2.16.2009

Pudendal Neuralgia & the MAPS Pain Clinic

It's not vulvodynia. This is interesting, because what is often Dx'ed as VVD isn't - it's this pudendal neuralgia mess. At least, according to my new doc - he says what I have "encompasses VVD" but goes beyond it. Sometimes (though not often), thank god for Old White Guy doctors. Dr. Stanley Antolak, in Edina, MN, came out of retirement to treat pudendal pain. He did a series of horrific tests on me to determine exactly where the nerve damage is (and it is nerve damage), then began a series of steroidal injections (blocks), which helped a bit...for a while. If I have sex, it's totally blown. Looks like I'm headed for surgery, I think, but not the kind where the pudendal nerve is destroyed - Antolak will go in and literally yank it over to a new place, on the theory that it's entrapped somewhere, rather than just inflamed.

At some point, I'll try to blog the experience at the U of MN pain clinic...probably after I report the treating practitioner to her board.

In the meantime, Prozac wore off (well, it has been seven years) and in the search for a new solution, plus lots of pain meds (I've been off 'em all for months now...but yay! the pain is still horrid!) and directly injecting things into my nervous system, I've been pushed into Serotonin Syndrome...let me tell you, that's a fuckin' day at the Fair.

How is everyone else doing? Thanks for checking in, Lora. Haven't wanted to write. It's been a really difficult two years.