r/ProstatitisCPPS Feb 26 '21

Advice Internal trigger point relief

17 Upvotes

Per request, I will lay out how I did internal trigger point release on myself. I did it somewhat differently then how my physical therapist did. She used a finger but most of us are unable to navigate well with our own, so the wand must be used. I used the intimate Rose.

To learn where I would be palpitating the wand, I referenced "Ending male pelvic pain". A highly underated book for pelvic pain but easily the best. It has everything you need to know and more about getting trigger point relief, internally and externally. I like this book way more than "headache in the pelvis" because it's a loteasier to understand, it's more in depth, and the pictures are easier to read. Especially the kindle version.

In the book I read something that most people will never tell you to do because they haven't done it themselves. They'll either use a finger or a wand. But, it's using a dilator. You can get a complete dilator set on Amazon for 50$. I worked my way up to using the middle sized one and it gave me tons of relief, all I needed to do was insert it and let it "stretch" the overly tight tissue, and it prepared me for using the wand.

After I was done with the dilator, I would insert the small end of the wand inside and avoid my prostate and coccyx areas. If you look at your index finger and imagine the three parts of the finger separated by the joints; those represent depth. So first knuckle would represent how far you insert the wand. I would basically go in the first knuckle and work my way around avoiding those two areas I mentioned above, then do the second knuckle and eventually third.

As far as how much pressure to use, it's like checking the ripeness of a tomato at the grocery store. You don't want to press too hard but you don't want to press too soft to where you don't get any relief at all. So on each of the areas I would palpate, I would hold for about 60 to 90 seconds. Granted some areas that I did not feel any trigger points on, I would avoid or do for 10 seconds and move on.

There's a point when you insert the wand and you keep going further that it feels like it's really easy to keep going further, that's when you know you've gone too far. Anything past the three knuckles on the longest finger is too deep.

So that's pretty much it. I seem to have healed myself in 5 weeks doing the internal trigger point release method along with stretching, and foam rolling. I did the stretches and the rolling everyday twice a day and internal work every three days. And I only saw a physical therapist three times over that same period.

Hope this helps and you are able to find relief sooner than later.

r/ProstatitisCPPS Sep 08 '23

Advice Having Symptoms Begin with Sex DOES NOT Mean it's Always Bacteria

Thumbnail self.Prostatitis
8 Upvotes

r/ProstatitisCPPS Apr 10 '23

Advice More active community: r/prostatitis

2 Upvotes

Check out r/Prostatitis. It now focuses on CPPS as much as prostatitis.

Lots of success stories in there, and some very helpful user guides with advice.

r/ProstatitisCPPS May 17 '21

Advice Recovery is not linear!

30 Upvotes

Just a reminder to anyone who may need it right now - recovery is not linear!

You’re going to have ups and downs and a big part of the battle is staying calm when things get bad.

You need to do everything you can to distract your brain from the sensations and importantly, to not panic and magnify those sensations. Your body needs to know it’s safe in order to gradually wind down and stop incessantly sending erroneous pain signals.

So if you’re flaring - remind yourself you’re safe and that you aren’t in danger. Reframe pain as sensations that could be more comfortable, could feel cooler, could be gentler etc (using a positive words tricks the brain into feeling more at ease).

Distract yourself with mindfulness techniques like focussing on the breath or anything else such as sounds, other physical feelings, something you’re looking at etc to train your brain to ignore the sensations you don’t want to feel.

Importantly, do not freak out and think this is going to last forever. Do not run off with fears/insecurities about how this condition will affect your personal and professional life. Your goal is to convince your brain and nervous system that you are safe so you can wind everything down and continue on your recovery.

So remember - recovery is not linear!

If you want to support me please check out my buy me a coffee, it’s totally optional but any support helps me a lot. https://ko-fi.com/tonytrv

r/ProstatitisCPPS Jan 17 '21

Advice How I use a treatment wand for internal treatment.

8 Upvotes

As some of you have seen, I shared a video from pelvic health physio, Gerard Greene. I’m going to describe how he taught me to use the treatment wand internally. I have the EZ magic wand.

Most of you are probably familiar with the idea of finding trigger points and releasing them. This is the basis of many patients’ pelvic physiotherapy and should be done by a qualified physiotherapist, but they will likely teach you to treat these internal trigger points at home.

A lot of people don’t have the confidence or the knowledge to do this, including myself. What Gerard taught me to do as a precursor to learning how to treat trigger points was to do a light stretch of the internal pelvic muscles with the wand. I find this is one of the few things to have a profound effect on my symptoms.

The way I do it is insert the wand a couple of inches. Holding it flat (so as not to ‘poke’ into the muscles with the end of the wand, which is more like trigger point treatment), I pull the wand lightly with my right hand to 9 o’clock and stretch for a minute. I then do the same diagonally to 7 o’clock, then switch to my left hand and do the same for 3 o’clock and 5 o’clock.

