Pelvic Pain After Surgery
When Pelvic Pain Doesn’t Stop After Surgery: A Different Kind of Answer
Your surgery fixed the original problem – so why does your pelvis still feel like it’s on fire?
The procedure went well. The scans look fine. But the pain has stayed. It’s not in your head, it’s common.
Months after a hysterectomy, a hernia repair or mesh placement, one in 10 patients still feels burning, stabbing or dragging pain that no scan can explain. Opioids dull the edge but steal clarity. You are told to ‘learn to live with it’. But there are other options for better pain management and improved quality of life.
Why the pain sticks around?
Post surgical pelvic pain is rarely about ‘tissue still healing’. It’s about scarring and nerves that have learned a bad habit and never un-learned it.
- Neuropathic imprint: Nerves that have been disturbed by the original problem or subsequent surgery keep firing an SOS signal.
- Central sensitisation: Your spinal cord turns up the volume on every message from the pelvis
- Inflammatory loop: Microinflammation feeds the fire month after month
Options that can change the Pain Story
Rhizotomy (Radiofrequency Ablation)
If a nerve keeps screaming long after the injury, rhizotomy helps quiet the signal.
Targets pelvic nerves without cutting anything, using heat or pulsed energy under image guidance. Can bring 6-12 months of relief, giving you space to heal and rebuild.
It’s not about destroying nerves, it’s about resetting pain circuits so you can move forward.
Pelvic Floor Botox Injections
Surgery can leave pelvic floor muscles stuck in spasm, feeding pain signals back into the system. Botox helps by:
- Relaxing tight muslces for 3-6 months
- Reducing pain so that physiotherapy actually works
- Breaking the cycle of pain -> spasm -> pain
Sometimes muscles need chemical permission to ‘let go’. Botox gives them that.
Ketamine assisted Psychotherapy
If the switch can’t be turned off at the source, it’s a signal to move from peripheral to central targets, from hardware to holistic neuroplasticity work. Ketamine assisted psychotherapy is starting to re-write that sentence.
Why it works
- Ketamine blocks NMDA receptors, decreasing pain signals in the central nervous system
- Under the influence of ketamine the brain unlocks memories and helps re-write the pain and emotional pathways without erasing the facts.
Frequently Asked Questions
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