In Your Pants with Dr. Susie G - Martial Arts to Pelvic Pain, One Man's Journey

Episode Date: April 6, 2018

Today's guest is possibly the best expert that you'll ever get to know. Michael Hodge is an expert in navigating his way out of pelvic pain. I always tell my patients that they're the number one expert in treating themselves because no one knows you better than yourself. I met Michael from watching his intimate interview with Dr. Bri Grogan on her FemFusion Fitness YouTube channel. I was totally inspired after their interview and just had to share his message with all of you. Not many men or women feel comfortable talking about their private parts let alone pelvic pain. It's such a personal topic and often people with pelvic pain feel isolated and alone. Michael's been kind and courageous enough to share his story with of us in hopes to help other men struggling with pelvic pain find help, support and comfort as they navigate through their own health journey. If you're a man suffering with pelvic pain, know that you're not alone. Listen to the episode to find hope and learn tips to help you navigate through your journey.

You're listening to In Your Pants with Dr. Susie G, the physiotherapist for your private, helping you get in the know down below. Hey guys, it's Dr. Susie G here and welcome to another In Your Pants podcast where we destigmatize private parts and social taboos. This is definitely not the place to be shy, so I hope you're ready to get in the know down below. Today's guest is possibly the best expert that you'll ever get to know. Michael Hodge is an expert in healing himself from pelvic pain.

I always like to tell my patients that they're the number one expert in treating themselves because, well, no one knows you better than yourself. I met Michael from watching his intimate interview with Dr. Brie Grogan on her FemFusion Fitness YouTube channel. I was totally inspired after their interview and just had to share his message with all of you, to the listeners. You know, not many men or women feel comfortable talking about pelvic pain. It's such a personal topic and often people with pelvic pain feel isolated and alone.

So it brings me great pleasure to introduce to you Michael, who's been so kind and courageous enough to share a story with all of us in hopes to help other men struggling with pelvic pain. He's looking to help them find help, support, and give them comfort as they navigate through their own health journey. So Michael, thank you so, so much for being on the show. I know it's not the easiest thing in the world to air your personal struggles with the world. So I have the utmost respect for your passion to help others spread hope. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on the show. And, um, really the reason I'm here today is because if I could catch some guy who's having trouble, it's been in pain for a few months and give him some information now so that

he can turn this around rather than it turning into a four or five year ordeal, uh, that would be incredible. And I would feel like I did something important today. So as I was going through a lot of this, I was always finding little tidbits here and there or had trouble finding them. But if there's one or two things you can get out of my journey and situation that would help you in your life, then I think this would be very worthwhile listening to. And I'm smiling from ear to ear here. As you said that, that's beautiful because it's so in conjunction with my message is getting the word out there sooner than later and having some quality information and spreading hope that you don't have to live with it for the rest of your

life. Which brings me to my very first question is, you know, when did you start having pelvic pain and how, how was your journey with that? Yeah. So like the very first thing that ever happened was like late in 2012. So this is actually now five years ago. I can't believe that. But, um, what happened was it felt like my testicle had flipped, which is kind of a weird thing. Like, why does it feel, what I have this odd sensation. And I got kind of scared and worried because any guy that, you know, at that time I was 22 and I was like, what's going on? So I went to a doctor and he checked it out and I was like, ah, things seem pretty normal. And things still felt very uncomfortable though. Uh, so I went to a urologist and they checked it out and he

basically said, you have a varicocele after doing an ultrasound. And, um, but there was still pain and discomfort, like with exercising and sex and things like that. And it just wasn't normal. So, So, you know, any guy, especially if you have any issue down there, as you've learned through all of your research and all of this and with your own patients, it really freaks you out really fast. And so, yeah, I mean, I did the traditional thing. I took some antibiotics and he was like, yeah, you might have epididymitis or prostatitis, those sort of things. And it just wasn't clearing up. So it started with a weird thing, kind of with the testicle and the varicose, which if the listeners don't know, that's like an inflamed blood vein basically on the outside of the testicle and usually starts on the left side rather than the right. But it wasn't that bad, at least from the urologist's perspective.