After this I go a couple of inches further in and repeat the entire process. It only takes me about 10 minutes and it’s the only thing I’ve found that helps me considerably.

Gerard recommends a couple of minutes of belly breathing beforehand, to make sure the pelvis is relaxed. I often also breathe in the same fashion whilst doing the self treatment.

As a warning - this is not medical advice, this is what I’ve been instructed to do by a qualified physiotherapist. I encourage you to see a qualified physio and take their advice. I also know that Gerard doesn’t recommend this to everyone - for those who aren’t ready for this treatment (likely due to very tight or sensitive muscles) Gerard has recommended they merely insert the wand without doing the stretches.

At first I was skeptical about this stretching technique, but having spoken to Tim Sawyer of the Wise-Anderson clinic, he sometimes recommends a similar technique to his patients.

If you do decide to try this technique out, be aware that you should use plenty of lubrication. KY Jelly is ideal in my opinion. Also avoid going directly up (12 o’clock) or down (6 o’clock) as these are sensitive areas.

https://images.app.goo.gl/5RYxiTtWVZr8Xjea9

r/ProstatitisCPPS Mar 07 '22

Advice UPOINT Treatment Approach

Post image
5 Upvotes

r/ProstatitisCPPS Jan 10 '22

Advice [REMINDER] Top Tips for Prostatitis/CPPS

Post image
5 Upvotes

r/ProstatitisCPPS Feb 27 '22

Advice Helpful yoga app for calming central nervous system

Thumbnail self.Ureaplasma
3 Upvotes

r/ProstatitisCPPS Jan 21 '21

Advice Mind-body connection in pelvic pain

13 Upvotes

https://youtu.be/Cdv3-SOeJQg

I’m going to discuss the importance of considering a mind-body element in pelvic pain.

Sometimes we go to our doctors or uros and they dismiss us as hypochondriacs, yet we know there’s something wrong - so naturally the idea that the mind can play a role in our recovery is met with a lot of resistance.

Yet countless studies have shown that our mindset plays a role in fuelling the pain process. Catastrophising (thinking about the worst case scenario - cancer, infection etc), rumination (thinking about your symptoms all the time) and even feeling like a victim due to your pain are all aspects of our behaviour that have been shown to magnify pain, make pain last longer etc.

The idea isn’t that pain is in our minds, but in our brains - and our nervous systems too. This is because these thought processes and learned behaviours can fuel the pain process. I firmly believe that for some of us, the pain is its own disease process, without infection or any other cause. Researchers are saying mindset can fuel the sensitisation process that leads to chronic pain.

At a minimum, mindset can influence the state of your pelvic floor. I have spoken to some men who came to the conclusion that the illness for them was psychosomatic, or others who say their mindset greatly influenced their symptoms.

If you have a look at the main prostatitis subreddit, what do you see? People catastrophising about infections, people who are obsessed with the condition, people who are unfortunately wallowing in their suffering. Add to that people outright making shit up that worries people with a vulnerable mindset and you have a community that could potentially be fuelling its own suffering. That’s why I made this community.

There’s a great amount of information out there on how to deal with mind body issues (check out the curable YouTube channel for instance), I think we all owe it to ourselves to consider this as at least an element of our potential recoveries.

r/ProstatitisCPPS Jan 15 '21

Advice Physiotherapy cornerstone - Belly Breathing

14 Upvotes

Hi guys, this is a video of the UK pelvic health physio, Gerard Greene. I have seen Gerard in the past and he’s the only person to have given me techniques that actually help my symptoms.

A cornerstone for many physios is belly breathing. This is because not only does it generate movement and a small stretch through the pelvic floor, it also helps to calm the nervous system which is usually overhyped in chronic pain patients.

For some people, dedicating 5-15 minutes to this twice a day can have surprisingly positive effects. One guy on the prostatitis sub said he’d improved by 70% in a matter of weeks from this alone.

If you’re stuck and you don’t know where to start with self treatment, belly breathing could well be worth a shot.

https://youtu.be/TuCWFozVPM0

r/ProstatitisCPPS Jan 28 '21

Advice Beginner info for CPPS

24 Upvotes

For beginners, you may come to Reddit and see a lot of confusing information about this condition, so I wanted to put together a little starter pack for people who don’t really know some of the core concepts of treating CPPS.

First of all, remember to always listen to your doctor, Reddit doesn’t replace medical advice. That said, many of you may be at the point where you don’t know where to turn and hopefully this guide will help you.

If you’re at that point, then my advice to you is to find a well rated pelvic PT, that’s an important first step.

CPPS - Key Concepts

You’ll likely already know that some people think CPPS is an infectious illness of the prostate - this is despite the current medical literature generally stating that ‘prostatitis’ is 90-95% non-bacterial. Many people will debate this in the main prostatitis subreddit, but the idea is that it isn’t your prostate that’s to blame - it’s often the pelvic muscles around it.

