What Causes Pelvic Pain?
Pelvic pain may have multiple causes, including:
- Inflammation or direct irritation of nerves caused by acute or chronic trauma, fibrosis, pressure, or intraperitoneal inflammation
- Muscular contractions or cramps of both smooth and skeletal muscles
- Psychogenic factors, which can cause or aggravate pain
Acute pelvic pain
Some of the more common sources of acute pelvic pain, or pain that occurs very suddenly, may include:
- Ectopic pregnancy - a pregnancy that occurs outside the uterus
- Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) - an infection of the reproductive organs
- Twisted or ruptured ovarian cyst
- Miscarriage or threatened miscarriage
- Urinary tract infection
- Appendicitis
- Ruptured fallopian tube
Chronic pelvic pain
Some of the conditions which can lead to chronic pelvic pain, pain that may last for several months or longer, may include:
- Menstrual cramps
- Endometriosis
- Uterine fibroids - abnormal growths on or in the uterine wall
- Adhesions - scar tissue between the internal organs in the pelvic cavity
- Endometrial polyps - protrusions attached by a small stem in the uterine cavity
- Cancers of the reproductive tract
This long-term and often unrelenting pain may cause a woman's defenses to break down, resulting in emotional and behavioral changes. This occurrence is often termed "chronic pelvic pain syndrome."
