Transcript

SURVIVING CHRISTMAS WITH PELVIC PAIN

Hello folks, my name is Karl Monahan and this is a Friday Takeaway. These are short podcasts designed to help you navigate your pelvic pain. If you're a therapist, these are designed to help you help your patients navigate their pelvic pain. Maybe you're a family member, friend, or loved one of someone who's going through this incredibly challenging condition. These are messages to help everyone involved with pelvic pain.

I am the founder of the Pelvic Pain Clinic, one of the founders of Pelvic Pain Matters, and a former sufferer of this condition.

This is a Christmas message - some words of advice and support over what can be a challenging time for everyone at the best of times.

A couple of home truths: This condition will push you further and harder than anything else you've probably ever experienced in your life. I've just come off a call with a patient who said that this is by far and hands down the most challenging thing he has ever been through. I would concur - I absolutely know that myself personally, but I see this week in week out with all the patients that I work with, help, support, guide, and coach to recovery.

Christmas can be challenging for a number of different reasons. There is excess available everywhere, whether that's in more food or more drink, or more varied foods and drinks than you would normally consume through the rest of the year. Maybe it's the pressure or the expectations that you feel towards having to be the best husband, father, brother - whatever that family responsibility you feel you might have over this period of time.

I feel you. I hear you. I see you.

This is something I do every single year - offer messages of support and well-being and kindness to those going through this condition and those around you.

Moderation is a message I send out to everyone all the time, particularly at this time of year because excess is everywhere. There'll be lots of opportunities for "f*** it" moments - "I can't be bothered with this" or "I need a drink" or "I need to go and do something." These moments bring us short-term relief, maybe short-term obliteration of our senses. They might offer us short-term escapism, but they tend to have lasting effects.

Please, over this festive period, do everything in moderation. Sit in moderation, eat in moderation, drink in moderation. Do all the things that you need to do, but moderation is really key.

There might well be periods of this festive break that are really challenging for you. If there are, check out our Flare-up Survival Guide. We'll put the links below for you. That's available at pelvicpainmatters.com. If you haven't seen it so far, go and check it out. We've also got the Pelvic Pain Matters YouTube channel.

Go and check out these resources - they are free. There's loads of information about how to manage flare-ups, what to do if you have the symptoms of pelvic pain, what to do if you just got a diagnosis. There are interviews with myself and Tim and David who work with me at Pelvic Pain Matters. There are interviews with patients that have recovered, bits of information about what is causing symptoms, why we get flare-ups, and how to navigate and get out of them.

In January, there's a support group that we will now be running for free. The date of the first online pelvic pain support group run through Pelvic Pain Matters is 11:00 on Monday the 13th of January. It's free to sign up - there is no financial obligation. Sign up for it, post your questions, and we can go through them with you on that support group.

I want to give you a few reflections:

I've already mentioned a patient of mine who I spoke to just now about the impact of these symptoms on him. Managing your water bottle, managing your self-care is going to be really important. Being consistent with your self-care, being patient with your self-care, and when things don't work out, being really compassionate with yourself. Being kind, being supportive, being patient again with yourself - they're so valuable. Those three behaviors - patience, consistency, and self-compassion - are the behaviors that will get you out of this condition.

I met with a patient of mine today who is an orthopedic surgeon. I've been seeing Rob now for about 3 years, which is much longer than I would normally see patients. He's dipped in and out of sessions with me, but in May this year, there was a real turning point in his condition and his management. Whenever he would get a flare-up, he'd walk down the corridor and go and see the urologist, go and get more tests, and year after year they came back negative. It was all fine, there's nothing to worry about, but that was a bitter pill to swallow.

Rob earlier this year took his own recovery into his own hands and said, "I can't do this anymore. I now need to do the right things for me. I need to fill myself with as much reward and joy and pleasure as I possibly can." In the last six months, Rob has had the most balanced and settled period of time he's had. He's had his symptoms for over 20 years.

I'll give you another example. In the last 11 months, David has used the same approach. He's basically said, "I need to have a better mindset about this. I need to be in the driving seat of my recovery. I need to make better choices that are going to make me feel better more of the time."

