The Little Big Thing

It's a good thing that I called the pain doctor on Tuesday to verify my appointment time for Wednesday. He had called me a few weeks prior to follow up the first appointment one day while I was in the car, so it was possible that I might have erred somewhere along the line . I was all but certain that we had scheduled the next appointment for June 22: certain of the date but uncertain of the time because my G-calendar got a little muddled because I am who I am.

They didn't even have me listed, but the nurse said that he does that sometimes – forgets to record an appointment that he makes. I guess we're kindred spirits, the doc and I. He affirmed that he wanted to see me regardless. So, Sue and I hit the road at 9 o'clock yesterday for the Perth hospital where he is stationed. I was done and exiting the hospital not long after 10.

I had waited to be referred to this doctor for two years because the pain in my testicular area had yet to be pinned down and dealt with. When surgery for an inguinal hernia didn't help, my first urologist did an ultrasound followed by a CT scan. He found no apparent cause!

He then referred my case to this pain doctor. That was in 2020 just as COVID was smacking the world as we knew it into confusion. Things got complicated and backed up, and I didn't get in until  two years later, just last month,.

Meanwhile, urologist #1 retired. He could never find the cause of my problem, but he had referred me to the pain doctor for what he thought it might possibly be. Before I got to Pain Guy, however, I had finally gotten in to see the replacement urologist: urologist #2. She diagnosed a neurological cause and prescribed nerve meds. You might recall that those were the pills that caused me to smell non-existent gasoline. They also didn't help to mitigate the pain. She prescribed another medication before she too moved on. Sigh.

Pain Guy had me begin the new pills that urologist #2 had prescribed before she departed. I took them for a month before yesterday's second appointment. He proceeded to take me off the meds because they were accomplishing nothing while possibly negatively affecting my sleep. I now have a new prescription that won't attempt to alleviate the condition but will, hopefully, dull the pain when it occurs.

He opines that there is a rather small and deep spot that is causing the problem. Surgery doesn't seem to be an option and, if attempted, would run the danger of causing even more other problems.

So, that's the result from seeing the pain doctor, who like my urologists seems to be at a loss except to hope that the new pain meds help to get me through the tough times. He is concerned enough to follow up by phone in a week or so. If he forgets, as he seems prone to do, I am to call him in two weeks.

I won't see my third and and newest urologist until late autumn, so I will have quite a lot of time to see if the pain meds help before I consult yet another doctor.

Fortunately, over the years, I have found a position that usually minimizes the discomfort while I sleep, except on nights when I get to much tossing and turning. As long as I don't walk much, I can also keep the pain at an acceptable level during the day. It's walking that tends to cause the pain to flare up, but maybe the newest meds will help. 

I can't tell you how miserable it is to feel pain in that particular region of the body when all I want to do is just go for a little walk. On a scale of 1 to 10, it's not all that bad at any one moment, but it is both chronic and extremely uncomfortable and dispiriting to experience discomfort in that particular area.