[msarkie]

After suffering dreadfully since March with GI problems of various sorts, I started trying to get an appt with the last Gastro Ent I had seen. They were booking 8 weeks out, and after rescheduling twice I gave up on him. I decided to go to another guy who is a colon/rectal surgeon, since I knew I would probably need surgery for hemorrhoids anyway.

He listened to the whole sad tale, and checked me out. He found two fissures, several hemorrhoids, and levator spasm which is probably the root cause of both. I won't go into detail - if you've had any experience with it you know what I'm talking about, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, I hope you never have to!

My question to you here is: the dr is extremely reluctant to do a sphincterotomy to fix the levator spasm because of my MS. He's afraid it will cause incontinence down the road. But if the spasm isn't corrected, even if he fixes the fissures and hemorrhoids they may recur. He wants to try me on muscle relaxers. Anyone have any knowledge about this? I don't want to have what sounds like a very painful surgery, and it be all for nought.

[Dejibo]

I suffer with hemorhoids, and feel your pain. mine will occasionally clot off, and become quite large, and extremely painful. Thrombosis is the correct term, but it doesnt make it less painful to call it something else.

Can you get a second opinion? discuss it with the MD at the MS center? Ask the NMSS? Even seek an MS gastro person. Each major city it seems has more and more sub sub specialty surgeons.

I just want to hug you I know what your going through isnt fun.

[watsonsh]

Yes I do. I have a chronic levator spasm. THought the pain was from some sort of GYN issue but I went to the gyn and he felt around inside there and touched it and I almost jumped off the table. I was like is it a cyst etc. He was no its a muscle spasm.

He sent me to a special PT that deals in pelvic floor disorders thats what this is. These people actually put on rubber gloves and go in there repeatedly and release the spasm and teach you how to release it. I know it sounds squeamish, that people are rummaging around in your private parts but it really worked. Its a deep muscle and very hard to get at from teh outside. And they give you exercises that helps maintain the release. I also think there is some sort of machine that you can get from your PT/doc that you can insert into your vagina and it works on releasing the spasm as well. But these PT peeps were great. The problem is if the msucle is just so spasmed you probably need to keep releaseing the spasm because it has a lot of built up lactic acid. So you will need several sessions. I did six sessions.

Its not a well known PT discipline so your doc may not have known about it. But hopefully there is one in your area. I can tell ya it really works.

There is a book you can buy from these Stanford docs that wrote about pelvic floor disorders and how to work with them there might be some good stuff in there.

Its called A headache in the pelvis.

Serioulsy try PT therapy if you can. This is a problem that can be corrected if you are diligent.