Yes, he does some self-care, gentle movements, and activity, some mindfulness techniques, but what he also does now is he's not drinking alcohol, he's not using that as a crutch, he's cut out gluten from his diet. He is making better life choices. Every morning, come rain or shine, he gets up and walks his dog across the fields. The look on his dog's face is absolutely golden because the dog loves him even more from it. It's not easy - this morning was miserable and very cold and very wet, but it's those things that are anchoring Rob's wellness now.

He's had the longest run of time in 20 years where his symptoms have been much calmer because he's doing things that are good for him. He's not as afraid of his symptoms anymore, and he's taking his own recovery into his own hands.

David has had his symptoms for 11 months, but four months ago, David decided to do exactly the same thing. He was fed up with going down the medical route, all the tests, appointments, specialists, and exams, and everything coming back being absolutely fine. Four months ago, David decided to take things into his own hands, to be more in charge of his own recovery.

The adaptations and changes he's made to his lifestyle, his working environment, his relationship with his girlfriend, his relationship with himself and his family, and the way that he used to beat his body up in the gym and train as a way of obliterating his pain - he's no longer doing that. He's being much more gentle, much more kind to himself. He's moderated, he's taken out some things that induce his anxiety, he's taken out caffeine. He's instead doing more calming and relaxing things, but he is in control of his recovery. Is it perfect? No, but he's just had 5 weeks as being the most settled that he has ever had in his whole 11 months of having this condition.

No matter how long or how short you've had your symptoms, take control. Start doing things yourself that start to connect you to calming your system down. They can be rich and meaningful activities.

Earlier this week, I spoke with my patient Colin, and the things I got him to do more of this week to help him in his recovery were to play on the PlayStation with his kids to give him rich and meaningful activity, to walk the dog around the block in the morning. He says, "I can do these things now, and I feared them." Playing guitar was the other thing that I've encouraged Colin to do because before that, he was petrified that playing the guitar or PlayStation or going around the block with the dog were going to be the things that lift up his symptoms.

As long as they're short and moderated and not done at a fast pace and considered and done mindfully, Colin has now demonstrated that he can do these things and nothing bad happens.

I spoke with a patient called Harry today. Harry, in the last four months - he's had his symptoms for 5 years - has turned his life around. He's now making more time in his schedule to do things that he enjoys for himself. They've got nothing to do with his journey to recovery. The things that he's doing are spending more time with his friends, which in turn helps with his recovery. The things that Harry is doing are about creating space and time in his day, saying no a little bit more, saying "I need to have today just relaxing and just chilling, and that's what I'm going to do." And when he does that, he's a better husband and a better father as well.

You too can take on board this sound advice. No matter how long you've had the symptoms for, whether it's months or years or beyond, taking control yourself, making you the driver in your own recovery, making decisions that help to calm your system down, that give you joy and pleasure and something to look forward to - whether that's once a week or once a month or every single day - but do things that bring joy into your life.

I know that may sound like hard graft at the moment. I get that. I've been there. It sucks. But unless you do those things, if you're saying to yourself "I can't have that happy life, I can't do those rich and meaningful things until I'm 100% over this," then you're going to be waiting forever and ever.

Bring those things, even if they're in small bite-sized chunks, bring them into your life now. Start to do things that just make you feel a bit more like yourself - probably things that you've stopped or avoided, or maybe you've been told that "oh you definitely shouldn't have coffee, you definitely shouldn't ride a bike." Well, maybe they bring a lot of joy into your life, and maybe in the right dosage of really small bite-sized chunks, they may give you a window of "I feel all right, I feel a bit more normal." But do them in moderation.

Think about and plan about time of doing activity followed by a little bit of time of respite. Moderation is absolutely key. Patience and consistency and self-compassion are the behaviors that will get you out of this.

Don't forget to check out Pelvic Pain Matters website or our YouTube channel. Don't forget to sign up for the support group - it's free, that's in January, and we'll look to run those every single month thereafter.

All of our contact details are found below. You might be watching this on YouTube, you might be listening to it on Spotify or Pod Bean or another platform. You'll find all of the contact details that you need to reach out to us at Pelvic Pain Matters in the information for this particular podcast episode.

Have, in as much as you possibly can, an enjoyable and restful festive break.

My name's Karl Monahan. This has been another Friday Takeaway. It's a pleasure as always.