Secret Suffering - A resource community for women who experience pelvic and sexual pain

	M.D., Fellow American College OB/GYN and Board Certified by American Board of OB/GYN

Dr. Echenberg is an established specialist and expert in the field of chronic pelvic pain in women. He has developed a successful treatment model based on established protocols. Over the past six years, his treatment of over 400 women has resulted in a significant reduction of pain and a corresponding increase in his patients’ quality of life.
Beginning in 2001, while in private practice in Bethlehem, PA, Dr Echenberg was asked to set up the St. Luke’s Hospital Center for Chronic Pelvic Pain, the first regional center dedicated to the diagnosis and non-surgical treatment of chronic pelvic pain in women. The program was initially designed with a purely “pharmaceutical” approach, but Dr. Echenberg quickly recognized that the problem was far more complex than initially presented.

He immersed himself in the study of this specialty, attending conferences spotlighting the research and effective modalities of treatment. Additionally, he received in-depth training in a live setting by working with a respected pain center, learning the basic principles of chronic pain management.

As a traditionally trained physician, he realized that his orientation about “pain” management had always been tuned to “acute” pain and now found that “chronic” pain had to be addressed as a completely different physiologic entity.

Over the past several years he surprisingly, and ironically, found that most doctors in traditional pain centers were both unprepared and reluctant to treat women’s chronic pelvic pain. There was no question that the pain experienced by his patients was not simply gynecologic, but also encompassed a complex series of interwoven components that included the urinary bladder, lower bowel, as well as the neuro-muscular and functional (non-anatomic) support of the pelvic region.

He soon joined the International Pelvic Pain Society (IPPS). Dr. Echenberg’s program was inspired by the IPPS methodology, and this model of care has been the key to his effective diagnosis and management of the entire spectrum of pelvic issues that combine to cause sexual pain.

In 2006, realizing that a private center would allow him full control over the management of his program, he left the hospital setting and established his Women’s Health, Pelvic Pain and Sexual Wellness Center in Bethlehem, PA.

Dr. Echenberg attended the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, PA and completed his residency at the University of MI Medical Center in Ann Arbor, MI. As a Major in the U.S. Army stationed in Bangkok, Thailand, he was one of only two military OB/GYN’s in Southeast Asia from 1970 to 1972.

An early champion of women’s rights in childbirth, he initiated the development of the first hospital birthing rooms and out-of-hospital alternative birth center in the Lehigh Valley, PA, which introduced nurse-midwives to the area in 1980. His service to that cause included an appointment to a Task Force of the National Convention of the American College of Nurse-Midwives, to establish improved relations with physicians.
Dr. Echenberg incorporated counseling of couples with sexual dysfunction into his practice and was one of the earliest physician members of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists.

Recognizing the lack of training in medical school, Dr. Echenberg conducted workshops for physicians on the compassionate treatment and understanding of women’s sexual dysfunction. In addition, he co-founded the first human sexuality course at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.

He also established and chaired several ethics committees on such key issues as peri-natal crisis decision-making regarding seriously ill newborns, and established educational programs in Medical Ethics for hospitals in which he worked in both PA and New Mexico.
In summary, Dr. Echenberg’s experience includes:

• Forty years of dedicated practice in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
• Expertise in the management of chronic sexual pain and dysfunction.
• Established the St. Luke’s Center for Pelvic Pain for the non-surgical treatment of women’s chronic pelvic pain.
• Developed a successful, working model for treatment of chronic pelvic and sexual pain, which includes an integrative, multi-disciplinary, multi-modality approach based on solid scientific research.
• Private practice focuses primarily on the management and treatment of chronic pelvic pain.
• Recognized for his expertise by a growing number of doctors and pain management specialists who refer patients to him.
• Experienced lecturer with self-developed workshops on a variety of topics, including the management of women’s chronic pelvic pain and doctor-patient communication skills.
• Published: “A Program for Management of Chronic Pelvic Pain” in Contemporary OB/GYN – Volume 49 #11, November 2004, and has written articles on a variety of medical topics in such scientific journals as The Journal of Clinical Ethics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and The Journal of the International College of Surgeons.
• Interviewed nationally some years ago on NBC regarding his involvement in the establishment of an early support group for families experiencing miscarriage.
• Interviewed recently on the Lehigh Valley television show, Talk to Your Doctor, for his expertise in the area of chronic pelvic and sexual pain. One of the doctor’s patients and a specialized pelvic floor physical therapist working with his program were on the panel as well.

Dr. Echenberg lives in Bethlehem, PA with his wife Nancy, an elementary school teacher.