I was made to feel that I was mentally unstable by being told that my chronic pain was psychosomatic in origin. I was prescribed Valium and advised by Mayo doctors to get in touch with a mental health facility for treatment. You have no idea how frustrated and angry that made me feel!!! I not only felt humiliated with a diagnosis of psychosomatic... but I also felt belittled in the eyes of my husband, children, and friends. I was made to feel that my pain was not real...that I was crazy!
Never once was it acknowledged by physicians at the Mayo Clinic that my chronic pelvic pain was caused by adhesions!! Never once over those 26 years!!
One year later ( August 1997 ) I finally found an Ob/Gyn who listened to me...and he told me that my explanation of chronic pelvic pain sounded like either adhesions or endometriosis. He told me that the only way we would know for sure would be via a surgical procedure, a diagnostic laparoscopy. This was the very first time in 27 years that a diagnostic laparoscopy was even suggested to me!!
The diagnostic laparoscopy proved that my Ob/Gyn was right!! I had massive adhesions, which extended the full 7" - with a fatty layer which extended 2" on each side - of the incisional scar from my 1970 laparotomy. No wonder I was in so much pain! No wonder I was so angry!