Things didn't get better, though. They got a lot worse. just over time, over the next three, four or five months, pain started to move to the perineum or the perineum, which is in between the anus and the scrotum essentially. And that's when things got a lot worse whenever the pain was there rather than just in the test school. And then from there, just it's a long story, but a lot of pain with everyday things. It got so bad that just standing up, walking around, trying to do basic chores was painful. Uh, lots of, you know, they're lying down on the ground in pain. And the only thing that really felt better is lying down or going

to sleep, things like that. So I don't know if you want me to go into some more detail, but that's kind of where it started. Yeah. You mentioned the varicocele. Do you believe that's what initiated your pelvic pain or do you feel there were other things that might've contributed to the you know onset or continued exacerbation of the pain that's a really good question to ask and actually was going to potentially ask you this question later on about the varicose because mine has grown still and hasn't gotten better per se and i'm somewhat curious of how that interacts with other pelvic floor dysfunction in the muscles but regardless i digress and i'll go back to what you're asking i actually at the moment in time back in 2012 i was teaching martial arts um because

I ran a martial arts school and, um, I was very active. I wasn't teaching it or training at a really intense level. Cause I had people ask, you know, maybe you hurt yourself. You did something right. Too intense, too, too much movement. I don't know if that was it. I can't pinpoint one thing that really caused the onset of it, to be honest with you, which is really frustrating to not give you a straight answer on that. Because if I knew the onset, I would have been able to treat it faster and more efficiently. I think. Right. Right. Is there anything that you feel kept you in the cycle of pain though even though you've tried different things and we'll talk about you know what worked and what didn't work but do you believe certain things maybe in your life or

in your health it kind of kept you in the cycle of pain yeah well so and like I said it started out that way and then the perineum pain and it started getting so bad that I just didn't physically feel as good like like I said I was a martial arts instructor full-time which I ended up passing my school on to one of my instructors and moving on to some different work. And I started working at a desk more, which actually I found out made things even worse because sitting down too much was putting even more pressure down there. And I was finding that that environment actually exacerbated the situation and made it even worse over several months. So basically that didn't help at all. Right. And I'm going to answer your question, actually. That's a great question

about the varicocele and does that contribute? Now, most commonly it doesn't. I mean, varicocele for men are very common and they're asymptomatic most of the time. Where they can get problematic is if, you know, depending on size, depending on where it exactly is, there's a lot of nerves and other vasculature like lymphatics that are involved in the testes itself and a lot of connective tissue. So the number one cause of a varicocele is actually infertility. But generally speaking, they are asymptomatic. So it could may have been maybe a little bit of added inflammation or the epididymitis, something like along those lines. But again, with antibiotic treatment, if there was an actual infection that should have

potentially made it go away, but in your case, it really didn't help any, correct? Yeah, I definitely did not. I did end up changing our diet dramatically. So I did find things like being constipated and not being regular was just making things a lot worse. So I think that was actually leading to things getting worse for me. And I actually ended up becoming a vegetarian for two and a half years in an attempt to just always be regular and to keep things as light as possible, because that is one tip I would say, though, if you are constipated and you're just creating so much more pressure down there on your lower bowels and also on the pelvic floor region. You don't have to get so extremist to be a vegetarian, but definitely eating a lot more

fibrous vegetables, fruits and water, and just limiting grains, especially I think helps a lot. But all of that really didn't fix things still. I did a lot of things that I thought would fix things like changing my diet, not, you know, lifting weights anymore, just not exercising much just trying to do stretching and yoga and tai chi and de-stressing and not worrying about anything and making sure that i'm not carrying too much and you know every absolutely everything you think you would need to do to purify your body your mind and your soul so that there's absolutely no reason that you have like a physical manifestation of pain in your body and i thought that's why i was going through this it was sort of like a crucible that was necessary in my life

