Mind-Body

[dsmith_65]

Greetings everyone,

It's been a few months since I last posted and a lot has happened since then. I'm happy to say I am significantly improved. Not cured, but I'm well on my way. First off I didn't get surgery to correct my FAI hip issue. After a second opinion and some lengthy research it is my personal opinion that surgery for FAI and hip labral tears are, in the overwhelming majority of cases, completely unnecessary. Just like herniated discs, there are literally thousands of people walking around the earth with FAI and hip labral tears and they experience zero pain. Most don't even know they have FAI or a hip labral tear. Furthermore, FAI and hip labral tears DO NOT cause CPPS. So save yourself some time/money and don't even bother going down that route. At the time I was so desperate to feel normal that I was willing to walk the globe to find a cure. I was so close to having the surgery but there was a nagging voice in my head that said your hip is just a "normal abnormality" it's not causing your pelvic pain. Needless to say I'm glad I listened.

Anyway, my overall pain has decreased by as much as 80%. Some days are completely pain free. Post bowel movement pain is almost completely gone, when it is present it doesn't last the entire day. Post ejaculatory pain is more or less gone. Ejaculation force is almost back to where it was. Erections are back to normal. Still having some moderate issues with premature ejaculation. Urine stream is like a fire hose about 95% of the time. Strange tingling sensations in the urethra are pretty much gone too. Low back pain is gone. Still have spasms and aching in my right adductor, piriformis, tail bone, and outer thigh, but it's greatly reduced.

Now you are probably wonder what I did. Well the short answer is I read.....a lot and I am still am reading. In a nutshell the mind and body are one. You can't separate them. When one is stressed/hurting so will the other. What started me on this educational journey was Ezer's post under the title "Mindbody Healing". Thank you Ezer!!!!!! Read it ,and really digest it. I was curious about this Dr. Sarno Ezer talked about so I bought his book "The Divided Mind". Wow, what an eye opener. Dr. Sarno and Dr. Wise are, in my humble opinion, different sides of the same coin. Both strongly believe CPPS is a mind body disorder. Dr. Sarno briefly mentions CPPS/Prostatitis in his book. I also picked up the recently released definitive edition of Dr. Wise's book. It was also extremely helpful, and I highly recommend it. Dr. Wise briefly talks about emotions and how they can be a contributing factor to CPPS. Sarno states that most chronic pain that lacks a definitive cause is the result of a strategy the brain uses to keep repressed negative emotions from being felt and processed. I agree the strategy sucks, but I became obsessed with my pain and didn't think about anything else so the strategy worked brilliantly. At the time my pain set in I was deeply unhappy with my life. I hated my job. I felt trapped, and I was terrified I'd never be happy again. I never expressed these feelings to anyone. I kept them bottled up, and there in lies the cause of CPPS in my opinion. That is repressed negative emotions. I can't speak for other societies, but American society puts a premium on emotionless men. I now understand how completely idiotic that is. A stoic man is a man that is deeply hurting inside. A man cut off from his true self. A man who can't truly love or enjoy anyone or anything. An empty man. I shell if you will who, indifferently, goes through the daily motions of life. That's how I was, and I'm still working to change that. Progress is slow but steady.

Now what have I specifically done that is helping me overcome this terrible affliction? The first thing I did was to truly accept that there was nothing structurally (skeletal, organs, nerves,etc) wrong with me. You will never overcome this condition unless you accept that simple fact. Of course get checked out by at least one urologist for prudence, but after that move on. Your brain will do it's damnedest to keep you in that mind set, but don't let!!! Be strong. You have support in this forum, and hopefully in your personal life. If you don't have support in your personal life find some. Get a life coach if you need too. Second, love yourself and jettison anyone from your life who is toxic or isn't supportive. Do you find yourself constantly criticizing yourself or others? Are you a people pleaser? If yes to either of those questions you are not loving yourself, so stop it. You can't take care of anyone else until you take care of yourself. I'm not saying you become an indifferent asshole. You need to learn how to say "Fuck it" at the appropriate times. Mark Manson has a short essay title "The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck" that really helps with this. You can also listen to him read it on his website https://markmanson.net/not-giving-a-fuck . Just for full disclosure I don't know Mark from Adam. I happened to stumbled upon his essay one day and found it very helpful. Thirdly, don't fight the pain. Just allow it to be there. Try to imagine yourself watching the pain from a short distance. Don't analyze it, just watch curiously. Accept it. Allow it to be there. Embrace it lovingly like you would embrace a loved one. If you can do that you've just meditated.

One other book that I'm currently reading is by Dr. Gabor Mate. The book's titled is "When the body says no". He talks about how chronic stress and childhood trauma can upset the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and cause serious disease as well as other mind body disorders (IC, IBS, and fibromyalgia). He doesn't talk about CPPS, but he makes a compelling case that the mind/body, if under chronic stress, can experience serious physical aliments.

I'll close my post with this exert from Eckhart Tolle's "Practicing the Power of Now" September, 2001. Emphasis is mine.

