Prolapse

I have been trying to do pelvic floor exercises but cant feel anything.What can I do?

Answer is not in kegels.

Watch the you tube video of how to stand in posture. That is the first and EXCELLENT thing u can do right away. The women here will have great advice, suggestions soon. Hang in there, things will get better!

Thanks I will look it up now .I dont want to have surgery!

Don't have surgery.

Hi Car

I am not quite sure that I understand your question. Do you mean from week to week, or during the day, or something else? Are you trying to diagnose yourself?

Louise

Hi Car

Well, that's a curly one. I am post-menopause, but I remember when I was still having periods that my whole pelvic region felt kinda swollen, and it was harder to keep POP symptoms at bay in the second half of my cycle. I also used to get constipated during that time, and then loose bowel motions the first couple of days of menstruation. This seems to be quite normal for lots of women. I think it is the constipation that causes the swollen feeling, and also makes the cervix come lower.

Try Searching Monthly cycle or menstrual cycle. You will probably get more hits than you can handle! All this means is that the menstrual cycle is a significant factor in POP management.

Comments, anyone?

Louise

Yes, my cervix still moves up and down over the month. All relative to its new lower starting position. During my period to about one week after it is about one knuckle inside. Then it starts to move up till ovulation and then it starts to come back down again.

My POP discomfort doesn't appear to correlate with my cervix position though. Like Louise said, I get some inflammation of all my pelvic tissues around ovulation, and I seem to get more gas in my bowels then, and that is when I feel everything the most even though my cervix is up highest (well, sort of) then. Since using WW posture, I don't feel the stuck-tampon so much, but now I get a pressure-feeling in my rectum. I think my cervix is pushing on the back wall and makes me feel like there is something in my rectum.

HI can Pelvic toners help a prolapse?

We are not big fans of them. Some women feel they have made their muscles stronger for sex, while others believe they have worsened their rectocele. Hopefully you will receive other replies.

Christine

My uterus is not prolapsed (or who knows, really, I have cystocele and some rectocele for sure) but my cervix moves up and down a bit. It is higher in the morning and lower in the evening. Around ovulation it stays pretty high though.

This is what I observed.
Liv

In April I started feeling a bulging that became irritated sometimes. So I mentioned it to the nurse practitioner when I went for my annual check up. She recommended a pessary but I wanted a more permanent solution. Two weeks ago I visited a OB/GYN recommended by my CNP. The OB/GYN of course immediately said I would need a hysterectomy, bladder lift and repair of the front and rear vaginal walls! I accepted it but have been very worried for the past two weeks about it so yesterday I began searching and found the Whole Woman! While I understand it's not a permanent fix it certainly does seem to me that's it much more sensible than risky surgery. I ordered the whole woman bundle and can't wait for it to get here. What can I do in the meantime to begin on this journey of helping myself feel better? I have been searching the site some but not learning all the techniques. I have been in a wellness program for the past year and 3 months and have lost 50 some lbs. which has helped my overall health. I try to eat healthy, exercise (interval walking) and practice cognitive restructuring. I hope this program will be a good blend and reenforcement of what I am currently doing. Thanks for your help.

Dear Sheepherder

Condolences sheepherder, we can all relate to your initial shock and horror and your long wait to find out what best to do is getting on to three months now. It seems like the medic has quite a surgery planned for you. If you have uterine cancer or something similar I can understand the extensiveness of the plan and the urgency, but if it is simply a prolapse of pelvic organs i.e. POP then second thoughts would seem advisable at this point in order to reconsider and reassess.

As to advice in the interim, first, foremost and last is the WW posture. In our fraught first moments of discovering prolapse, the WW posture can seem too simplistic, too magic formula like when as a child we counted to three, but many women on this site can assure you that it is the one, single most powerful thing you can do that brings immediate benefit in bringing the prolapsed organ/s up and forward over the pelvic bone.

The posture requires you to pull your chest up with your head/neck also held high and straight with chin relaxed and shoulders flat and arms down hanging loose. Type posture into the search box and you will find much discussion on it. It’s not easy for many of us to grasp at first as somehow our back muscles don’t take readily to the strain, but Rome was not built in a day and neither does the restrengthening of back and neck muscles happen in a day.

If you are young and otherwise healthy, prolapse can be very quickly managed as youthful healing is on your side; if you are older the posture still works its bountiful promise, but may take a little longer.

There are other things that you can be doing in the meanwhile such as going on to a good diet, the point of which is to reduce intra-abdominal pressure, make sure you wear comfortable clothes that do not restrict your abdomen, realize that you are not alone in your condition and that there are people to talk to here who will not be telling you what you should do, but what you can do, and gaining as much information as possible about the mooted operations and thus placing yourself in a better position to make the best decisions for you. I guess in a way I am suggesting you slow down and give yourself a chance.

