Saturday, May 28, 2011

Alcock's Syndrome, Pudendal Nerve & Obturator Internus

Now this is a topic even us educators need to be educated about!  Pelvic pain and dysfunction can be somewhat of a sticky wicket for us ATC's.  A good friend and colleague of mine recently published this article in  the International Journal of Athletic Therapy & Training. If you can access it, (which you should if you are on a college campus) you will be enlightened.  Alcock's syndrome is when the pudendal nerve becomes entrapped.   I have to say, the obturator internus can be easily overlooked due to it's anatomical location, and this article does a fantastic job of walking the clinician through both internal and external stimulation of this muscle.  It just goes to show you that we have to treat the human body very objectively to obtain results for our patients.  It is certainly one of the most enlightening  articles on the topic I've seen as it relates to ATC's.  For those of us who work with athletes "in the saddle", this information is indispensable.  If you can't access the article above, check out this link to the Society for Pudendal Neuralgia, a non-profit which seeks to educate health care professionals about the subject.

3 comments:

  1. I suffer from this condition and live in Central Maine, do you treat this, or know anybody that does?

    Thank you

    I can be contacted at jen9952@yahoo.com

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  2. Me too. I have been to ALL kinds of docs and taken ALL kinds of tests... I'm about to go nuts with pain. Even just lost my job because of it. Thanks for the info.

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  3. I knew that certain Physical Therapist treat this condition, but I never knew athletic trainers did. I am an Occupational Therapist (OT) and we definitely do NOT generally treat this though again it is a specialty and in rare cases some OTs do.

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