I had exact same nerve damage and if you go to specialist within 6 months from date of surgery you maybe able to be pain free if they can repair the damage caused by pinched or cut nerve but after the 6 months my specialist advied me that there was now nothing or no treatment that would reverse or repair the nerve damage and my pain is permanent and will never go away and medication only takes the worst agony down a bit.. I could not take lyrica as well it made my muscles tense and rigid and terrible migraines and doctor said I was having reaction to it, I take Ralivia but again it will never take the pain away but makes me little more comfortable and not so tired and depressed trying to deal with days of constant pain knowing I will not be cured.
Look up the HERS Foundation on the internet. There is all kind of information on hysterctomies on there.
I am so sorry to hear about your nerve damage. I suffered nerve damage from focused ultrasound surgery for my uterine fibroids and I suffered from excruciating pain and disability for three years. I, too, was treated with indifference by the surgeon, and I learned the hard way that doctors and surgeons know very little about nerve damage, and that very little treatment exists to help nerve pain. Which is why they don't offer much and wish you would just go away.
From my experience, and research, I learned the following about nerve damage:
1. 5% of hysterectomies will result in some significant nerve damage
2. Most of the nerve damage healing occurs during the first 6 months after the injury; after that the nerves will continue to heal up to two years after the injury. Any nerve damage that remains after two years is permanent, particular if motor neurons are involved. My neurologist said he has seen improvement in sensory nerve damage after two years, but the improvement is mild at best.
3. Regular pain meds, like aspirin, tylenol, and even opiates, don't work well on nerve pain. Seizure drugs, like neurotin, lyrica, and certain antidepressants are the pain meds of choice for nerve pain. Unfortunately, they can have debilitating side effects, like fatigue, memory loss, insomnia, depression, migraines, and significant weight gain. Neurotin (gabapentin) and lyrica made me so sick that I had to get off the drug after 6 weeks on a pediatric dose, and I suffered severe side effects that lasted an entire year after being off the drug!
4. There is not much that can be done for nerve pain besides the antidepressants and seizure medications. Doctor's can provide tens units, nerve blocks, and more invasive procedures, but they work short term and often carry their own risks.
5. Because there are not good treatments for nerve pain, it's critical to do everything possible to encourage nerve healing immediately after the injury. Some good treatments are high dose vitamin b-12, alpha lipoic acid, cold laser therapy, physical therapy, cox-2/antiinflamatory supplements such as quercetin, tumeric, garlic, DHA fish oil, pycogenol, vitamin c and vitamin e. And avoid anything that will excite the nerves, such as MSG, flavor enhancers, soy, soy sauce, aspartame (found in diet cokes), etc.
Because nerve damage is so serious, we all need to get informed before we choose hysterectomy, and never depend on your doctor to be informed or have the moral conscience to inform you. Make sure you really need the surgery and get informed about all the alternatives. And if you do have the surgery, shop for the best surgeon out there. After my nerve damage disaster, I personally interviewed 5 different surgeons after researching several, because I will probably have to have either a myomectomy or hysterectormy because of my growing fibroids. And I'll probably interview some more before I choose a surgeon. Right now, with personal experience with bad nerve damage of which I still suffer limitations, a big belly from the fibroids seems a small thing to live with.
I wish you the best.
I had complications of a vaginal hysterectomy with a vaginal cuff abscess. I had the cuff resected many times.....no relief. ended up in pain management. I've taken neurontin,lyrica, ziconitide.....no relief. I had a pump implanted to recieve narcotics 24/7. This occured 16 years ago 1996. I remain in pain. I was diagnosed with nerve damage/entrapment of vaginal wall. I am told there's nothing they can do surgically. Nerve blocks didn't help either. I even tried neurostimulators...waste of time/money. I consulted a stem cell dr. in florida who told me that he could cure me after reviewing my records. he told me that i have post surgical inflammatory pain. I am panning on tryign stem cells...what do i have to lose?...hopefully pain.
Seek out a medical malpractice attorney with experience. Don't give up if the first few won't take your case.
