Health Organization for Pudendal Education

Sorry I'm a little late answering your post -- I was out of town for a bit and got behind on reading posts. Just wanted to say that it's pretty common for people not to understand -- they just have no clue because they haven't experienced pain like you have before. And some people don't deal well with the stress of having someone sick in their home. I don't know if it would help if they had more information -- maybe they would understand better if they read this article.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/54832.php
http://tinyurl.com/cfgljpe

Ice is one of the best pain relievers if drugs don't help. It's kind of temporary but it can keep you from going insane at times.

Take care,

Violet

Grammy, I've suffered with anxiety - not depression - on an off for a couple of decades. Mostly off, I'm glad to say, but when I'm in the depths of it its pretty severe. Just wanted to say that anxiety and depression are both chemical imbalances (though different chemicals for each), and suffering from one doesn't automatically mean the other one is inevitable. Anxiety on its own can certainly bring its own exhaustion, so maybe if antidepressants aren't helping you get off that bed every few days, you may not actually be depressed? It could just be fatigue from anxiety, and this is not necessarily depression and so needs different treatment.

If you do have anxiety without depression, antidepressants may not directly help you as their purpose is to raise serotonin levels in the brain and hopefully give you a gradual feelgood factor. Whereas anxiety causes a constant release of hormones - mostly adrenalin - to make your nerves triggerhappy, and these need calming down.

Nerves can't calm down until the flow of adrenalin returns to normal levels - it won't return to normal levels if there's a constant undertow of anxiety/agitation! So it becomes a cycle, and the cycle needs to be broken. Antidepressants have never helped me at all, and I cope with these anxiety bouts with the occasional tranquiliser (usually to get to sleep) and an excellent self-help book by a lady doctor who writes with common sense about the anxiety state in general. Also, as they are all symptoms of anxiety, her book also covers fatigue, depression, phobias, obsessions - how people get drawn in and how they can extricate themselves, with or without meds. To be able to calm your own nerves, be less anxious, sleep better, get off the merry-go-round, is a revelation once you know how, but it does need perseverance and you have to apply yourself to it. You're very welcome to message me if you want more details.

Stop trying to get his support. I've had what I know now to be PN pain for 9 years and recently the SI joints moved making sitting impossible. I looked to my husband for support and expected it and got exactly the reaction you are getting. I got terribly depressed, crying constantly then something someone said hit home. This is his problem not mine. His inability to understand my pain has nothing to do with me at all; it's his not knowing how to deal with it that's making him react like that. He even went back to bed last weekend when I went to hospital after a 999 call as I had no feeling in my leg. He's like an ostrich burying his head in the sand. Can't see the pain, can't understand it and doesn't know what to do about it or how to help. But that's his problem not mine and i will not suffer his problems. I have enough of my own. I didn't want sympathy although a bit wouldn't come amiss at times but I did want support and someone to help me fight the medical system but he's just not capable so I will do it myself.

Grammy, I too have the feeling " as if something could fall out" if I stand too long and I will add that I have had a hysterectomy and a bladder repair so hopefully nothing else will "fall out". I have had this feeling for all the years I have suffered with PN.
I do agree with Birdlife that anxiety causes us to tense, makes the pain worse and is exhausting but sometimes it is hard to extricate ourselves from the problems causing the anxiety.
Poppy - I completely understand what you are saying in so far as lack of support and understanding. My husband has'nt got a clue regarding what I have been through and how I suffer on a daily basis. Like yours he is an ostrich. It would be so nice to get some support and understanding and help would not have gone amiss when like you I was fighting the powers that be to get seen and a diagnosis. This does appear to be quite common. I suppose one cannot "see" the PN or the damage unlike say a broken arm!