List of PN Doctors

North America
Teams
Diagnosis
Diagnosis and Treatment
Europe
Teams
Diagnosis
Treatment

A Few Helpful Comments

There are many doctors out there who say they know what they're doing, but they don't. This is to be expected in a profit and status driven profession. But it can cause problems for patients with a hard to diagnosis and treat condition such as PN. Therefore we have listed only those doctors we have full confidence in, based on our discussions with hundreds of patients. After all, this is a website by and for PN patients.

Please note that doctors are incredibly busy helping patients. Thus all doctor teams have a single contact person. This explains why we list all team member but not how to contact them individually.

Steroids in nerve blocks as a form of treatment seem to rarely work. See Special update on steroids. However, unless you are sure PNE is what you have, steroids have apparently proven effective for other types of perineal pain, so you should not rule them out.

North America - Teams

The Houston, Texas Team - Doctors Renney, Popeney, and Ansell went to Nantes in May, 2002 for a week. They assisted or observed on six surgeries, diagnosis, and interviews as part of training. Their first PNE surgery was perfomed in Houston in early July 2002. As of the year ending 2010, they had completed approximately 400 surgeries. Principle team members are:

Dr. Ken Renney, (Consultation and coordinator).
Dr. Charles Popeney, Neurologist. PNMLT, other tests.
Dr. James Murphy, Radiologist. CT guided injections. These are now also done by Doctors Lee and Khan.
Dr. Lee V. Ansell, Neurosurgeon. PNE surgery.

Appointment Coordinator: Dr. Ken Renney.

For specific addresses and phone numbers for each of these doctors, go to the "Houston" section of the forum.

On August 19, 2003 Dr. Ken Renney gave a guest lecture about PNE on the Interstitial Cystitis Network. Note - This lecture transcript contains an error. We have confirmed this with Ken. The phrase "2/3 of PNE cases are men" should be "2/3 of PNE cases are women."

North America - Diagnosis and Surgery

Dr. Michael Hibner - Gynecologist. Dr. Hibner treats both men and women. He is one of the few doctors who will perform redo surgeries. Dr. Hibner has taken the basic trans-gluteal (TG) surgery and added a few new ideas that he believes will enhance the outcomes of the TG surgery.

His address is:

Dr. Michael Hibner

AZ Center for Chronic Pelvic Pain

500 W. Thomas Road Suite 680

Phoenix, AZ 85013

His contact information is: Phone 1 602 406-6017, fax 1 602 406-2144

For funding issues, call: 1 602 406-5823

Dr. Hollis Potter (female) Dr. Potter is the Chief of Magnetic Resonance Imaging at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) as well as a Professor of Radiology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. She performs imaging of the Pudendal Nerve by means of 3 Tesla imaging in New York City.

The tests are conducted at the following address:

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

535 East 70th St.

New York, NY 10021

The appointment desk:

Telephone: 212 774-7296

Fax 212 774-7295

To be checked for Pudendal Nerve Entrapment, you should ask for the following script:

MRI of the Pelvis

Bilateral Pudendal Nerve

1) From ischial spine to Sacro Spinal ligament beneath Sacrotuberous

ligament and to the Alcock's canal.

2) Dorsal Nerve of the Clitoris especially passing through the Pubic bone.

To have the MRI reviewed by Dr. Hollis Potter:

Have the MRI faxed to 212 774-2786 by your doctor.

Call Dr. Potter's office at 212 606-1023 to schedule an appointment.

Dr. Richard Marvel Gynecologist, specializing in pain management in women and men. He is currently able to provide diagnosis and treatment for pudendal neuralgia. He is able to provide pudendal nerve blocks, warm detection threshold testing (WDT), and pudendal nerve motor latency tests. He performs the transgluteal approach to surgery with conservation of the sacrotuberous ligament. He has performed cases with Dr. Eric Bautrant in France, Dr. Antolak in Minnesota, and Dr. Jim Campbell, neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgery and is on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He also is currently offering Botox injections as well.

His main office (in Towson) is for women only. The address is:

Dr. Richard Marvel

6569 North Charles Street

Physicians Pavilion West Suite 705

Towson, MD 21204

Phone: 443-632-0200

His Annapolis office, where he sees both men and women is:

Richard P. Marvel, MD

Center for Pelvic Pain

132 Holiday Court, Suite 210

Annapolis, MD 21401

Phone: 410-353-7266

North America - Diagnosis

Dr. Sheldon Jordan - Neurologist. Dr. Jordan gives a very good injection using optical tracking, which is very expensive, but greatly limits the amount of radiation exposure the patient receives and is very accurate. According to one patient, "You pay for the first consultation (which your insurance will reimburse you for less the co-pay if you have one) and after that he takes insurance for treatment."

