Some questions

Body: 

I'm 37 yrs old & 4 wks pp with my 3rd bub. Had an episotomy and vacuum with 1st, 2nd was a dream labour with no problems and 3rd was posterior (9lb12oz). A couple of wks ago I was devastated to find signs of a cystocele (grade 3 I think i.e. a few centimeters past remnants of hymen), possible rectocele & and a lower-than-normal uterus. Up until now I have been very fit & healthy (never even had a tooth cavity). At first nothing but the thought of finding a way to get complete regression of the problem areas would calm be down, but now after having researched prolape a bit, coming to terms with my mortality, and finding this gem of a website, I'd be happy just to live symptom free for the rest of my life. During the day however, when the cystocele is bulging, I'm not symptom free. At these times I frequently feel like I need to go to the bathroom (but only wee a little) & can no longer stop urine mid-steam. This makes me feel sick in my stomach...

I'm very encouraged however to hear many young mums doing well 1-2 yrs pp via this site. I don't like the idea of surgery. Are there any statistics out there to show how women who develop prolapse pp are fairing after 5-50 yrs without surgery? Has anyone with say a symptomatic grade 3 cystocele ever improved to a non-symptomatic grade 2 for 20 years or more without surgery? Just trying to get my head around what I can hope for in the future.

as far as I know, christine is the only show in town. meaning, nowhere else have I found anyone addressing non surgical management of prolapse. I doubt anyone's been following women who turn down surgery.
all I can say is that I found my prolapse when my third child was 18 mo old. he turned 5 in november. so I'm approaching the 4 year mark and I'm doing pretty well, I think. mine was a symptomatic gr3 and is now, depending on the day, maybe a 2? and asymptomatic.
this is most likely a life-long management program, but I'm willing to manage it this way rather than take my chances with surgery.

and congrats on the new baby!

Thanks Granolamum for helping me gain perspective. I imagine this website would be well placed to capture valuable information about women's prolapse grade and quality of life. Do you know whether Christine has considered tracking such information via this site? Specifically, data fields like date of birth, date of diagnosis, pregnancy details, prolapse type, initial prolapse grade & whether symptomatic (or not), current grade & whether symptomatic (or not), surgery treatment or not, etc might be useful. Also, if data was captured in an accurate & reliable way perhaps it could be used to apply for grants to help find out more about non surgical management of prolapse. I ask these questions cause I work with data (for cancer) for a living and wish there was more prolapse information available.

I know this has come up before, and I totally agree, this site is ripe with information!
I think the issue was time and focus. its hard to do it all, kwim?