at the time. And it continued on and on and on though, for some reason. Um, until really I finally, a couple of years later, I'm talking about like three years after all that started, I didn't, I found a physical therapist and that really helped me get better after two or three months of physical therapy. Um, and I thought I was done. I thought I was finally better. Things actually got really bad again. I started to digress again. So it's just like a long conversation it's gone on for five years in total and are you still experiencing these symptoms are they pretty much at the moment actually do still have some of the symptoms so i would love to say that i've just totally overcome everything and that i'm 100 better but i have had some digressions

so like as of late i was getting a lot better lifting weights and doing things that were strengthening my body and i've had a little digression with the tightness in the perineum again. And, um, yeah, so there's been a challenge of making a lot of progress in self-healing and then also other aspects of this, but then some digressions as well, and trying to make the connections as to what is really causing what. Right. And, you know, along with that, I know you probably, your worries and fears probably fluctuated, you know, from the beginning to where you are at now, but could you tell us a little bit about, you know, what came up for you when you started having this pelvic pain and where have you transitioned to now in your life with,

you know, some of those thoughts? Yeah. I mean, definitely lots of potential negative thoughts have come up about, um, not being able to get better. The initial pain, I wasn't like, Oh my gosh, you know, it's over for me or anything. It's just when you try a lot of things for several months and with a lot of intensity and consistency and you don't get any results that definitely puts a damper on your motivation sometimes and your outlook but um overall you just have to be really really positive and do your best to be in the moment because if you think about oh this has already been going on for three months or this has already been going on for three years you're just adding more negativity back to your mind and you're just digging even deeper into this gap for

no reason i think so yeah of course there's lots of back and forth and fear of is this ever going to go away or am I ever going to be strong and like normal again? But you have to just get past that. I mean, at the end of the day, it's all essentially not useful for your healing. Michael, I love the analogy that you use. It was digging deeper into the scab, right? With negative thinking versus positive thinking. I've never heard it stated that way and I'm going to have to use that for many of my patients. That's a wonderful analogy. And you're right. It doesn't do any good for your healing if you do continue to open up the wound in such a way. And a lot of the things that I've incorporated or learned throughout my years as a therapist is how

important emotions and the cascade of the stress response can impact one's healing or contribute to one's continued onset or exacerbation of symptoms. So thank you so much for bringing that up. That was, that was a great insight. Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad that that makes sense. And, um, yeah, the emotion, the mental side of things is very important, but just like you've mentioned and others say, it's not all in your head though, either. So there's the one side of it, just trying to not think about it at all. What if I don't think of my pain? What if I consider it that it doesn't even exist, right? It's just going to go away hopefully. Um, but then that doesn't really fix it either. So there's a balance of having to make some adjustments to your body.

And I think literally your body has to be brought back into balance. There is something out of balance. And I think a doctor that I've been seeing for quite a while now, who's really impressive, he is an applied kinesiologist. He's also a doctor of Chinese medicine and a doctor of chiropractic, and he's an acupuncturist. But we talked a lot about just rebalancing the body. and for example i went to an acupuncturist for a couple of months and they were trying to tonify me and because i came in with such low energy every single time because it was like energy was leaking out of my body for some reason and um tonifying someone who has an energy leak really doesn't fix it like you have to push and flush out the issue before you can then heal and strengthen

your body so sometimes treatments are a little bit backwards and that was one of those situations i was trying to be tonified and re-energized and strengthen my body when there was something that was wrong. And that something actually is like a mold that, or a yeast that has been growing in my intestines or in the pelvic floor area, which is a whole nother side of this, which we really haven't even discussed, but that's specific to a situation that I'm in right now. And how are you working through this current situation with the yeast? And it sounds like you're doing a lot of gut healing. Yeah, definitely. So that's what was really crazy about all this. I went through physical therapy, I was getting way better. And then, um, I finally

