Severe Pelvic Organ Prolapse

I have a severe pelvic organ prolapse involving my prolapsed uterus, prolapsed bladder, and irritable bowel syndrome, with all three becoming more severe in the past 3 months.

My osteopathic doctor is pressuring me to get a hysterectomy, and seems to think I am self-destructive for not getting it right away.

I am wanting to get a second opinion within another health care system which has an "Alternatives to Hysterectomy" clinic, and am waiting for a phone call about it.

I have survived extreme domestic violence, including having been stalked for almost 10 years by my ex-husband, as well as being sexually abused, as a girl child.

I have lived on public assistance in order to heal the severe post-traumatic stress I developed as a result of being the target of this violence. This assistance does not provide enough food stamps to actuallly live on, so one is forced to go to emergency food banks and to subsist on devitalized foods. One is also forced to go to low-income health clinics who do not treat low income women, especially midlife women, very well, or very equitably, compassionately, empoweringly, or informatively. I was unaware at the time, yet now I feel these factors helped me to develop prolapsed pelvic organs.

Public assistance, itself, is a form of institutionalized oppression, in my opinion.

I have used the public assistance, however, to heal from the post traumatic stress significantly, through EMDR Therapy, and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. and Traditional Chinese Medicine [Acupuncture, Shiatsu, and Qigong]

I haven't been in a sexual relationship for years while recovering. But since I am now recovering from the domestic violence, I now feel ready for an intimate relationship with a man.

But while I have been healing the post traumatic stress trauma, my pelvic organs have been prolapsing. The low income health clinic doctor I saw a few years ago told me of the prolapses, but gave absolutely no information on what I could do to heal it, or prevent it from getting worse.

So I had despaired that I may not be attractive to a man with these prolapses. It wasn't until I read in Saving the Whole Woman about how one's lover probably wouldn't even notice the prolapse! That thought hadn't occurred to me, I had felt so much shame and embarrassment about the prolapses!

Now, I have moved to another state and to another health care system where a female gynecologist within my HMO strongly recommended a hysterectomy after her attempt to fit me with a pessary, of any size or shape she had, failed.

I very strongly prefer to heal using Christine's approach, if at all possible, plus using Qigong [I took a workshop with a Qigong master who told me my prolapses would heal by doing a lot of Qigong practise.]

I have already been the target of plenty of violence for being female in a very patriarchal society. I prefer not to add to it by allowing myself to be hysterectomized.

I intend to be as loving and self-respecting and healing towards myself and my female organs as I can. I intend to celebrate the beauty and wonder of my femaleness.

I think probably abdominal massage, femoral massage [one Traditional Chinese Medicine website recommended that femoral massage to increase the blood flow to one's uterus to increase fertility, and yoga, and aerobic exercises, like walking, swimming, calisthenics, biking, would also help. I have started to do more regular aerobic exercises, too.

Part of me feels hopeless about the severe POP and the pressure to have a hysterectomy which I feel would probably experience as very emotionally devastating to me. I have been very physically out of shape, have developed diabetes, from feeling disempowered by depending on public assistance/disability.

Yet, another part of me is a very fierce peacable warrior who has dreams I still want to fulfill, like returning to school, writing professionally, returning to work, travelling, starting and running a small business, and finding a lover or husband. I have already survived many "hopeless" and "impossible" things!

I am very gifted, talented, intelligent, and have a lot of formal education
and life experience which I want to use to contribute to my society. I am a fine artist, designer, writer, seamstress, and have worked in health care.

I possess a strong passion for holistic and complimentary health care, after witnessing my mother, a wife of a career military man's treatment by harsh, insensitive, very patriarchal military doctors, who had her lie on a very hard table while in labor when giving birth to me and my siblings, gave her drugs to sedate her outrage about the sexist way she was treated as a career military wife by my dad's military "higher-ups," and these drugs eventually destroyed her mind, as I watched her self-destruct. These insensitive doctors threw drugs at her in response to her extreme despair about being treated with violence as a little girl and as a wife.

I have been learning a lot of information about being "Healthy at 100," the title of a book by John Robbins of the Baskin Robbins family.

He shares that it is very possible to extend one's life using principles and practises he's learned about very long-living, very healthy people, who live to 100 and beyond in excellent health.

This information is helping me to let go of internalized ageism and sexism I have towards myself, absorbed from the oppressive aspects of our Western "civilization," and to be aware of how to have excellent very fresh organic nutrition.

I would appreciate some encouragement and emotional support: Is it still possible to manage these prolapses without surgery, even though the female gynecologist says it's severe???? [My uterus has only decended a few more millimeters, I think, and has not fallen completely out of my vagina. My urinary incontinence has worsened such that now I really have to run to the toilet very quickly as soon as I am aware of the urge to go, and a tiny bit more urine leaks out of my urethra. My irritable bowel syndrome has been activated more the past few days. I am considering doing an herbal colon cleanse program. Has anyone within the Whole Woman Village done one? Did it feel safe, helpful?

Thanks!
Wise Woman