Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 March 2021
In our practice pudendal neuralgia is defined as pain in the area of innervation of pudendal nerve. Pudendal nerve entrapment is compression of the nerve by scar tissue, ligaments, or surgical material. Pudendal neuralgia may be caused by pudendal nerve entrapment, but other conditions described in this manual may lead to pudendal neuralgia. Diagnosis of pudendal nerve entrapment is difficult, and it is often made by exclusion of those other conditions leading to pudendal pain (pudendal neuralgia). Most patients with pudendal nerve entrapment have a traumatic event that causes the onset of pain. Pelvic MRI may be helpful in ruling out other conditions causing pain and CT-guided pudendal nerve blocks narrow down the diagnosis to the pudendal nerve. Conservative treatments include avoidance of nerve reinjury, physical therapy, nerve blocks, and oral medications such as gabapentin or pregabalin. Patients may also benefit from nerve ablation procedures (pulse radiofrequency and cryoablation) and nerve stimulators. For patients who have failed all the conservative treatments, surgical decompression is an option with good outcomes.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.