Best wishes

Hi Sheepherder

I totally agree with Fab, and would add that you can go to YouTube and look at Christine Kent's channel, Wholewomaninc, where there are excerpts from the DVDs. This will get you started until your bundle arrives.

Louise

Thank you for the advice. I do wish I had stumbled upon this info a few months or even a few years ago. I am 52 right now. I even had the surgery scheduled but cancelled it yesterday! I will have to check out the video on you tube.
My only other question is that my wellness lifestyle strategist, who has helped me the last 15 mos to lose the weight and become more healthy also agrees that I should not have surgery. She looked at the whole woman website and felt that it was just "hype" and said that it did not seem to be professional. At this point I'm trusting that I've made the right decision because the people on these forums are getting results.
I'm also assuming that it will be something I have to commit to doing for the rest of my life, just as my wellness program is, which is ok by me.

Great question. I've had a hysterectomy but still have the cervix. It seems that the cervix is more prolapsed at times. I have to be very careful not to strain. Lying down can be a comfortable position. I'm in the beginning stages of all of this because before two months ago, I didn't know I had a POP.
Sometimes I feel sense of burning with the POP from the cervix. Does anyone feel that? I know my situation is different than many of you b.c. I don't have a uterus, but I will keep working on the posture and exercises. Any suggestions to make the beginning stages of this easier would be helpful.
The WW Yoga DVD just came in the mail yesterday. It was hard for me because of my hip stiffness and arthritis. I can see that it is going to take a lot of patience and take a lot of learning, but I'm determined to do all that I can to put off the surgery as long as I can,

Hi Sheepherder

Your wellness lifestyle strategist has obviously been very valuable for you, in helping you to achieve the results you want. I have many professionals who have helped me to achieve my aims too. However, no one professional is the final word on everything, eg we have two different orthopaedic surgeons that members of our family have used, one of whom specialises in hips, and the other in knees. They are actually brothers, and refer to each other. They don't purport to know as much as each other about their chosen specialty, and they certainly wouldn't say that something they knew nothing about was 'hype' (at least I don't think they would). I have used chiropractors in the past. Our daughter had an unexpected cure of her incontinence at age 6. Some chiropractic treatment I had for a sore back landed me in hospital for a month of 24/7 traction, and I am now very wary of chiropractic treatment for myself. It is horses for courses.

As with every health decision each of us makes, we have to assess it for ourselves and either buy it, do further research to help us assess its relevance and veracity, or dismiss it straight away. This is what taking responsibility for our own health and our own healing is all about.

It is up to your wellness lifestyle strategist to assess Wholewoman for herself. Many women have reported that their health professionals have made similar comments and gone on to have great success with Wholewoman techniques. Some women call a couple of times and we never hear from them again. We truly don't know whether they have had a lot of success and no need to continue posting or whether they found it did not help at all, and chose to dismiss it.

My personal experience has been very successful, over the last six years. This may be because I had asthma, which aggravated my prolapses badly at the time of POP diagnosis, to the point where my cervix, bladder and rectum would be right at the entrance to my vagina at different times. I am now free of asthma, and basically free of POP symptoms 99% of the time. My recent topic Well Woman Check, and my personal story in the Personal Stories Forum, both attest to the effectiveness *for me* of Wholewoman techniques. Is that evidence of hype? Your experience could end up as successful as mine. If it doesn't, then you always have the option of a surgical repair. If you have a surgical repair now, and you run into subsequent re-prolapse, your body's natural structure will have been altered, and the maximium potential for Wholewoman techniques working for you *will* be reduced.

Your wellness lifestyle strategist is welcome to contact me by joining the site and making email contact with me to discuss it. We could have a Skype conversation about it too. I am not saying that she is wrong about Wholewoman, simply that it takes more than a cursory glance at the website to understand what it Wholewoman techniques are about.

BTW, weight loss appears to have a similar effect on a woman's body as recovering from a pregnancy, in that her body suddenly changes shape once again after gaining weight slowly. All the skin will be looser for a while, and all the internal soft tissue (fascia) will also be loose for a while. She may never gain back her original shape inside or outside. Genes also seem to play a part in this. However, if you give it the two years recovery (stability of your weight loss) that we suggest for postpartum Mums, you will get a better idea of your longterm POP state.

BTW2, not a single medical practitioner or other therapist has been able to prove that Christine Kent is wrong. They may dismiss it and mutter disparaging comments about it under their breath, but they have not been able to come up with evidence that anything Christine asserts is false. The site has now been going for eight or so years. I would have thought they would be able to come up with something after eight years. I think they have not because they do not have the evidence to challenge it, and it is not in their interests to admit that.