Mind, in the way I use the word, is not just thought. It includes your emotions as well as all unconscious mental-emotional reactive patterns. Emotion arises at the place where mind and body meet. It is the body's reaction to your mind — or you might say a reflection of your mind in the body. The more you are identified with your thinking, your likes and dislikes, judgments and interpretations, which is to say the less present you are as the watching consciousness, the stronger the emotional energy charge will be, whether you are aware of it or not. If you cannot feel your emotions, if you are cut off from them, you will eventually experience them on a purely physical level, as a physical problem or symptom.
IF YOU HAVE DIFFICULTY FEELING YOUR EMOTIONS, start by focusing attention on the inner energy field of your body. Feel the body from within. This will also put you in touch with your emotions. If you really want to know your mind, the body will always give you a truthful reflection, so look at the emotion, or rather feel it in your body. If there is an apparent conflict between them, the thought will be the lie, the emotion will be the truth. Not the ultimate truth of who you are, but the relative truth of your state of mind at that time.

P.S. Two books who's authors wrote about their struggle and eventual curing of their CPPS are out there if you need some additional inspiration. They are Tim Park's "Teach us to Sit Still" and Kevin Jarvis's "Personal Underworld". I'm pretty sure Kevin Jarvis has posted to this site. Both books were very helpful. Tim Park's books is downright hilarious at times.

[webslave]

Excellent post, thank you.

[dsmith_65]

Greetings everyone. So I've having a bit of a relapse which isn't unexpected with CPPS, and I'm taking it in stride. The reason I'm sharing this relapse is because it provides some evidence that CPPS is driven by an overactive sympathetic nervous system.

If you were to meet me in person, even before my CPPS, you'd probably think I'm cool, confident, and somewhat quiet. However, under that "strong" exterior lies a scared little child. I worried a lot, over all kinds of stuff. I held all of my anxiety in, never allowing it to escape for fear it would make me look weak. For some back story, I grew up in a house with almost constant fighting between parents. I would often be screamed and punished (usually a light spanking) for seemingly small infractions. The house had to be pretty much pin drop quite or we'd be screamed at. With hindsight, that would make anyone fearful and anxious (i.e. stress). I now realize my upbringing has played a role in the development of my CPPS. I've also had signs of CPPS since I was a kid. From childhood I'd occasionally be awoken in the middle of the night by terrible anal charlie horses. The medical term for these is proctalgia fugax. They hurt.....TERRIBLY, worse than the CPPS pain. Luckily they'd only last maybe 20-30 minutes, but by the end I'd be drenched in sweat and feeling sick to my stomach.

Fast forward to the present. When my CPPS began I was in a very bad state. I HATED my job (and still do), didn't have a good relationship with my wife, and had two small kids to help care for. I can remember every day I'd mutter to myself "I hate my life." I was deeply unhappy, and fearful that my life would never get better. I obsessed over my life situation, but I was to scared to do anything about it. Then suddenly, one morning, I woke up with what I would later find out to me CPPS. I quickly forgot about how crappy I thought my life was and began obsessing over the pain and other symptoms.

Jumping to the present, my CPPS has improved quite a bit, but the trigger for my current relapse is my job situation. I'm still working in the job I hate, and I applied for a different job. Sadly I didn't get an interview. The day I got the notification I felt pretty darn good. Very little pain, and a happy demeanor. Here's where things get really interesting, the minute I got the notification the negative thoughts came roaring back "You'll never escape."; "You'll be stuck in this crappy job for the rest of your life."; "You're dumb, you must have screwed something up on your resume.", etc. The next day my pain came back, not as bad as before but enough to make be start to obsess about it again. My mood also greatly suffered.

So where am I going with this? Having a perceived lack of control (i.e. feeling trapped), worrying, and being fearful are all very stressful. Stress activates the sympathetic nervous system, and if the one has chronic stress the sympathetic system becomes dominant. Not good. Sympathetic dominance causes all kinds of health issues including chronic pain, sexual dysfunction (more on that below), heart issues, immune system suppression, and a number of other not good stuff. In the book "Why zebra's don't get ulcers", the author describes what happens to the body when it's under chronic stress. It's a very good read and I highly recommend it. The author has an entire chapter on what chronic stress can do to the sex systems. For example, the parasympathetic nervous system (the ying to the sympathetic yang) must be activated to get an erection. If you are in a sympathetic dominant state, like I believe most of us are, getting and maintaining an erection may be very difficult not to mention premature ejaculation.

The key to getting out of sympathetic dominant state is to meditate. It works. When I meditated the pelvic muscles will start to twitch and release. Very cool stuff. The deep breathing is very important. The muscles usually release on the long exhale. Also, I'm not practising gratitude, and repeating positive phrase to myself. I believe the brain must be retrained out of it's fearful state. One phrase I use is "I'm sore, but I'm safe." One other very important thing is accepting that this condition doesn't get fixed overnight. Through neural plasticity we've trained our brain into a negative chronic pain state. That process took time, and using neural plasticity to rewire back to a balanced happy state will also take time. There will be bumps in the road. Some setback will be terribly discouraging, but to get better we must accept our condition unconditionally and allow it to gradually change in time.

Admin comment: very insightful!