"I went into mourning" — Robbie's recovery from CPPS, panic attacks and getting back in the saddle

Robbie is a professional horse trainer and rider. When CPPS took hold, it took away the thing most central to who he was. Sitting in a saddle became impossible. He told himself that part of his life was over — and grieved it like a loss. Five and a half years later he is riding more horses than ever, working more than he ever has, and living with what he describes as great serenity and power. This is one of the most emotionally honest recovery conversations on this channel. Robbie came to Karl after a year of urinary symptoms, widespread pelvic pain, panic attacks, and a prostatitis diagnosis that antibiotics did nothing for. One of the first things Karl did was change his language — introducing the word flare-up, rating scales, and a framework that gave him something to work with. What Robbie covers: — The onset of symptoms — burning urination, pelvic pain, anxiety and panic attacks — A year of urologists, tests and antibiotics — nothing found, nothing helped — How losing riding felt like mourning a part of himself — The turning point — starting with the mind rather than trying to fix the body — Karl's instruction that changed everything: "calm this down" — written on post-its all over the house — CBT for anxiety and panic attacks — and how mental progress allowed physical recovery to follow — Getting back in the saddle — staging the exposure gradually, building trust in the body again — The support group — finding other men with the same story and realising he wasn't alone — The pattern across the group: high achievers, people pleasers, hard on themselves, high stress — Where he is now — 99% recovered, gymming, swimming, yoga, riding more than ever — Why the work is continual — and why he wouldn't change any of it His message to anyone at the start of their journey: start with your mind, get help, and don't do it alone. Note: This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice or diagnosis. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱ TIMESTAMPS 0:06 Introduction — five and a half years on 0:53 Symptoms — urinary pain, pelvic spread, panic attacks 1:49 A year of urologists — antibiotics that did nothing 2:45 Karl changes the language — flare-ups, scales, tools 3:39 Five years of recovery — slow, bumpy and transformative 4:12 Where Robbie is now — 99% recovered 5:19 Starting with the mind — not the body 6:06 "Calm this down" — the post-it that changed everything 7:21 "I wouldn't change it" — why the journey led to serenity 8:41 The support group — not alone 10:01 High achievers, people pleasers — the common pattern 11:48 Symptom detail — burning, tightness, pins and needles 16:09 "I went into mourning" 17:06 Robustness and neuroplasticity 19:10 Message to anyone going through this right now ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎯 WORK WITH KARL Karl works with patients face-to-face in London and online worldwide. Book an initial consultation: www.thepelvicpainclinic.co.uk/contact ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎥 WATCH NEXT Recovery Stories — Real Men, Real Results playlist:    • Recovery Stories — Real Men, Real Results ...   Why your nervous system — not your muscles — is driving your pelvic pain:    • Why journaling could change your pelvic pa...   Why CPPS is never just a physical problem (Part 1):    • Why CPPS is never just a physical problem,...   Pain, Trauma & Recovery podcast playlist:    • Pain, Trauma & Recovery with Karl Monahan ...   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Karl Monahan is a male pelvic pain specialist with 25 years of clinical experience, founder of The Pelvic Pain Clinic in London, and a former sufferer of CPPS himself. He has treated men with CPPS, chronic prostatitis and Hard Flaccid Syndrome since 2009, working face-to-face in London and online worldwide. His approach draws on pain neuroscience, nervous system rehabilitation, manual therapy, movement and trauma-informed care. He has published in peer-reviewed urology journals, lectured internationally, and contributed to research on chronic pelvic pain assessment. #CPPS #ChronicPelvicPainSyndrome #Prostatitis #MalePelvicPain #PelvicPain #PelvicPainRecovery #MensHealth #ChronicPain #PelvicHealth #RecoveryStories #MindBodyConnection #Neuroplasticity #PanicAttacks #CPPSrecovery #MensPelvicHealth