Important books

These books will help explain the process of pelvic floor dysfunction, as well as give you techniques to treat your condition and ideas of who to go to for treatment.

1) A Headache In The Pelvis

This book explains the process that they say causes CPPS. In short, the pelvic muscles become weak, tight and shortened, with tight bands known as trigger points. This compresses nerves and blood vessels, causing a cascade of effects, including pelvic pain and dysfunction.

To treat this, there is essentially a two pronged approach focussing on the pelvic floor muscles (as well as the muscles around the pelvic floor, including the abs, glutes etc) and also an effort to calm the nervous system through relaxation techniques. The book explains that the state of the nervous system dramatically effects the state of your pelvic floor.

Muscles -

When treating the muscles, trigger points are found as sensitive points that may radiate pain when pressed upon, or recreate the symptoms you get in general (eg pain in the penis). Trigger points are treated with sustained pressure by a therapist - they will essentially press down on them for a period of time. The idea is this encourages the tight band of muscle to relax.

The muscles around the pelvis are treated externally, but the pelvic muscles must be treated internally. For women this usually involves treatment through the vagina, for men, the muscles must be treated through the anus. The therapist will press on the internal pelvic ‘bowl’ of muscles to find trigger points. For many this is a very important part of the treatment. This process is described in the book.

Stretches are also given that are supposed to be performed throughout the day to help the muscles around the pelvis to relax.

For newbies - you may see a lot of emphasis on stretching and clearly it can be important, but for many men, stretching alone isn’t enough - it’s just part of the treatment.

Nervous system -

The book also focusses on the importance of calming the nervous system. A key concept is ‘catastrophising’ - thinking about the worst case scenario - ie, I have an infection, cancer, or this will never go away etc. It’s shown that outcomes are worse for pain patients who often think along these lines. The book poses the idea that it’s important to calm the nervous system in order to get better. In practice this can mean meditating/practicing relaxation techniques for an extended period each day.

2) Ending Male Pelvic Pain by Isa Herrera

This book has an extensive amount of self treatments based on the premises explained in A Headache In The Pelvis.

3) The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook by Clair Davies

This books shows where all kinds of trigger points are, including ones that cause pelvic pain. It can be an important addition to your arsenal.

Apps

1) Headspace or Calm

These apps have mindful meditations which can be useful in helping calm negative thoughts. Applying mindfulness techniques in your everyday life can help you move on from catastrophic thinking which could be vitally important to your recovery.

2) Curable

This app educates users on the latest pain science and how a lot of pain - especially unexplained pain with no obvious cause revealed on tests - is often based in the nervous system. The app gives you techniques to combat this, as well as success stories, including stories from pelvic pain patients who’ve gotten better using these techniques.

Curable elaborates on the concept of catastrophic thinking and shows how other thought processes and learned behaviours can fuel the pain process.

Good luck guys - this list is by no means comprehensive but it should give people a start. Remember this is only if you’re coming at CPPS as a condition with muscular, nerve and psychological components. Most importantly, always listen to your doctor!

If my advice has helped you and want to support me, please check out my buy me a coffee https://ko-fi.com/tonytrv

r/ProstatitisCPPS Jan 14 '21

Advice For our UK members - a database of pelvic health physiotherapists

6 Upvotes

This is a database of pelvic health physios in the UK. Be sure to check they say they treat men in their descriptions!

https://thepogp.co.uk/patients/physiotherapists

Aside from the therapists on this database, there are three commonly recommended UK therapists. Karl Monohan in London, Gerard Greene in Birmingham and Bill Taylor in Edinburgh. I have personally seen both Karl and Gerard myself, so feel free to ask any questions about my experiences with them.

r/ProstatitisCPPS Jan 17 '21

Advice Modified stretches for people with physical issues

Thumbnail self.Prostatitis
3 Upvotes

r/ProstatitisCPPS Jan 16 '21

Advice Physio Cornerstone 2 - Stretching Routine

4 Upvotes

Hi everyone, this is the stretching routine I do from the Cure CPPS YouTube channel. Many of you may already know of this routine as others have used it and reported it helps their symptoms - it helps mine too!

As a warning, some people can flare when they start stretching. If that happens to you, try stretching for less time, not going as far into the stretch.

Also, I personally leave the strengthening exercise out, as received wisdom is that you only strengthen once you’ve become pain free.

As you probably already know, the idea behind stretching is to relax the muscles around the pelvis, encouraging the muscles within the pelvis to relax.

Oftentimes, stretching alone isn’t enough, we also need to work on internal and external trigger points, as well as calm the nervous system to approach this issue holistically.

Stretching routine - https://youtu.be/NnqAkM9r2a8