CPPS/strain injury

[troublehshooter Member Find all posts View Profile Close troublehshooter]

EDIT: I am leaving the remainder of this post as-is for historical purposes, but if this is your first time reading this thread, you may want to first jump to post 36 which has a much more concise and informed breakdown of my symptoms and recovery methods.



Hi Everyone,

Where to start. I'll try to keep this brief and high-level but the short of it is I believe i made a huge mistake and am paying dearly for it. Please note I blame myself and myself only. I didn't do enough research, track things appropriately, nor did I have a good enough understanding of my own weakness in character. I did not want to make my first post here in this state of things. Upon initial onset of problems and treatment I truly believed I was going to recover and be fine and be able to post a success story. I am still hoping for that, but unfortunately things aren't going that way yet.

For a general timeline, my injury happened sometime in early November and initially didn't seem like a big deal, in fact I thought it was a blood vessel at first. I'm 33yo, and found this forum around 3-4 years ago where i did some research on basics and tried it for myself. Since then I did PE off and on with what i think were really good results in terms of overall health and size, but i was never really scientific about it and never tracked anything. My normal routine was a simple 60 jelqs whenever i had some free time in my schedule for it.

About two months ago (early November) I was going through some relationship related heartbreak and whether it was boredom or a way of coping, I got more aggressive with it than i should have. I was doing the routine daily, and one day i was pushing more reps than usual and also kegeling fully erect, which i now know was a really bad thing to do. What I recall as the initial injury did not happen while i did this though, it happened later that same day while i was just regularly masturbating. (I'm sure the damage was done earlier however).

At the time of the injury something just felt a little off. I quickly finished the session. The next day I tried using it again. It felt normal until i orgasmed, which gave me some mild pain in the region (testicles included). I gave things a break for a couple days but once again it quickly faded and seemed like nothing and i cautiously gave it another go. Also i should point out that I initially thought I had injured a blood vessel, not a nerve. The symptoms would wax and wane, some days id feel fine others i wouldn't, but I was trying to let myself rest as much as possible. Over time I began to notice that i only needed an erection to cause pain, but it would typically be an after effect rather than something I experienced in the moment. I also noticed that orgasms would worsen those after effects. The pain would be just about anywhere in my genital region and would move around day to day. I knew at this point i needed to rest and let things heal but this is where my own character let me down. Probably a half dozen times over the last 2 months my self control failed me. Even if I'd had perfect control I would still get erections in my sleep and experience the same side effects.

The pain itself has never been serious however the anxiety and physical discomfort can get *very* high, as it is clear these nerves are affecting me at my core nervous system. When a flare up happens, I can get full body shakes and lose control of my body temperature. Trying to hide this from people around me is brutal. I have also lost at least 10 pounds in body weight over the last two months from the stress.

About a week and a half into my initial symptoms I called my best friend (also my primary doc) and embarrassingly explained that I had injured myself. He referred me to a urologist. The urologist gave me an exam and a script for ibuprofen and said he was convinced I'd be fine, nothing to worry about. I also got an ultrasound done on my testicles since i was worried i may have disrupted blood flow to that area based on how things felt at the time. Everything checked out perfect though. By the time of the second visit I was starting to realize it was more likely a nerve that had been damaged than a blood vessel since it wasn't going away. I explained this and pointed to where i felt the pain (tip of penis, right testicle, some trailing back to the anus). He gave me a prostate exam and told me he thought i had prostatitis and gave me an antibiotic. I'm not going to say he was wrong but i don't think that was the entire picture. Fast forward to last week I began having a harder time managing my symptoms. My best friend / primary doc gave me some meds to calm things down. Initially they did the trick. However by Thursday something in my body... medication, or any combination of things... was causing me to be extremely horny and even if i managed to suppress the thoughts i was getting erections for no reason. This type of thing is hell on earth. I once again lost self control and hurt myself, getting one of the hardest erections I've ever experienced and felt a tearing like sensation. After two months of repeated stress on the injury this time i don't know if I am recovering. I have pins and needles from something as simple as walking, and now after resting most of this weekend I am not experiencing recovery like I used to. The one positive I am seeing vs other cases is that I still have feeling everywhere and i could achieve erection/orgasm if prompted (I'm not going to). Even with the meds I'm on, continuing to function as a normal person will be very difficult and a constant fight to keep a level head. Without the meds it is not possible.

