Dr. Andrew D. Brown MD, MBA, FRCPC, is an interventional radiologist at St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto, and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto whose research focuses on pelvic venous disorders.
The story I hear in my clinic doesn’t change much. A woman in her 30s or 40s has lived with pelvic pain for years. A dull ache, worse by evening, worse after standing all day at work, sometimes worse after intercourse. She has seen her family doctor, a gynecologist, sometimes two. She has had ultrasounds read as normal, often a laparoscopy that found nothing. Somewhere along the way, someone suggested the pain might be stress or “all in her head.”