What exactly is pelvic pain anyway?

You may be wondering what exactly pelvic pain is, or whether you have found the right website to serve your needs.

The pelvis is the basin shaped bony structure at the bottom end of our spines. It houses our reproductive organs, bladder, and parts of our digestive tract. Pelvic pain is pain anywhere in this region. Women may have pain here due to any number of reasons: cyclical pain (cramps), fibroids, endometriosis, vulvodynia, bladder pain or bowel pain. The cause can be dermatological, musculo-skeletal, hormonal, or due to the central or peripheral nervous system.

The reason this blog covers pelvic pain in general, as opposed to only vulvodynia (my specific diagnosis), is because many women don't know the specifics of their anatomy or the appropriate diagnostic names and therefore may not know to what to attribute their pain. In addition, many women have more than one pelvic pain problem, such as both genital and bladder pain. To make things more confusing, female pelvic pain is not well understood, so many doctors are not very helpful at guiding women to a correct diagnosis and effective treatment plan. Due to all of these reasons, I will be writing and providing resources about all kinds of pelvic pain.

Whether you have a diagnosis or not, whether your pain is new or decades old, you are welcome here. We are all learning and teaching together.

Have a question? Ask in the comments!