Tomorrow (today, 4am here) I am going to try to get an emergency consultation with a pelvic/neuro specialist that I found in my area. I am not sure what is going to happen next but any advice would be appreciated. Prior to all this I was a happy, healthy, 33 year old that was just starting to see some really good success in life. Because of my poor choices I am at risk of losing everything. So far I've kept this hidden at work but I don't know if that can last. I lack sleep, and my only colleague quit so stress is high. If there's anything you get from reading this, don't make the same mistake I did. Do your research and be safe with your exercises. And if you took the time to read through this and respond, please know that I appreciate you. Thank you.

[Pegasus AdministratorPE Gym EditorPEGym Hero ☺ Admin of the Month Mar 2015 Find all posts View Profile Close Pegasus]

So yeah cpps is generally handled by a physio who does male pelvic floor work .

A therapist for the anxiety might be an idea.

[Mikebranada Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mikebranada]

Pegasus is right. If you're gonna disclose this to anyone you're gonna have to bullshit a little bit. Tell them it's cpps you have a tight pelvic wall you do physio you're in pain you suffer from chronic pelvic pain syndrome. You are strengthening your pelvic floor yadda yadda yadda. If you tell them the reason you will blow their fuckin mind like Nirvana. Keep beating around the bush until you get things settled down hopefully. Also carry a large bcheck book for physio once a week for pelvic floor straightening. Use terms like I'm in pain or I suffer. Don't tell them you broke the Johnson. This is kinda graphic here but someone told me out of his own fucking knowledge that nerve damage down there is permanent. The little bitcc wouldn't answer my question when I asked if he knew that was a fact.

[Mikebranada Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mikebranada]

As the nerves heal be prepared to live in limbo. Your dick will be in construction season. Tell your physio not to hit the prostate just an internal massage so you can get things flowing circuitry wise instead of getting priaprisms. Be aware that the balls will hurt and so will the dick. Sometimes hot water in the shower will burn those nerves. I'm praying for you 🙏 I've been in the loop now for 2 sessions who cares if I waited forever if I waited for physio. The fact is that I am being proactive doing it now. As your dick hardens while it's flaccid that's means your still healing. Do not do kegals while errect and please wash your ass in the shower with a peri bottle to get rid of the trauma if wiping. Always sleep on your back not your stomach.

[HansTwilight Retired ModeratorPE Gym Editor Member of the Month Jan 2017PEGym Hero Find all posts View Profile Close HansTwilight]

You can try the stuff in my protocol in my signature before you see them, it has a lot of info on CPPS

[Pegasus AdministratorPE Gym EditorPEGym Hero ☺ Admin of the Month Mar 2015 Find all posts View Profile Close Pegasus]

Nerve damage smerge damage this is just part of the sky is falling stuff you get with this issue .

You have cpps go to a physio . By the way number one causal factor with this kind of problem is stress/anxiety . Number one thing keeps it going is stress'anxiety .

[troublehshooter Member Find all posts View Profile Close troublehshooter]

Thanks everyone for the feedback and the prayers i really really appreciate it. Today i have my appointment with the physio, I will report back how it goes. I’m at work now but i will also do the reading on CPPS tonight, thank you Hans. I don’t think i mentioned before i have been doing a full gamete of pelvic stretches twice daily and they do seem to help.

In other news, i seemed to have had a stroke of luck last night, or maybe the steroids from my doc kicked in. I went into a really deep sleep last night. I woke up this morning with cold sweat, drool, and a numb face. But i could tell my body had been on the mend. Noticed i had/have a very hard flacid but a lot of the pins and needles and spasming are reduced this morning. Definitely still far from healed but its positive progress and i am extremely thankful for it!

[BigKnob Senior Member Member of the Month Nov 2019 Find all posts View Profile Close BigKnob]

This is not nerve damage. And to the mikebranada guy, when talking nerve damage it depends of the degree of the injury, some heal in days, some heal in months and some never heal completely.

