Healing Through Pelvic Pain — Before I Even Knew I Needed To

A joyful moment of freedom at Rainbow Haven Beach, Cow Bay, Nova Scotia, captured on a beautiful, clear day.

I’d been using yoga to heal pelvic pain long before I even realized that’s what I was doing. Honestly, you could sell me any self-massage gadget on the market — I already own most of them — or any alternative, experimental “feel-good” product, and I’d buy it just for the chance to feel normal for once.

When you live with chronic pain, you understand: you’d spend your last dime for a few moments of relief. If you’ve never experienced it, it’s hard to truly grasp. For years, I thought the pain in my lower back was just sciatica. Turns out, there’s a whole network of nerves and muscles “down there” that can cause dysfunction — far beyond the sciatic nerve and piriformis muscle.

For me, the pain starts deep in my left buttock, radiating through my hip, groin, and lower abdomen, then shooting down my leg into my last two toes. I’ve lived with varying degrees of it for decades, always managing to push through — until Family Day 2021, when I woke up and… holy crap. It felt like my leg was being electrocuted. No position helped. I couldn’t think about anything else but the pain.

That morning, I left a desperate voicemail for my doctor and started booking everything: acupuncture, massage, chiropractic care — the whole nine yards. The treatments brought temporary relief, but I still couldn’t sit, stand, or lie down without searing pain. The next day, my doctor prescribed anti-inflammatories and opioids — which I hate, but at that point, I needed just to function.

While I waited for an MRI (six weeks), my physiotherapist gave me her unofficial diagnosis: pelvic floor hypertonicity. The likely culprit? My obturator internus — a deep pelvic muscle on the left side — locked in spasm and refusing to release. If you’ve never had pelvic physiotherapy… let’s just say it gets very personal.

I’ve had back pain for as long as I can remember, but this felt like finding a missing puzzle piece — and with it, a spark of hope, limp and all. Stretching my piriformis has always helped, so I kept at it, adding deep pelvic breathing to coax my obturator internus into letting go.

The pain in my ass had literally gotten on my last nerve — pun very much intended.

Update: One Year Later

It turns out my back has been holding onto even more secrets. I’ve known about a slipped vertebra for years, but add in slipped/bulging discs, osteoarthritis, and moderate-to-severe spinal stenosis. No wonder my nerves were screaming.

The good news? I didn’t have to rely heavily on opioids, and the nerve pain has eased considerably. I’ve endured more than one nerve block and facet joint injection at the pain clinic — uncomfortable, yes, but necessary when your nerves are literally being crushed. I’ve been told surgery may be in my future.

Fun fact: I was the youngest patient there, and the staff assumed my mother (who drove me because my left leg wouldn’t work after treatment) was the one scheduled for care.

Today, I’m under the care of one of the most prestigious pelvic physiotherapy clinics in the province, backed by a team of orthopedists, neurologists, anesthesiologists, urogynecologists, physiatrists, and more. I’m still looking for a female GP — preferably one who won’t dismiss years of pain as being “in my head.” It’s strangely comforting to know it’s not — and even more comforting to know I can heal.

I will heal.

My Next Steps

The restorative yoga for hips sequence I’ve been practicing has been a lifeline, but now I need to design practices specifically for relaxing my pelvic floor — and eventually, strengthening it.

And maybe — just maybe — I’ll finally learn to release the trauma I’ve been storing in my body all these years. To let go of all the unnecessary, heavy, unhelpful sh*t I’ve been holding on to.