The pain can be so bad that getting out of bed in the morning is impossible, or, as in Tori Breck?s case, it could get worse throughout the day.
“In the morning I was fine, but by the evening I was in so much pain it was unbearable,” the mother of two from Ellicott City said. “I would put on a pretty show for everyone. Then I would be crying at night to my husband.”
Dr. Richard Marvel, a physician in the Pelvic Panic Center at Greater Baltimore Medical Center and an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University, helped develop an instrument to diagnose several sources of pelvic pain. About 15 percent of women between the ages of 18 and 50 suffer chronic pelvic pain.
“Chronic pain tends to be a combination of factors that existed over a period of time that together add up to cause their pain,” said Marvel, director of the Pelvic Pain Center and assistant professor at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
“Once you have a good diagnosis and targeted treatment, they tend to get better and better over time,” he said.
Marvel helped Cook Women?s Health develop a less painful catheter and needle combination to deliver a dye to trace pelvic veins. Tangling or clumping of pelvic veins ? which aren?t surrounded and supported by muscle tissue like those in the leg ? is a major culprit.
Often, women suffering pelvic pain can be treated by sealing shut affected veins or, in severe cases, undergoing a hysterectomy.
In April, Breck had a venogram ? an X-ray of a vein ? using the device Marvel helped develop. She also had an operation to seal several pelvic veins, similar to techniques used for varicose veins on the outside of the legs.
Other causes for pelvic pain include endometriosis and uterine fibroids, which is a noncancerous tumor, according to the National Institutes of Health Web site.
An estimated 10 million women suffer chronic pelvic pain, and 7 million of them don?t seek help.
The annual medical cost for diagnosis and treatment of chronic pelvic pain is estimated to be about $1.2 billion annually. When women do seek help, as in Breck?s case, they are often told nothing is wrong with them because the condition is difficult to diagnose.