[Mikebranada Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mikebranada]

I was just rolling with the punches he threw: ' nerve injury, symptoms worsening.' just to allude to what you said, can nerve damage heal in years?

[troublehshooter Member Find all posts View Profile Close troublehshooter]

This is one time I am glad to say I was dead wrong in my initial conclusion. It is CPPS and that is exactly the term the physio used in my diagnosis as well (I never mentioned it). Prescribed treatment is 2-3 months of pelvic floor physical therapy, plus meditation and stretches I was already doing. This is definitely a major relief. The physio did say my symptoms were somewhat unusual/intense and matched up with an irritation of the pudendal nerve. Didn't seem to be too concerned though, said it would calm down with the correct treatment. The last couple days I have been noticing my nerves aggravate with activity (even just walking), but it very well could be that is when I have the most tendency to tension guard the area unconsciously.

Thank you everyone, again, for your input and help! Its still not a fun experience but I'm confident I'll get through this now.

[Pegasus AdministratorPE Gym EditorPEGym Hero ☺ Admin of the Month Mar 2015 Find all posts View Profile Close Pegasus]

Remember stress is your enemy.

[troublehshooter Member Find all posts View Profile Close troublehshooter]

Figured I should post an update. First, if a moderator wants to update the title of this thread to CPPS/strain injury instead of nerve injury, that might be more helpful to others reading this.

This experience continues to be a rollercoaster but I am starting to see some more consistency in whats happening. I think I have two seperate issues, once being CPPS and pelvic tightness, which can directly affect nerves in the area. The other is a strain injury of some sort in my penis/pelvic floor. While the definition of CPPS might include such a thing, they seem to be separable things at least in my mind AND it is also clear they have a direct affect on one another.

Yesterday marked 7 days of pure rest, and, I was nearly 100% pain free on both fronts. I even went out dancing Thursday night which I haven't been able to do for a while. However, this is the kind of 7-10 day cycle I've been stuck in since the problem started. Every time the pain subsides, my biology seems to pick up on it and rapidly ramp up my libido as if my body is ready for it when it is definitely not. I ended up with a brief erection twice yesterday, as well as once or twice in my sleep. The first one didn't seem to bother it which was encouraging. The second seemed to do some damage, and I began to feel pain all the way up the right side of my penis. It seems like the longer the erections last the more that pain ramps up, and with that pain comes a tendency to guard the area (tightening pelvic muscles) which triggers the CPPS symptoms that make other nerves in the area go haywire. Over the last week I've also noticed a direct correlation between how relaxed my pelvic floor is with the CPPS symptoms / false nerve sensations. Right now i have only a small amount of nerve/CPPS symptoms but I am feeling a fairly significant nagging ache from the erection strain.

Anyway, its clear to me I need to keep both of these issues at bay for a long period of time. I am my own worst enemy here, especially with the erections. But going to continue to look at this as an opportunity as much as possible. Keeping my mind off sex has absolutely given me some renewed focus and productivity on other things in my life and I got a lot done yesterday. While I wish I could be rid of this burden, it is nice to have some irrefutable evidence of some positive coming from this.


Cheers,


Edit: Forgot to mention I am starting physical therapy this upcoming Friday.

[HansTwilight Retired ModeratorPE Gym Editor Member of the Month Jan 2017PEGym Hero Find all posts View Profile Close HansTwilight]

Figured I should post an update. First, if a moderator wants to update the title of this thread to CPPS/strain injury instead of nerve injury, that might be more helpful to others reading this.

Done

[troublehshooter Member Find all posts View Profile Close troublehshooter]

Time for another update.

For a while things were looking better but I'm still really struggling with this. So far, I am still off the meds, but I am afraid I have been making negative progress over the last week and a half and I have started to feel some of the preliminary symptoms that i needed medication to get under control a few weeks ago. (i can tell when that type of episode is coming on because ill start to lose my appetite and control over my body temperature).

Here's what I am observing.

