United States focus
What patients in the United States should know about pudendal neuralgia, and how care abroad fits alongside care at home.
Pudendal neuralgia is a chronic pain condition caused by irritation, compression or entrapment of the pudendal nerve — the nerve that supplies sensation to the perineum, genitals and rectum. Because that nerve runs a long and narrow course through the pelvis, it can be trapped at several different points, and each point produces a slightly different pattern of pain.
The classic picture is pain that worsens when sitting and eases when standing, lying down or sitting on a toilet seat. Patients describe burning, stabbing or electric sensations, a feeling of a foreign object in the rectum or vagina, and urinary urgency or sexual dysfunction that no scan seems to explain.
Prof. Dr Renaud Bollens, professor of urology at Pelvic Institute, has performed more than 600 pelvic procedures and dedicates his practice exclusively to complex pelvic pain. His assessment combines a detailed symptom history, targeted clinical examination, imaging review and — when appropriate — diagnostic nerve blocks to confirm which segment of the nerve is involved before any surgery is discussed.
US patients keep their local physician in the loop throughout; we share our written opinion with them directly on request.