(Image: Soula with Professor Lorimer Moseley and diagnosing physiotherapist Anne-Florence Plante)

It felt like a miracle and took all of about 15 minutes for the physiotherapist (at the chronic pelvic pain clinic at the Women’s here in Melbourne Australia) to give me her French infused explanation that my pain was most probably coming from my Pudendal Nerve (yes, a name, I had a name!). It took another 15mins for her to put me in on my back (I never lay on my back as it was too painful) and apply a pressure/postural technique that switched my pain off! (Yes, OFF… calm, silence, stillness, roar gone, no spasm, quiet, peace)… unbelievable but this is true.

I won’t go into much detail about how I felt, there really isn’t any way of explaining the relief of having a roaring pain that’s been halting your soul for 4.5 years, identified, clarified, acknowledged, manipulated with a single finger’s pressure point. I can’t explain how it felt to finally know (not hope or dream) that I will eventually become the best I can and that I finally found a practitioner and therapy that was going to help me. I could almost see my issue in the palm of my hand (before I was in limbo and had to come up with my own names, I won’t write them here!!).

What I will describe though, is the language, empathy, understanding and thorough explanations that I have had during my appointments so that anyone else in the same situation will know exactly where they need to go (Actually I’d be surprised if you were still reading! Taxi!! Physiotherapy Department, 1st floor Grattan Street & Flemington Road Parkville VIC).

My conversations have gone something like this:
Me: I haven’t told anyone this but there’s this short denim skirt I have and whenever I wear it I have a less painful day…
Physiotherapist leaves and comes back with a pregnancy/baby pressure belt that is adjustable either side. Et voila, a support for the pelvis adjustable to my requirements which was not so tight over my implant and uninjured side.

Me: In winter, I’m sure it hurts more to walk because my boots are heavier than shoes and I’m wearing a heavy coat.
Physiotherapist: Yes, weight is pressure for the nerve.

Me: I’m on fire today, I have all this burning, like fireworks going on.
Physiotherapist: lies me prone, applies pressure to a pressure point, fire put out instantly. This is a flare up.

Me: I feel like I have my finger stuck in a power point, I have a surge up my spine, the rattle of a tram or car drives me crazy, and don’t scare me or I’ll drop, my legs get weak and I can’t move….
Physiotherapist: Sensory pain.

Physiotherapist: How is your pain now?
Me: My pain is good now.
Physiotherapist: Laughs… but doesn’t really find this funny. Pain is never good.

So now when I have a physiotherapy appointment, instead of blank stares when I attempt to describe the fine details of my pain and activities I get clear descriptions for every point I make, in fact I even get a diagram and descriptive explanation, drawings referencing my insides, url links, and best of all, solutions in the form of techniques to release my pain, positions to release my entrapped nerve, even my husband gets attention, empathy for the difficulty he endures, he is shown the pressure points and techniques so he can help as accurately as possible (therefore finally finding peace for himself!!). I even had an explanation about my extracted ligament and septum, she’d seen it happen with trauma (pregnancy or birth) to the hips.

Finding this wonderful therapist leaves me in a very positive position too. I never had options before, I was told: go home and make yourself comfortable, but now I can calm my pain and I still have further treatments to explore depending on how I progress and this is thanks to the few specialists that have insisted on researching and learning about peripheral neuralgia and not ignored it leaving it a psychological condition or the more general we don’t know with back pain.

Read more about The Women‘s Physiotherapy Department.

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