Welcome to the board, pain from adhesions is very unpleasant and yes, none of us likes the prospect of having to live out our lives with pain.
Lisa, on this site there is a great source of information called the adhesions quilt, this quilt holds the stories of many women and some men around the world who experience the daily pain & frustration of adhesions.
Please, if you have the time, read some of them, in particular there is one I ask you to read, Karla Nygren has become a very dear friend to me and right now she is fighting for her life.
Karla didn't want to live with the pain from adhesions either and she allowed the same doctor to operate on her 28 times. During one of those surgeries he decided that her pain would be relieved by removing her bladder and letting her live with a urostomy for the rest of her life. Please don't misunderstand me, I am not telling you this to be dramatic or frighten you unecessarily, I am just trying to show you how serious adhesions can be.
If you are interested, I have a website for Aussie adhesions sufferers, but it is also for all my friends here on this board. There is a section called "How to Cope" and you are welcome to take a look around whenever you feel the need.
Before my last surgery Lisa, I also suffered with that pain you describe, and yes it is extreme! I was using chinese herbal therapy to ease it, and that made a huge difference. I had been prescribed a drug called ditropan which did more or less the same thing, however I had an extreme allergic reaction to it! (I was in a meeting, giving a presentation & completely lost the plot! The look on my hubby's face was priceless...we are also business partners...any way..he needed to take over on that occassion and I stopped taking the meds!) Herbal therapy is complicated, I was on the traditional therapy, we are lucky enough to have a Chinese Herbalist were I live. His mother is still a practising herbalist in China. It was roots & bark & seeds & I really don't WANT to know what else! LOL BUT it worked even though it smelled and tasted aweful!
Did you know that our bladder is like a balloon? As it fills with urine it expands, and a healthy female bladder should hold around a litre of fluid. Mine held less than a cup and that was after it had been "stretched" during an exploritory procedure. Adhesions covering your bladder ristrict it, and stopping it from expanding, and that is why you are feeling the pain, it is being irritated from the outside by the tethering and clamping effect of the adhesions. It was my urologist that explained it to me. What we later discovered was that my ovaries were drawn down by adhesions and stuck to my bladder, vagina bowel & abdominal wall. So when my Gyno did an ultrasound check in his office he discovered it, and then did an exploritory laparoscopy to confirm it. I had my ovaries removed in April 2001.
It changed my pain, but didn't "cure it" at all, I am actually worse off than before as I now am unable to sit on a chair for longer than an hour or two without causing extreme pain. So while I guess while it helped me in a particular area (which made me VERY happy, there was a price I had to pay....)
Sorry my post is so long....I am a born chatterbox & can't help myself. Lisa, ultimately you have to make the final decision on which way you go from here, but at least when you make your decision, you will be making a well informed & educated decision. If you have any questions, post them here on the board, someone will be able to answer them for you, or at least point you in the right direction.
Love & gentle warm hugs
-- I am not a medical person, and all my messages are based on personal experience. I am a fellow adhesions sufferer reaching out to help others.