Painful Nerve Condition Treated in Houston

HOUSTON - A Houston-area surgeon at Foundation Surgical Hospital is one of the first in the nation to perform a procedure for an incredibly painful and somewhat embarrassing condition.

Dr. Lee Ansell introduced and performs the procedure to relieve the rare condition in the pelvis called pudendal nerve entrapment. Two of his patients shared with FOX 26 News how they are benefiting from it.

At first, Giulia Vanderlaan could not find anyone to help her unbearable pain. She thought it might be a serious urinary tract infection in the beginning phases, but she soon realized it was much worse than that.

No one could figure out the problem.

"I went to a different doctor every couple of weeks; everyone from a urologist to gynecologist to doctors who thought maybe it was bladder cancer, but when they realized it wasn't, I went to regular doctors," says Vanderlaan.

Finally, she found a source online that led her to Foundation Surgical Hospital. Doctors quickly diagnosed her with pudendal nerve entrapment.

Dr. Ansell, a neurosurgeon, showed where the pudendal nerve is in the anatomy.

"The pudendal nerve comes out of the spine in the sacrum, runs alongside the pelvic wall and passes through ligaments," says Dr. Ansell.

What a relief for Vanderlaan to know her source of pain.

FOX 26 Morning News anchor Melissa Wilson asked Vanderlaan, "At the worst, what was your pain like?"

"Unbearable -- where you just don't want to live and that's just being brutally honest. Nobody wants to live like that. It's a stabbing, burning, electric shock feel, fire ants, excruciating," says Vanderlaan.

No one knows for certain what causes the problem. Dr. Ansell says that someone might be born with it and it just takes years to manifest. Most patients live for years without help, because it is just not that well known in medical literature.

Doctors think it could have been caused by childbirth years before, for Vanderlaan.

For Timothy Raines, it was probably extreme exercise.

"I had just finished riding 4,000 miles in a 2-year period and had just finished 500 miles of running that year," explains Raines.

When the pain hit, it was so sudden and severe that Raines knew his athletic lifestyle was probably over forever.

"I began feeling a mild sensation like you're heating up a curling iron on the crease of my right 'glut.' So you've turned it on and it's nice and warm every five minutes, it gets hotter and hotter," says Raines.

Both Raines and Vanderlaan tried injections and physical therapy, but that only helped temporarily. That is when they both underwent a procedure to help decrease their pain level.

Dr. Ansell explained the procedure.

"What we do in surgery is cut these two ligaments. They're no longer necessary, and then we shift the nerve so that we add slack to the nerve, that way they can sit without pulling on the nerve," says Dr. Ansell.

Unfortunately, there is no cure for the pain, but it has definitely improved for both patients. They agree their pain is somewhere between 50 to 65 percent better.

Raines showed FOX 26 his travel seat cushion that he takes with him everywhere. It helps him sit a little longer, than he would be able to, without it. He says it is a Lifeform travel seat cushion.

Vanderlaan sits on an exercise ball. Both can sit for less than an hour before pain forces them to stand many hours of the day; still, they are relieved to get quite a bit of help from surgery.

It is no surprise that the patients found help at Foundation Surgical Hospital, since it is the only top 5 percent recipient of the HealthGrades Outstanding Patient Experience Award in the Houston region.

On the Web:

Pudendal Nerve Release at Foundation Surgical Hospital -- http://www.surgicalhospital.com/services/procedures/pudendal_nerve_release.shtml