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Erin Pigge & Sherry Heiden
A True Pain In The Pelvis Pelvic Floor Rehabilitation Therapy is helping women & men live a pain-free life. story by John Russell, MUSC Health Florence Medical Center 48
VIPMagSC.com
August 2021
Sherry Heiden didn’t know what exactly was wrong with her. All she knew is that she was in pain - and it was getting worse, even life-changing. Heiden is overall the picture of health in her mid-40’s, staying active, going to the gym regularly, and busy being a mother. However, the ‘pain’ started in 2018. “I was having a lot of pain in my pelvic area,” as Heiden describes. “It was hard because I’ve always been active and not been one to sit around and be idle.” She said at first, her doctor thought it was kidney stones, which she has had before. Talk to anyone who has ever had a kidney stone, and they’ll tell you it’s very painful. A month went by as she and her urologist monitored her symptoms, eventually sending her to get a scan for kidney stones. The test result came back negative – no stones present. Heiden and her doctors were baffled. “It [the pain] got to be so bad I could hardly get out of bed in the morning, or any other time of day. I can only describe it as excruciating. It’s nearly impossible to describe the pain I was in,” she said. “It was so bad my husband called my gynecologist for me. Before I knew it, I was scheduled for laparoscopic exploratory surgery. I was also informed both my gynecologist and urologist would be doing the surgery.” Surgery can be scary, but she said surgery with two doctors didn’t exactly put her at ease. Heiden’s mother died at an early age of cancer in the pelvic area. Women over the age of 50 can be at higher risk for pelvic cancer, but Sherry was in her mid-40s. On the day of her surgery, in mid-2018, she said her urologist didn’t find anything to be worried about. Her gynecologist, however, found endometriosis and treated it
