CHICAGO – Today officially kicked off the 2012 Annual Meeting of the International Pelvic Pain Society (IPPS). The conference is being held at the historic Palmer House Hilton in Chicago.
The IPPS is an organization I’ve been proud to be a member of during my career treating pelvic pain. This year I had the privilege of serving as the scientific program chair of the meeting, so this year’s event is especially near and dear to my heart.
This year’s conference offers a stellar lineup of speakers, including keynote speaker, Lorimer Moseley PhD, the world-renowned, Australian physiotherapist and clinical pain scientist who has worked in chronic pain rehabilitation for two decades.
This year, the meeting emphasizes the multidisciplinary and collaborative approach to the management of chronic pelvic pain. The host of agenda topics run the gamut from taking a peak at functional brain imaging during pelvic pain PT (What is going on in the pelvic pain brain?!) to exciting updates on IBS, vulvar pain, painful bladder syndrome, sexual pain and more.
We’re so pleased with the fantastic turnout to the conference so far. Today, about 380 providers were in attendance.
If you’d like to check out this year’s conference lineup, just click here. In the coming weeks, we’ll be writing a series of blogs based on the conference discussions, so stay tuned!
In the meantime, check back for some conference highlights including a shot of Lorimer Moseley giving his Sunday morning lecture in a dress! (Stay tuned for the full story on that!)
All my best,
Stephanie
Comments
Looks like an awesome conference! I feel like I could be a guest speaker on ALL of your panels! Have fun and enjoy the success of all your hard work organizing this important event.
Good luck Stephanie, I’m sure you won’t need it.
As a forum member on the HOPE site http://www.pudendalhope.org and a pelvic nerve pain sufferer, I get very excited when all of you clever people, who can make a difference, get together like this.
Wow! Lorrimer Mosley!! (not ‘doing it in a dress?) I read the body in mind features and understand some of it(I think ;)) and have recently tried to absorb the European guide on CPP (2012) which mentions pelvic pain escalation, central sensitisation and chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CPPS) with “pain as a disease process” rather a lot.
Of course medically common place diagnostic tests can rule in/out and where necessary, help treat, infections, inflammation and other pelvic pathologies, so hopefully, this patient (person) ‘shouldn’t’ get to the chronic pain stage. Obviously we know that there can be a lot more going on and ‘interfacing’ with pelvic anatomy and pain signals in general, therefore CPPS becomes a popular diagnosis.
Unfortunately, the pelvic neuralgia patient is excluded from these medically common place diagnostic tests and often simply excluded, due to a lack of medical knowledge. Ruling their particular pathology in or out is often neglected. This contributes to too many nerve entrapment pain people being lumped into the CPPS group, when in fact there some additional ‘end-organ’ investigation was/is necessary.
It has become far too easy to end up in the ‘pain as a disease’ category when there is an actual neurological condition that requires attention and appropriate treatment.
Thank you for your hard work (and fab blogs) I know you won’t forget about the neurological pelvic sufferer, please make sure that the rest of them remember us too.
Many thanks,
Helen
“It has become far too easy to end up in the ‘pain as a disease’ category when [pudendal neuralgia] is an actual neurological condition that requires attention and appropriate treatment.”
Well said, Helen! My gyno dismissed me as the former two years before I obtained a diagnosis of the latter from a neurologist. I hate it when gyno’s use the expression: “her pain has become neuropathic” to mean that it has become chronic rather than what it actually does mean: that a nerve has been damaged/impinged/entrapped. It seems to me that that doctor’s phrase is code for “I can’t do anything more to help her.” Instead, a gyno should be thinking: is her pudendal nerve involved? How can I help her get a proper referral?