommy's MRI with Dr. Potter

[chuck]

Violet-

This is the fellow in Germany who pioneered the LION procedure?

I have read a bit of his results, which sound quite impressive. Do you know anything else? (Call me jaded, but I guess I figured that if this fellow had "solved the problem" of pelvic pain, everyone would be rushing to see him.) Do you know any of his patients?

chuck

[Violet M]

Chuck, I don't know any of Dr. Possover's patients and I can't say how wise it would be to go trekking off to Switzerland to a doctor you don't know much about. Although, I guess that's how I ended up going to Bautrant -- based solely on his publication and the report from one patient. In my case that turned out to be a very lucky decision. There are times you have to consider all of your options but of course you would want to do some more research before reaching any decisions.

I don't believe there is any "one" solution to the problem of pelvic pain because we don't all have the exact same thing going on. I think it remains to be seen if Dr. Possover has the solution for some people.

[Violet M]

As for the question of pelvic varices causing PNE symptoms, this is something that has interested me for a long time. During Callie's pregnancies, she had the most God-Awful varicose veins (in her legs) that any of her doctors had ever seen! They ended up thrombosed; she had to be on daily heparin therapy, etc, etc. After delivery of our last child, the veins becaome much improved, but she eventually had sclerotherapy done to shrink the last ones away.

I only mention this because knowing that she had a propensity for varices always caused me to wonder if pelvic varices were somehow involved in her PNE symptoms. It makes sense to say that the varices are so "soft" that they couldn't cause nerve compression, but when you remember that nerves often travel alongside blood vessels, and that they often travel in enclosed areas (like Alcock's canal), you begin to wonder if a dilated vein running next to a nerve, in a confined space COULD cause a problem... (Geez, I'm starting to sound like "Ava"!!!!)

Chuck I was reading the National Institutes of Nerve Disorsders and Stroke website and ran across this statement:

What causes trigeminal neuralgia?

The presumed cause of TN is a blood vessel pressing on the trigeminal nerve as it exits the brainstem. This compression causes the wearing away of the protective coating around the nerve (the myelin sheath). TN may be part of the normal aging process—as blood vessels lengthen they can come to rest and pulsate against a nerve. TN symptoms can also occur in people with multiple sclerosis, a disease caused by the deterioration of myelin throughout the body, or may be caused by damage to the myelin sheath by compression from a tumor. This deterioration causes the nerve to send abnormal signals to the brain. In some cases the cause is unknown.

Makes you wonder if maybe varices could be a problem?