My symptoms have somewhat stabilized which could be both good and bad. The level of pain can rollercoaster, but but the location and type of pain is more consistent now. Typically a pins and needle pain, and slight numbness on the right side of my genitals. That being: penis, base of penis, testicle, and some of the perenium. I'm always adjusting and it wouldn't surprise me if people are starting to notice.

I also know that these three, maybe four, things are contributing to my problem:

1) Erections of any kind, especially ones involving masterbation or ejaculation. The longer the erection the greater the pain.
2) Kegeling, now even as little as to empty my bladder.
3) A habit of pelvic tightness that I am gradually dismantling. I believe a back injury in 2011 is what started my bad habit. Porn probably helped it along in the past, but I usually catch the tightness happening from just normal standing/walking. Sitting i tend to stay relaxed.
4) excessive straining while defecating (this one is not a regular problem, i just know it can have an effect)

The one and only thing that always seems to help is heat. Warm bath, hot pad etc, always provides relief and seems to help things heal. Problem is i cant have a heat pad at work where i spend 10 hours per day. The heated seats in my car on my daily commute always feel amazing. Sometimes exercise and activity helps, other times it does damage or just plain hurts. I haven't found a pattern to that.

My biggest issue lately is waking up with erections. While it used to be occasional, lately it seems to be happening almost every day. The first thing i do when my alarm goes off each morning is check my shorts to see if the soldier is at attention, and if he is, I immediately know I'm in for a bad day. That's happened about 5 days in a row now which i fear is really screwing up the healing process.

I have been seeing a pelvic physio for 2 weeks now, 2x per week. Once with the specialist and once with a general technician.. i dont think the technician has offered me any benefit over my normal daily stretches and I am probably going to drop that from my schedule. The pelvic physio is very knowledgeable, however, they don't really work with the penile end of the pelvic floor and at this point I am fairly confident my issue boils down to a strain somewhere between the penis and the prostate, likely the BC/PC muscles. I have another appointment with the PT physio tomorrow.

This week, for the first time I am feeling pain symptoms simply from a couple light kegels at the end of my urination. Also, stretching is taking a toll on my joints. Mostly my back, but also hips and knees are starting to really ache from it. That means I'm going to have to find a bit of balance because an aching back can trigger more pelvic tightness and defeat the purpose of doing the stretches in the first place.

Another thing I regret is my self control after the initial injury. I've been journaling my ability to remain abstinent from porn or masturbation and its not a fantastic track record. Since I started tracking this my numbers are:

7 days
12 days
3 days
6 days
and now im currently on day 3.

The relapse from a couple days ago sucked. At first it was an encouraging experience, i woke up with an erection and no pain like things had been healing and I was on the road to being able to use my muscle again. I was dead wrong. The day after I was close to needing meds again.

While self control has been a problem for me, that is one thing I believe i have or can conquer even though I am only 3 days in since my last relapse. My thought patterns in relation to porn/masturbation have been making major progress even though the numbers don't reflect it.

I am still working with a PT physio, physio doc, urologist, and my primary doc. I think only thing left in that field is getting an MRI and looking for something surgical, but I'd really prefer to have this heal on its own without going under the knife.

At this point, I'm just looking for ANY suggestions I can get to help the healing. Diet? Fasting? Vitamins? Sleep aids/schedule? Some kind of natural herb that can help prevent nightly erections? I'm willing to try just about anything!

Once again if you took the time to read this, I really appreciate it.

Cheers guys,

[troublehshooter Member Find all posts View Profile Close troublehshooter]

Just got back from my PT physio appointment and we found that my psoas muscle on my right side is very tight and may be part of my pundendal nerve irritation. (all my symptoms are on the right side too). I guess that is good news in the sense it is one more thing we can address. I believe this, plus some lingering APT are long term side effects of tearing a disc in my back in 2011.

However, still little that the physio can do from a BC muscle perspective despite our mutual awareness of that being the central problem area. They have an electromagnetic chair i sit in for 10 minutes to stimulate the nerves and while it does stimulate the nerves quite well I'm not sure if its really doing anything. Still quite a bit of pins and needle sensations in my groin despite spending the morning stretching and massaging the area.