2811 Wilshire Blvd. #800
Santa Monica, California 90403, USA
Phone 310 829-5968, ext 244

Dr. Stephen Irving Mann - Gives the PNMLT.

2801- K Street, suite 410
Sacramento, California. 95816, USA
Phone 916 733-5024

Dr. Allan Gordon - Neurologist - PNE "aware." Does guided blocks through the Centre.

The Wasser Pain Management Centre
Mount Sinai Hospital
600 University Avenue, Room 1160
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5G 1X5
Phone 416 586-5997

North America - Diagnosis and Treatment

Dr.Stanly J. Antolak - (Urologist) see patients for diagnosis and treatment, including surgery, at The Center for Urologic and Pelvic Pain in Woodbury, MN.

Center for Urologic and Pelvic Pain
8650 Hudson Boulevard North, Suite 325
Lake Elmo, MN 55042
651-735-9355

Europe - Teams

The Nantes, France Team - Since 1987 this team has handled over 4,000 PN cases and over 1000 surgeries, with good results. This team invented the first widely successful diagnosis and treatment protocol for PNE called the Trans gluteal approach (TG). In 2002 they completed a randomized clinical trial showing that PNE surgery is highly effective. Principle team members are:

Dr. Labat - Neurologist. Diagnosis via EMG, PNMLT, Clinical exam and other tests.
Dr. Bensignor - Anesthesiologist. Nerve blocks and general diagnosis. Now replaced by Dr. Riant.
Dr. Guerineau - Kinestherapist and physical therapist. Muscle reeducation to eliminate spasm as a source of PN pain.
Prof Robert - Neurosurgeon. PNE surgery.

Appointment coordinators for those in:

North America - Judy Birch
Europe and outside France - JudyB

 

The Aix-en-Provence, Team - This team utilizes the Trans-ischio Rectal approach which is geared towards decompressing the pudendal nerve while leaving the nerve untouched and unmoved. The nerve is decompressed without severing the sacrotuburous ligament. With the Trans-ischio Rectal approach, surgical indication is based upon the nature and the localization of the nerve lesion. This data is determined by electrophysiological testing: sacral reflex, concentric needle EMG, cerebral somesthesic evoked potentials, and PNMLT. Intraoperative monitoring is essential in assisting the surgical team to: accurately localize the entrapment; know exactly how much of the ligaments need to be severed and windowed and in whole; to control the effectiveness of the surgery. This procedure allows for access to all possible sites of entrapment and decompression.

The incision is made in the back of the vagina in the female and between the scrotum and the rectum in the male. In both sexes, a retractor is used to slightly move the rectum to one side to reach the ischio rectal fossea which leads to the internal side of the pelvis where both left and right sites of all possible pudendal entrapments can be viewed, tested and decompressed. The team visualizes the nerve as they do the decompression in conjunction with nerve testing to guide them throughout the procedure. An endoscope is used only when there is a need due to anatomical abnormalities.

Dr. Eric Bautrant - Gynecologist/surgeon who has performed 270+ surgeries using the Trans-ischio rectal approach for the past five years (since 2000) with an 86% success rate of excellent results to totally cured in patients in France and other European countries. Since 2004, he has began performing decompression surgery in the US. For six years prior, Dr. Bautrant was performing PNE decompression using the Trans-gluteal approach. He has eleven years experience decompressing the pudendal nerve at both the sacrospinus ligament and the alcocks canal. He is now only using the trans-ischio rectal approach since he and his team are able to decompress the nerve successfully at all areas of entrapment using this new method.

Dr Eric de Bisschop - Neurologist with outstanding accomplishments in the field of electrophysiological testing. He along with Dr. Bautrant developed the testing necessary to determine pre-surgically if the pudendal nerve is entrapped. Many times, he is able to determine exactly where the entrapment(s) are located. This is confirmed during surgery, before decompression begins.

Dr Eric de Bisschop
5, boulevard du Roi René
13100 Aix en Provence - Fr
00 33 442 163 395
rajeshree@free.fr

Europe - Diagnosis

Dr. Gérard Amarenco - Neurologist, nerve blocks. This is the man who did the first research about PN by studying cyclist in 1987.

Rothschild Hospital
33 boulevard de Picpus
75012 Paris, FRANCE
Telephone +33 1 40 19 36 86

Dr Andrew Baranowski - Does guided nerve blocks. Specialises in diagnosing/treating pain of uro-genital origin.

National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery
Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG
Telephone: 020 7837 3611

UK's Sheffield University conducts the PNLT, according to their webpage. Submitted by Gary on August 7, 2002. We cannot vouch for the quality of this test yet. (Anyone, is this test good?)

Europe - Treatment

We've heard that PNE surgery is being done in Romania, but do not have a contact. There are also several surgeons in France and beligium who have been doing PNE surgery for years.