Chronic pelvic pain (CPP) is persistent, annoying, even excruciating. CPP can stop you doing what you want to do. It affects your mood and your relationships.
It’s also called persistent pelvic pain (PPP), for obvious reasons. Chronic pelvic pain sounds a bit depressing. That’s why you will usually hear health professionals refer to it as persistent pelvic pain. The language we use around symptoms does have an impact. You’ll delve deeply into this when you work with a clinician who is trained in the Explain Pain approach. Learning how your brain works in pain is an important part of recovery.
In contrast to acute (short-term) pain, chronic pain is ongoing (longer than 3-6 months). But this is not the most important difference between the two. Rather, it’s the complexity. In acute pelvic pain, there is often a clear structure involved and a simple process that can easily explain the pain. In contrast, in CPP/PPP, the initial cause is long gone, but the pain continues. There is no clear, single cause of the pain. (To understand this better, read my page Pelvic Pain That Won’t Go Away.
It’s important to have thorough investigation into your chronic pelvic pain. But it’s also important to realise that CPP/PPP is a condition in itself. There is usually sensitivity of the nervous system, known as central sensitisation. Brain training, as taught in my e-book Outsmart Your Pain, is important for recovery.
On this page I go more into detail about how and why chronic pelvic pain develops.
Click on these pages to get more detail on specific chronic pelvic pain conditions:
- Vulvodynia and Vulvar Vestibulitis/Vestibulodynia
- Vaginismus
- Pudendal neuralgia
- Interstitial cystitis
- Proctalgia fugax
- Endometriosis
- Surgical Adhesion-related pain
- Central Sensitisation
To find out more about an appointment, contact us.