Getting a Diagnosis

Finding a new urologist was not easy. Going to the best one in Denver was hard to top. Desperate, my mom scheduled an appointment at a different practice. All we could get was the kidney cancer specialist.

We told the old physicians assistant that I was constantly in pain now. She gave me samples of Vessicare, like the stop old lady urges to go pee drug, when I got my medical records. I don't know why I thought to even try them when the pain peaked. Maybe it was all I could do. Maybe I wanted that to be the solution.

The kidney cancer specialist looked at me confused. He said he wasn't the guy to help me. He did do something nobody else had though. He found me a competent doctor for my problems. She was downtown and had a waiting list a mile long. That was discouraging, but I figured it had to be a good sign.

I finally got in. I was scared. I had high BP, for the first time ever. After the nurse the doc stopped by to question me. She said she would be back after the patients that were before me. About a million patients later she finally returned. Laying in the pelvic exam position with feet on the stirrups, (ladies, you know what I am talking about) she tried to do an exam. It took her about 3 minutes to talk me down from clenching every muscle I had. Once I was relaxed, she tried to examine and I yelled out in pain. About four seconds of pain later she stopped because she wasn't getting anywhere. It didn't matter though. She had a diagnosis.

Apparently I had pelvic floor dysfunction. I super fun thing where you are incapable of relaxing your pelvic floor muscles on command. Not only are these the muscles for sex, but they hold all of your organs in. The clenching was apparently shooting spasms to my bladder and god knows what else. I learned that it is a response to trauma. Having never had any sexual abuse or other issues I was puzzled. It took months to make the UTI and allergy connection.

I had to go to physical therapy she told me. The idea was nerve wracking. I got a list from her of qualified people in my area. It was the last thing I wanted to do.