The following is a description of what to expect on the first video pelvic health consultation:
If you are like many of the women and men we see in our program, you likely have seen many other specialists regarding your pelvic and/or sexual pain symptoms and may have been suffering from these issues for months, years, or even decades.
You may believe you cannot discover anything new that you have not heard before. The first thing you should know is that we will approach your chronic pain symptoms in an entirely different manner than you are probably used to. Dr. Echenberg spends significant time with all new consultations. He uses this time to review your questionnaire and listen to your history in great detail, and a large portion of this visit is dedicated to educating you on your body and how pain is processed. Pain and neuroscience research has exploded in the past 20 years and shows the importance of individuals understanding their bodies as much as possible to manage their pain.
Dr. E listens to your story and helps you piece together and connect the dots that you may not have ever heard or understood before. He provides you a masterclass in pelvic regional pain, what likely has led to the severity of your symptoms, and connects that story to how pain is processed in the human body and nervous system. Information, validation, and explanation - all are needed to begin your healing process. You will be heard and taught simple explanations of the development of these painful symptoms that commonly cause persistent challenges toward normal daily function.
These may range from chronic bladder issues to irritable bowel symptoms, irritation, itching, burning, or pain in the vaginal and external genitals, difficulty sitting, groin pain, no longer able to exercise comfortably, chronic fatigue, bloating, and pain in the lower abdomen, chronic low back pain, increased anxiety and depression, and sexual discomforts of all descriptions.
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Above all, we want you to know that we listen, believe, and understand pain. We also realize how difficult it is to feel so badly, not to be believed, and still look like you are healthy. Many of our patients have been led to believe that their symptoms are “in their heads” and often begin to internalize these beliefs. The average age of our patients is relatively young (20s to 50s), but we hope our program will encourage younger people to seek help even earlier than those who have come before them.
The goals are to work at your own pace to increase your ability to maintain daily activities and quality of life, keep you out of the emergency room and/or operating room unless absolutely needed, and ensure that referrals to other modalities, such as physical therapy, counseling, mind/body relaxation, and/or any other referrals, are up to date.
Again, we hope you take advantage of exploring our site and our other resources before you meet for your first visit. Our program will educate you greatly about your body, your symptoms, and how you and your body have reacted to various past and present traumas leading to your current symptomatic experience. As you will learn, both pain and inflammation are essential for our survival, but when either or both of those bodily protective mechanisms get out of control, we begin to see chronic illnesses that are very common and yet remain “invisible” to a large part of the health care community.
Our entire team welcomes you to our program.