We always laugh when people ask us if we are women’s health, because when we first started we thought we would only have women patients, but the men just showed up. I have very young patients in their 20s, late teens, up until their 60s or 70s.
The symptomology of male pelvic pain can differ from females because of the difference in genitalia. The number one chronic pelvic pain symptom that a male usually presents to us is with pain with sitting. Males will present with testicular pain, testicular numbness, rectal pain, rectal numbness, pain in their perineal region, urinary frequency, urgency, burning, chronic constipation, diarrhea, abdominal tenderness, or abdominal pressure, bladder pain, coccyx pain, and not being able to have pleasurable intercourse.
Some potential causes of pelvic pain in men are IBS, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, interstitial cystitis, or abacterial prostatitis, inguinal hernia or a sports hernia, hemorrhoids. If you have a tailbone injury, that can cause pelvic pain. Athletic injuries, especially if it relates to your hip. Most males do not talk about their pelvic pain issues to anybody, and if they do, it may be to a spouse or partner. This is a very private issue and a lot of people are not speaking about it. Most of our male patients which encompass about 30% of our practice find us by Google. They are concerned with their livelihood. We understand that. We want them to be able to enjoy the things that they used to be able to enjoy.
The most important thing for male patients to understand is that although this is a very sensitive topic, we are very experienced in what we’re doing. We understand what you’re going through regardless of the fact that we’re females. We see this so often and we have great success with our treatment protocol.