Karen Crudden
Why does my pain persist despite having endo surgery
Many ladies are under the impression if they have surgery to remove the endo their pain will all go away. In clinic I find women will more often tell me their endo pain has improved but the other pain persists or sometimes their pain is worse now than prior surgery 🙈
How can this be when you have had surgery to remove the tissue that is causing all the pain?
Pain is complex 🤯 here goes....
Sure endometriosis was the trigger for your pain then add in monthly painful periods, ovulation and the rest! maybe some bowel issues, pain during sex, mood starts to get affected, pain becomes more persistent and unpredictable at times... sounding familiar
Why? Because our body is like noisy neighbours! If one area is giving out, it’s neighbour chimes in that might be your pelvic floor muscles, then your bowel, then your bladder then your back muscles, abdominal muscles you notice the area of pain starts to spread as it persists over the years
This is what we call an upregulated nervous system, and if left on the brain cells that produce the pain get better at producing pain they become sensitized and require a smaller stimulus to produce the same pain! The body is over protecting you, and this becomes unhelpful in the long run.
So when you have endo surgery it is more likely these noisy neighbours are still giving out and causing your persistent pain now, rather than the surgeon missed some endo.
And you guessed it... pelvic health physios can help you 🙋♀️
With you we will identify what YOUR contributing factors are. Pelvic health physios can help improve bladder, bowel, sexual issues and muscle pain e.g. low back, pelvis, hip or groin pain!
I would 💗 if I could see all ladies prior endo surgery to give individualised advice on how to recover after laparoscopic surgery, or help improve pain prior IMAGINE!
Maybe this will become the norm in time, until then we need to be aware that physio can play an important role in pain management pre and post surgery.
I hope this piece of information helps
Karen 💚