I have very little pain when waking up from sergery. The nurse made me puse the button on the pump and explained I could push it every 7 or 15 minutes. She helped me roll on my side so I could sleep and I used the button when I would wake up so I could go back to sleep since I couldn't sleep on my tummy. I had a lot of urinary track infections afterwards. One year prior to surgery I had my gall bladder out also. When I urinate alot of times there is pain but not like an infection. It feels moe like a muscle pulling pain. And now I'm having kidney problems and dealing with stones. I don't blame my doctor. When I told him about the pain he ran tests and researched and found that sometimes after surgery women have painful urinary. I think its because they have to tack your bladder from moving since the uterus is gone. I would recommend my gyno to any woman. His name is Dr. Ahuja and his office is in the Geneva Memorial Hospital in Geneva Ohio. Before my surgery he asked me if I still wanted to go thru with it. And squeezed my hand and gave my a kiss on the forehead. Said don't worry I'll take good care of you. And he gave my husband a hug and told him he would take good care of me. As soon as it was done he went out and told me husband and Mom. He is very professional, pationate about what he does, cares deeply for his patients, and has an excellent caring bedside manor. He even called us at home to see how I was feeling and gave me two weeks more off work back then when he realized I was a dog warden. Which I liked that but my work didn't.
I deal with pain everyday in my back. I have moderate disk degeneration of the spine, and just diagnosed with perifial neurapathy in my feet. I've been on requip for RLS and Oxycodone 30mg every 4hrs for back pain, Effexor 75mg 3x a day for anxiety/depresion and now he put me on Neurotin 300mg. I will eventually be on 3 a day once I get through the steps. I've had days where I stay in bed. I can't even carry a bucket of water for my goats. I'm trying to get disability too. But that is really hard because they have those that have grew up in the system grouped together with those that have worked hard all their life and paid into the system like me. It would be much easier if they separated the two.
I had laparoscopic hysterectomy six months ago.
I'm in so much burning pain in my stomache. It started on the left hand side two inches away from my belly button. Now it's under my belly button on both sides. It's excruciating..
I'm not soft and never cry and had no pain killers while giving birth.
I'm sick of going to the doctors, they have given me acid reflux tablets and say I have ibs. I do not agree.
I think after looking things up that I too have nerve damage after my full hysterectomy. I can't get out of bed, or walk upstairs. I can't walk for long either. I'm 49 and feel 99,,,,
My stools have turned black and I'm sick a lot as well.
My doc has told me to take this medication for two weeks and go back. If things don't get better I have to have the camera.
They don't realise... waiting two weeks will be hell. I work full time, homeschool my disabled daughter and run an online business to make ends meat.
I could scream ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh:-)
Pudendal nerve neuralgia from entrapment/compression is one of the major causes of chronic perineal pelvic pain. It is a condition similar to carpal tunnel syndrome where the nerve to the hand is compressed between the ligaments going to fingers causing numbness. Pudendal nerve entrapment was first recognised in 1987 as the Alcock's canal or cyclist's syndrome.
The pudendal nerve is one of the major nerves to the pelvis and external genitalia. The main symptoms of nerve entrapment are pain in one or more of the areas supplied by the pudendal nerve. Typically patients complains of pain in the perineum (area between rectum and vulva/scrotum), penis, scrotum in men and vulva, labia, vagina, clitoris in women. The pain is aggravated by sitting especially on a soft chair, relieved by standing, lying down or sitting on a toilet seat. The pain is usually described as a severe burning, tingling pain, increased sensitivity in the area supplied by the pudendal nerve or it can also be isolated in the rectum, vulva (scrotum) or clitoris (penile pain).
Patients with pudendal neuralgia may have symptoms other than pain. This includes pain with urination, urinary frequency, bowel movement, pain with intercourse or orgasm and sometimes. persistent sexual arousal. The symptoms of pudendal nerve neuralgia can mimic and therefore often misdiagnosed as prostatitis, cystitis, testicular pain, urinary hesitancy, endometriosis and proctalgia. As a result the average time to diagnosis of pudendal nerve entrapment is usually about 4 years.
The pudendal nerve can be compressed between the sacrotuberous and sacrospinous ligaments (clamp), the Alcocks canal or the falciform process of the sacrotuberous ligament. In approximately 70% of patients, pain is only on one side and in the remaining 30% the pain is on both sides of the body.
