Many of us here at BiM went to the Festival de NOI a couple of weeks ago. It was fab. However, we know that most of you couldn’t make it and we thought we wold briefly recap some of the talks so you can feel the passion for yourselves. Here is the first one…..

This morning in the practice where I work, I overheard a male patient telling one of the male physiotherapists about his problem: “I get pain… when I’m taking a leak… if I move him around too much… when I’m having sex, ya know, finishing up… all the fun stuff!”

This got me thinking… why is it that we are all too afraid to talk about penile, vaginal, and pelvic pain? Why do we avoid using anatomically correct terms (which, let’s face it, we all do) when talking about pain in the pelvic region? Why do so many health professionals feel uncomfortable listening to and dealing with patients with pelvic pain? Many patients aren’t even brave enough to discuss their pelvic pain with health professionals. But it is such a huge problem.

Primary care stats show pelvic pain prevalence is comparable to that of asthma and back pain[1]. In Australia alone, we spend over $6 BILLION on medical and surgical treatments for pelvic pain[2]! Endometriosis affects more people in the 15-49 age range than breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes (type I and II), and AIDS combined.[2] And that’s not including the other women and men with other types of pelvic pain. So, with such a high incidence and so much money put into pelvic pain, why do we not hear more about it? Everyone knows how horrible, disabling, and financially difficult back pain is; why do we not recognise that pelvic pain is just as much of a problem?

Dr Patricia Neumann tackled these very issues at the recent NOI 2012 Neurodynamics & the Neuromatrix Conference. She opened our eyes, albeit in a different way to the male streaker who graced the conference the following day, to what’s going on in the pelvic region.

Read more on the bim.org website…