started to, uh, get to work out more and cause I didn't really get to exercise or work out much for like a couple of years, which is really frustrating for someone who's very active. So I finally got to get back to it. I started lifting weights and I was eating a lot of like nuts and legumes and dairy. Cause I was a vegetarian at the time trying to gain muscle. And I think what might have happened is that I ate so much of these things, especially like nuts and things that are moldy, that there could have been an additional growth of mold inside of my intestines and gut and those sort of things. And from what we found by visiting Dr. Diversa, who is that practitioner that I told you about, who's an applied kinesiologist, et cetera, and all these other things, we started working on, first of all, we did an elimination diet. so we did the 21 day standard process cleanse and that is a really really good diet to do anyone who is going through deep pelvic floor issues that you know you just don't know what

else to do at all and you're in massive pain to an elimination diet because it's going to help you add back in and figure out what's causing issues if it is diet based which i think diet has a lot to do with any issue so it's definitely worth trying and taking a look at but what we did is we found that I shouldn't really be eating grains, nuts, legumes, and dairy because they add inflammation and any sugars as well, because that feeds a yeast. So we have to totally kill and flush out the mold and the yeast before my body can then re-kill and re-strengthen. And that's what you guys are working on currently with the doctor? Yeah. I mean, that's what we've been working on. Like I said, it's challenging because I made a

lot of progress and then I've had some digressions and my diet's been pretty clean though. Um, so yeah, it's sort of inconclusive in a way, even though if you would have talked to me three months ago, I would have told you I'm totally better though. Right. Right. Um, so you tell us on that, those lines, cause you're telling us a lot about what, what worked, um, did anything really totally not work for you? I mean, you did mention like the toning and making sure you have a practitioner that essentially is working with what your body, what you and your body needs in terms of homeostasis and balance. But was there something or even advice that someone gave you was, it was like, are you crazy? Like, did you ever get any of that? Yeah. I mean, like being given

pharmaceuticals didn't work to be honest with you. So I was given like, um, I think it's called Flomax or something. It's a prescription that helps you urinate easier. That's usually prescribed to much older people who just due to weaknesses in their muscles over time. I don't know. But that just really wasn't something I should have been taking. I don't think I was given pharmaceuticals that this was all the beginning. They didn't really help much. And then through my self-healing journeys, I did try to do a Kegel program or Kegel program. And that didn't work at all because I learned a little bit later on, I should have been down training and actually releasing the muscle before I learned how to rebuild it. That didn't work at all. So you definitely want to don't want

of try to do Kegels and like pelvic floor strengthening exercises until you've totally released. And you've gotten to the point where it's not hyperactive and hypertonic, uh, at a really hypertonic pelvic floor, which is what led to the extreme pain. It was over tightened. The muscles were so strong, like pulling on a rubber band, like they couldn't move anymore. Um, so I found that out. Yeah. That is something that didn't work for me. Right. And then I'm sure that physical therapist helped you with all that down training and retraining of your pelvic floor muscles definitely i think that was a big aspect of it deep body work coupled with um with good stretches every single morning and then doing exercises and phases to rebuild it yeah that's

a really important aspect that coupled with you know important diet modifications and and just a lower stress level overall would probably help most people get better going off of that how important is self-care when you're trying to navigate through pelvic pain it sounds like you're doing so much to help yourself um do you think it's it's like a number one thing to do or what are you what are your feelings about that yeah definitely is um so everyone's definition is different of self-care like how important is it to take time for yourself to implement some of these dietary changes to ultimately just write a prescription for yourself you know what is it that you need or your body needs or your life that in order to kind of navigate through some

of these symptoms that you have or pelvic pain in general. And this could, again, this could vary for everyone, but just taking care of yourself. Yeah, absolutely. That's extremely important for every human being on the planet. But if you're in a place where your body is extremely out of balance and in pain, it becomes even more important. If you don't make it more important, it's probably because the universe or, you know, whatever is basically trying to tell you that you need to make it more important. So things like, um, waking up and as soon as you wake up, uh, meditating or praying or doing a stretching routine, for example, would be a better way to start your day than staring at your phone or like checking email. For example, that would be a really