In many patients, the reason for the injury of the pudendal nerve is not known. Some of the known causes of pudendal nerve injury are trauma to the pelvic area, gynecological surgery (hysterectomy, repair of bladder prolapse, surgery for incontinence), stretching of the pudendal nerve from chronic constipation, normal vaginal delivery and prolonged sitting. In cases of surgical injury, onset of pain is usually sudden but in most cases the onset of pain is slow and progresses over many months or years.
Diagnosis of pudendal neuralgia is mainly a clinical diagnosis. There are no exclusive tests for pudendal nerve entrapment.
The criteria (Nantes criteria) used for diagnosis are:
1.Pain in the area of the pudendal nerve.
2.Worsened by sitting & relieved by sitting on toilet or standing.
3.The patient is not woken at night by the pain.
4.No objective sensory loss on clinical examination.
5.Positive anaesthetic pudendal nerve block.
Some groups use electromyography to test the nerve function but this can be very confusing and unreliable. Professor Roberts group in Nantes has stopped using this test for this reason.
Treatment of pudendal neuralgia consists of conservative and surgical treatments. Conservative treatments include avoiding activities that caused or aggravate the injury (eg. cycling), analgesic/anti-inflammatory medications and physiotherapy/chiropractic manipulations.
If there is no improvement then steroid and local anaesthetic nerve blocks may be offered. This will reduce the pain as well as swelling and inflammation around the nerve.
Surgery is offered if there is no long-term relief of pain.
The aim of surgery is to free up the pudendal nerve from any compression. The surgical approaches to pudendal nerve decompression include trans-gluteal, trans-ischiorectal and trans-perineal approaches. Recently a laparoscopic approach has been described but there is no published result of its efficacy. Although we do lots of difficult laparoscopic surgery we would not advocate this approach as it potentially very dangerous and life threatening.
The trans-gluteal approach, originally described by Professor Roger Robert in Nantes, France gives the best visualization of the nerve from the clamp (between the sacrotuberous and sacrospinous ligaments) to the falciform process and Alcock's canal. A 5cm incision is made in the buttock and the ligaments and falciform process are divided. Alcock's canal is also dilated. The nerve is then transposed into the pelvis travelling in a shorter route. If there are no complications you can be up and walking around the day after surgery. Patients are discharged home with the laxative Movicol as passing a constipated stool can put additional strain on the nerve. It is important to flex the hip joint/buttock on a regular basis and once the wound has healed gently massage the area. Typically sex can be resumed 6 weeks after surgery.
Most people require pain medications for many months after surgery as nerves take a long time to heal. Patients sometimes feel new pains or increased pain temporarily as they recover. Many people experience shock-like pain as the nerve is regenerating, especially around the 3-4 month point. Often the recovery takes as long as a year and many patients have reported improvements as late as 2-3 years after surgery. Often people return to work several months after surgery although most are not completely pain-free yet and require the use of special stand-up workstations and cushions.
Outcomes from pudendal nerve decompression surgery depend on many factors such as duration of pain, degree and cause of nerve injury. Approximately 40% of patients who undergo trans-gluteal pudendal decompression have significant improvement in pain, 30% of patients have some improvement in pain (overall 70% improvement), 30% have no change in pain and 1% may get worse. Unlike nerve blocks where results are instant, improvement after surgery is usually not felt until 4-6 months from surgery and takes up to 12-18 months for complete recovery.
My name is Annie from Florida, I sent the above article. I am with pain management 10 years, I have been on Lyrica,Neurontin,these doesn't work. I was on Methadone but because that medication is for addicts,they had to change it for Morphine. The fast acting is better than the long acting. I was taking 0.5mg four times a day, I am also getting 2-3 times spinal shots per year and the pain reduced with these treatment 50%. Now I get 0.5mg Morphine 4 times but taking only 2 times. If you can afford the surgery written above,you do not need to go France, go to Mayo Clinic. I can't afford it. I also get Soma at Pain Management, good for your muscles to relax if you can't sleep but do not take it regularly.
I hope I helped a little. God Bless You:Annie
PS: if you had total hysterectomy and they know about the damaged pudendal nerves, you do not need to go back just go every month to pain management, try to go to the gym 3 times a week, I know sitting and standing and walking ishard.Do not abuse the Morphine, just take how it is prescribed.
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