Here's a Question.......

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OK...... Weird and somewhat stupid but here is a thought for those happy people (Or previously happy)

Every night at 6pm I speak to my mother on the phone...

We spend an hour laughing - Totally hysterically at times...

Laughing = Internal pressure...

Could we have laughed ourselves into this POP situation?

That is a thought really as it makes you wanna think 'Don't be so flippin happy and stop all that hysterical tear dropping laughter'

But - Nevertheless it is a thought...

Yes I have noticed recently when laughing (yep I actually managed to laugh!) that there is A LOT of pressure on my prolapses. If you are out and about and suddenly burst into laughter how ridiculous would you look if you had to suddenly bend over at the hip to stop the pressure. I was in the car yesterday and my son made me laugh and I practically felt my bits pushing down and touching the seat! Very scary!

Hi Sue

Yes, that is an interesting thought. I wouldn't let it put you off laughing though, and I doubt that we could have laughed ourselves into prolapse, but what a way to go if we did. I'm glad you can have a good laugh every day.

If you take the thought a bit further there are a few other normal things that would increase intraabdominal pressure (lets just call it IP. This typing is drivng me nuts). eg Christine talks in her book about the enormous IP that is generated when we breathe. I can think of other things like lifting shopping into the car. There are also the old suspects, coughing, and sneezing, and crying. (It sounds like Snap, Crackle and POP. Hey we could invent a new breakfast cereal to sponsor Wholewoman.) How about cheering a footy team and sitting in those dreadful cinema chairs, particularly while having a good laugh! Then there are the things like the job I did the other day, which was to unload 25 9 foot lengths of 4x2 hardwood from our trailer, balance each one on the top of the fence then tip it over so it was leaning on the fence, then stack them on the other side. It wasn't the lifting, so much as the balancing. Yeah, I know, I should have got somebody to help me, but I'm an impatient bugger and wanted the trailer for another job! Then there are other balancing things, like dancing, wheeling a laden wheelbarrow, and putting loads down half a metre in front of you. Then there are things like lying on your back under a something-or-other, tightening thingamijigs up, and stuff like that, where a bit of exertion of the tummy muscles is required. Then there is standing waist deep in the ocean, trying to hold the boat straight so it can be winched onto the trailer. Yeah, again, what am I doing? Where are the men? Good question. Then there is walking, where one half of the pelvis is nutating and the other half counternutating. Then we take another step and the process is reversed.

There are so many things we do with our bodies that cause IP. That's why we need to keep our pelvic organs forward in the first place. Seems like stating the bleeding obvious, and maybe it is, but these things are not out of the ordinary physical exertion. Our bodies are designed to be able to do these things. That's why we have muscles. Sneezing, coughing, breathing, laughing uproarously, sobbing your guts out are all things that people do, not all the time, but when we need to.

I don't really think occasional exertion that causes IP is really a problem as long as you do it in posture when possible, and as carefully as possible at other times. Don't let it put you off laughing. Just have a lie down on the floor with the phone and laugh with your Mum. She's probably lying down at the other end. If you lose it you don't have far to fall.

I think for me the constant coughing of asthma was the straw that broke the camel's back, along with the house moving when I left my marriage, then the housemoving when I moved back. Where were the men? Doing the furniture. And I am a stubborn bugger again.

IMAO it is the repeated overdoing of jobs that increase IP that are more of a problem than the one off things. It is the second and subsequent sneeze, and the uncontrolled increases in IP that are the problem. It is not the lifting, but the unexpected recovery of balance with a load. Also, it is usually only a problem when we are upright, and not standing properly when gravity is trying to pull it all down the vagina while IP is pushing it out from the top.

Cheers

Louise