bad way to start your day. If you're trying to heal yourself, things like just sitting at a desk for like four hours straight, eating lunch, and then coming back and sitting in a desk for five hours straight and then sitting in a car for another hour and a half on your ride home. that's not good self-care like you need to stand up move around this is another tip but i use a standing desk and i have now for a couple of years sitting down is dangerous for most people but if you have pelvic floor issues it'll create even more pain and pressure down there so standing up and then doing movement breaks and not overtaxing yourself don't overwhelm yourself self-care is about taking on just as much as you can handle and if you're in a state of weakness where your

body needs to be healed, uh, you need to be even more careful and have a more free flowing life. Uh, you don't want to force yourself too hard to do anything. Absolutely. It's all about dosing and finding that sweet spot. And on, and I think on the opposite end of that spectrum is, um, taking away maybe too much that you're doing. You know, a lot of people are really on the go and have so much responsibility and their plate is overflowing and the spaghetti noodles are going on the ground, you know? So it's like, what do you need to take off in order to make self-care priority? Yeah, absolutely. And I think you're just going to keep having issues and pain until you make it a priority. I think that's part of the reason why some people do get sick more or less,

I think. And it's not easy because I do have three kids and we have a 14 month old right now when my wife was pregnant. And then with our baby for the first six or seven months was really, really hard, you know, when you have a newborn to find time for self-care, there's not really that much time to just wake up like, Hey, I'm going to go stretch and do this or that whenever there's a baby that needs to be taken care of. And I get it, especially if you're a parent and these sorts of things. So that made, you know, that's even harder. So I would say it's been a little bit easier to find time for self-care now that my kids are getting a little bit older than when they're like, like I said, when a newborn baby. Right. And that's a huge or an important

thing that you just said right there is, you know, doing what you can in the moment, right? Even if it's just shaving, right? Shaving in the mirror and being in the moment for those couple of minutes. I don't have time to shave. I really don't. But that's not that important. As long as I have time to stretch, shaving is not that important. There you go. See, time to stretch. I love it. Priorities. I love it, Michael. So we talked a lot about your healing journey and how you're kind of implementing some of these self care strategies. But I'm really curious to ask you maybe a deeper question here is, you know, what did pelvic pain teach you in the grand scheme of things? You know, was there an underlying message for you? Yeah, so I mean, I would

definitely say surrender is probably the underlying message. And that's a really difficult word to talk about, because people misconstrue it, I think. But it definitely did put me through like a spiritual self-learning crucible. Like I said earlier, um, things like, um, re-examining the importance of being in the now moment and the importance of, uh, doing good things and for the right reasons and, and just, um, not working too much towards the future. Always. I've had a tendency to be really, uh, future focused and goal oriented, and I've set some pretty lofty goals and reached them. So I thought that I should continue to do that throughout my life because that's what made me feel good in the past.

So, yeah, it made me slow down a little bit. And like I said, surrender isn't so much meaning that you just lay there and you're like, okay, I'm just going to be in pain for the rest of my life. Who cares? This is pointless now. Why don't I just die? But it means that you just accept what is in the moment. You accept this is happening right now. I'm in pain. Well, you can also consider what can I do, though? Maybe I can do something now to stretch and relax myself.

