COLPEXIN SPHERE - Is Your Gynecologist REALLY Looking After Your Health?

A new era of women’s health is dawning. In this new age women will have access to technological imagery that allows them to clearly see the placement of their pelvic organs in standing posture.

Indeed, Dr. Lauri Romanzi tells us that day has already arrived: “You may be pleased to learn that much of contemporary anatomic renderings are indeed based on vertical imaging of living women using high-def sonography and dynamic MRI.”

Hurray!! Women everywhere must call their doctors to find where these imaging centers are! Finally we will be able to see for ourselves our true anatomy and how posture, coupled with intraabdominal pressure, work together to either pin our organs into position or blow them out of our body. How marvelous that women will finally have access to indisputable answers to their deepest anatomic questions. If you are given excuses why a standing MRI in Whole Woman Posture is not allowed, demand that it be done!

Only in this way will we be able to solve the riddle of why doctors like L. Romanzi insist on perpetuating anatomic unrealities such as the figure at left. Women know differently! All it takes is a quick reach inside our vagina to understand that our pubic bones are not directly under our navel!

We have paid a high price for the blunt instruments of modern medical technology. For once there is a truly non-invasive, high-tech way to see into the body and gain information of real value. Every curious woman should have access to it.

However, it does not take an Einsteinian “thought experiment”, or even an MRI, to prove to women the workings of their pelvic anatomy. Try this:

Stand up and reach your right hand around to the back of your body (not through your legs.) Using the first two fingers of your right hand, press firmly against (not inside) your vaginal opening. Use all the fingertips of your left hand to press deeply into your lower belly - about 2-3 centimeters above your pubic hairline. If you have a lot of belly fat press hard into the muscle layer. Now either cough or bear down.

Although we have always been told the pelvic floor takes the brunt of intraabdominal pressure, you can see by this experiment that there is actually more outward movement of your belly than your pelvic diaphragm. Clinicians who routinely view women in the lithotomy position only see movement of the pelvic diaphragm when they ask women to bear down. Because of their limited perspective, they have an incomplete concept of female pelvic organ support, believing the pelvic floor is the primary receiver of intraabdominal pressure and therefore solely responsible for preventing prolapse. In reality, the lower abdominal wall takes most of the force of intraabdominal pressure. The pelvic floor shares - albeit less than equally - that role. With every breath we take the pelvic organs are being pushed into the rounded lower belly.

Although we have sometimes referred to the organs as being positioned “over the pubic bones”, this has been an expedient in helping women understand they have no “hole” at the bottom of their torso over which their pelvic organs are precariously perched. The pelvic outlet is at the back of the body and in normal anatomy the cervix is positioned directly over and high above the pubic bones, with the body of the uterus near the lower abdominal wall.

Gynecologists and urogynecologists will finally be able to help women see these concepts for themselves through standing MRI. Insist on access to this technology.

The standing MRI will also allow women to see that pessaries, such as the Colpexin Sphere, hold the vaginal walls open and in doing so allow internal pressures to squeeze neighboring organs into the vaginal space. In real time women will be able to see a developing rectocele before their very eyes!

What they won’t be able to see is the toxicity of the plastic pessary.

The polycarbonate Colpexin Sphere was developed by the medical supply company, Adamed, located in Warsaw, Poland. The device is marketed to women through urogynecologists - many of whom hold stock in the company. It is the first plastic pessary to be given serious attention by some doctors in the U.S. For many decades FDA approved pessaries have been made strictly from medical grade solid silicone - an inert, non-toxic material.

Bishenol-A (BPA) is the building block of polycarbonate plastic and is ubiquitous in our culture in the form of baby bottles, re-useable water bottles, and countless other household items. Numerous studies have found that BPA leaches from these sources and it was first recognized in the 1990‘s that the plasticizer is causing serious endocrine disruption in both humans and the natural world. In August 2007, over 30 scientific experts on BPA, known as the Chapel Hill Panel, published a consensus statement in the peer-reviewed journal Reproductive Toxicology, illuminating the adverse health effects occurring in animals at levels within the range of exposure that is typical for humans living in developed countries. Those effects include:

• Endocrine disruption
• Recurrent miscarriage
• Altered mammary gland development
• Altered brain development and behavior
• Insulin resistance

Recent studies have linked exposure to the estrogenic actions of BPA to increased incidence of breast cancer throughout the developed world. Bisphenol molecules have also been verified in 63.8% of endometriotic women.

Even before science identified BPA as a major health concern, plastic was never considered a reasonable material to be placed vaginally.

Bisphenol-A polycarbonate has been commercially available since the 1960s, and its use in medical devices dates from approximately that time. The hard, clear plastic can be found as valves, tube fittings, and syringes. Although the Colpexin Sphere is marketed as “medical grade” plastic, there is no difference in BPA levels between this and any other polycarbonate product.

The fact that BPA is leaching from food cans, drink cartons and water bottles is a major health concern worldwide. That some providers of women’s healthcare would even consider placing a plastic ball for long periods of time within the acidic and highly absorptive environment of the vagina is shocking and untenable. If your doctor prescribes and is heavily marketing the Colpexin Sphere it is reasonable to ask whether she/he holds stock in Adamed.

In fact, the time has come for all women to request from their doctors full disclosure of the medical and pharmaceutical companies in which these practitioners hold shares or to whom they consult. It is sobering to learn of the incestuous relationship between doctors and the companies that pay them for professional marketing of their products and the conflict of interest that represents between doctors and the women they serve.

Here is a list of just a few of our most prominent gynecologists and some of the companies they work for, have worked for, or hold stock in:

1. J.O.L. DeLancey: Consultant for: Johnson & Johnson, SURx, Gynecare, Kimberly Clark, Lilly Pharmaceuticals, Bio Logic Engineering.
2. P.K. Sand: Consultant for: Ortho, McNeil Pharmaceutical, Watson Pharmaceuticals, American Medical Systems, Indevus Pharmaceuticals, Yamanouchi, Pfizer, Boston Scientific,
   Roche, Mentor, Bioform. Professional speaker for: American Medical Systems, Boston Scientific, Ortho, McNeil Pharmaceutical, Watson Pharmaceuticals.
3. G.W. Davila: Consultant for: AMS, Tyco/US Surgical, Watson Pharmaceuticals, Warner-Chilcott/Galen, Protein Polymer Technologies, Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Synovis, Roche.
4. M.L. Polan: Consultant for: Berlex, Proctor & Gamble, Dupont. Shareholder: Wyeth, Quidel.
5. G.W. Cundiff: Consultant for: Lilly Pharmaceuticals

The problem with the medical system is that it is run by doctors and policed by doctors. The system and the research is all funded by big pharma which has only one agenda: create more pills, equipment and supplies for doctors to prescribe, use or consume on their typically unwitting patients. There is no oversight of the system by any parties who are not the product of the system or embedded in it. It has a life of its own and its interests are not at any level necessarily aligned with the interests of women.

Nowhere is the expression caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) more relevant than in medical services.

(Inaccurate Anatomy illustration is from Dr. Romanzi's blog and the Colpexin Sphere illustration from Adamed)