maybe there's something i can do tomorrow like go call a physical therapist and so yeah i think surrender is a difficult word to explain but that will probably be the best one to to uh describe what i've learned that's that's amazing that's beautiful it sounds like you did have such a very you still have a very healing and spiritually based um life journey so that's that's just great um what advice would you give to a man i know you already gave so many wonderful pearls of wisdom in our talk here but if you can sum it up what advice would you give to a man who's struggling with pelvic pain yeah i mean just a couple of like basic tips like i said first of all make sure your diet's really clean make sure you're regular any any constipation those things just going to

make things a lot worse another thing i don't know if i mentioned this but if you don't have a donut cushion whenever you're sitting down a donut cushion will actually help you to relieve the pressure that's directly on the perineum. Standing up while you're working is probably better than sitting down. And like I said, taking time to do pelvic floor releases and stretching like Dr. Brie with FemFusion Fitness. Of course, I did the interview with her and she has some really good stretching videos and probably finding a really good holistic style practitioner, a physical therapist excuse me or an applied kinesiologist maybe or a chiropractor obviously seeing urologist first is always a good idea as well but um you do want to take matters

into your own hands but also having someone that can support you that falls in line with this holistic mindset just like you are i mean having working with you or working with your tools and your book and those things will help along with finding someone locally that could help them get better right well that's wonderful wonderful pieces of advice michael honestly it's such a pleasure that you've you've come and on the show and shared your story with us so thank you so much for all of your courage um and i hope that your story inspires many to find hope and realize that healing from pelvic pain is truly possible it is a journey but it is possible and that a lot of the healing is from within and taking matters as you said into your own hands no pun intended guys

but um you know um michael i know you're a busy guy from taking care of your family you mentioned you had children three children correct yes yeah and i think i have to go shave right now so that's right and um you're also the founder of a leading online martial arts academy which you mentioned in your interview earlier as well as being the creator of booklingual and And this teaches kids Spanish through books, correct? Yes, it does, actually. So it's a pretty cool system that I was kind of upset with kids learning everything through apps and digital devices.

And I was like, people need to learn through reading. Reading forces your brain to actually work. So it's like, what if we taught languages through books? And that's what booklingual is. And yeah, I've been a martial artist my whole life. And I do actually have an online martial arts university, which is a pretty awesome place that people can come and learn and train online. And I have been able to get back to my training,

not at the highest level like I used to, but definitely getting back up there. And so that's what I do, yeah, full-time. That's awesome, that's awesome. Hey, but your generosity doesn't just stop there because don't you also lead an abundance project where you donate to people and projects in need? Yeah, so that's kind of just like a life philosophy I have,

which is the concept of abundance. And what we do is we donate around 10% of our proceeds or our profit really monthly to people and projects in need. And it's not like some charity where like, okay, we're going to donate it just so we can get a tax write-off or something. We donate money to random people who will message us or I'll send something on Facebook. Hey, do you know anyone who's in need? Like, hey, my friend had this accident happen or this medical bill or whatever, and we'll

just send them some money. And it's just about helping people and showing others that if we have a mindset of abundance rather than lack, we actually will be much more prosperous because if we're more willing to share and actually not hold things so close to our chest, naturally the universe is going to reward us for that. That's not the reason why we do it, but that is just a natural, I think, universal law. And the more abundance that we share with others, the more we'll receive. And that's really the premise of it. That's amazing. Again, you're doing wonderful things. And look, now you're spreading support and compassion to those who have pelvic pain. So seriously,

michael your kindness is extremely contagious how can people connect with you uh they can just walk up to my house and i'm just kidding his address is honestly i'll have a an email address in the link there it's support at bookling will it's an email address they could email directly to me because if you do have any questions that you want to ask me uh something that you maybe i mentioned you want me to expand on by all means please do send it over because i want to help you out if you're in one of these bad places so that's what you can do oh thank you again michael such a pleasure having you on the show for your time i know you're such a busy guy now you can go shave i already did actually this is a podcast right you're doing it while we're

talking i love it love it thank you michael thank you so much i hope you have a wonderful day and keep spreading such a positive message to the world all right thanks suzy have a great day Thanks for listening to today's episode. Be sure to head on over to drcgg.com where you can get more information, show notes, and related articles on today's topic. Also, if you like what you're hearing, head on over to iTunes, subscribe to the podcast, and leave us a rating and review. We'd love to hear your feedback. Thanks again.