What do you have to lose by seeing how far you can get your POPs under your control with the assistance of Wholewoman for the next 18 months or so?

Louise

Louise,
Thank you for your comments. I'm sorry if it sounded like I was going to believe my wellnes lifestyle strategist. (BTW - she recommends Kegels!) Of course after reading the info from WholeWoman I understand that Kegels will not help the problem. I have not learned the WWposture yet but have begun to be aware of my sitting posture at least and feel somewhat better. When I get the Whole Woman bundle I plan to go ahead and use it and when I feel comfortable enough about it I will share it with her. She has to do a lot of research before she believes something is valuable for her clients. As with the program I've been on I know it will take diligence and some time. And I know it's a lifestyle change, and I'm willing to do it. I only hope that in being helped I will be able to help others. My doctor also said that the weight loss could have affected this becoming a worse problem. He mentioned genetics as well. My dear grandmother began to notice prolapse after bearing 4 children, but then went on to have 14 more! She was on the heavy side as long as I knew her, and I know she had a problem later in life because she had a pessary. Somehow the problem skipped to me, because my mother had 7 of us and doesn't have any problems with prolapse that I know of, except she did have a hysterectomy in her 50's to remove a large tumor/cyst. She is thin & petite and works hard physically and has always been healthy. I have a history of IBS which was sometimes diarhea & sometimes constipation. So I'm sure the years of straining have not helped. Also, I was obese for 20 years. And whenever I would get a bad cough I know that pressure was not helping. I'm anxious to get started. The worst bulging I have felt lately is when I sing in the choir at church. I have been working on diaphramatic breathing with my program and know it will help with my prolapse too once I know how to do it correctly. Thanks for your time.

Hi again Sheepherder,

I did not mention in my earlier post how impressed I was that you had lost 50lbs in 1 year and 3 months, (albeit sharing Louised’s concern for subsequent loose fascia after dramatic weightloss). Having the benefit of the advice of a Wellbeing strategist or not, it was you who did the work. It was your dedication, your vision, your need and sacrifice that got you over the line. What a tremendous effort you have made. Based on that achievement alone, I can’t see any reason why you would fail this next challenge that life has sent you.

You are correct to say that managing POP is a life changing experience, and that it will require diligence to manage POP. Each person has to achieve victories at their own pace; some will be quick, others slower, but it must all be understood and accepted according to the needs and destiny of the individual. If you have a look at the latest posts from CSF (who is approximately the same age as yourself) you will find that it took her only 6 weeks of dedicated effort to manage her POP, taking from the advice given by the women here on this site and creatively applying it according to her own instincts and thoughtful decisions. I, on the other hand somewhat older and cautious, and finding this site somewhat later in my POP history am more slowly, but steadily achieving a good management.

The wonderful thing about the Wholewoman Village is that it is a resource, generously offered by Christine and the contributors to this forum to help you heal yourself. I think the strongest criticism of Alcoholic Anonymous is that you are theirs for life. No-one is Wholewoman’s for life. If you are no longer an alcoholic, no longer overweight, no longer suffering from POP, you are cured. If your condition deteriorates at a later date, you can seek further advice and help anew then. If, as most often happens, you remain perfectly able to manage your POP on your own then you are free to fondly let them go.

But we all would like you to stick around long enough to tell us, and any newbies what you did, and what you found worked for you. That’s a debt. In this way the pool of knowledge grows into a wider pool from which women can choose those particularly valuable things that will help them personally on their POP journey.

Best wishes and happy singing

I was very frustrated yesterday when I tried the exercises with the DVD for the first time. Several things are in play here. I walk intervals of slow and fast for exercise and realized I should probably do that to warm up before the WW workout. But I am very uncoordinated and not graceful with movement and also very stiff. I have shoulder issues with painful bone spurs and lack of strength resulting from that so holding the baton above head, even my arms above my head is difficult as well. I had never done a ballet or yoga move in my life! I had difficulty sitting on my tucked under feet in order to do the pelvic rocks. Also I tried to work through all the workouts, beginner and advanced. Today was a little better as I went for my walk first, then did only the beginner part of the workout. Should I just work on mastering that first?
I also have a problem with 2 other things. First, I lift and carry and move things too heavy for me. Second, even though I consume more fresh vegetables and fruit and fiber and water than I ever have in my life I still have to strain sometimes to go the bathroom. I really have to slow down and concentrate on letting my body do the work. I am bending over to go, too, which I feel has helped. I'm afraid to start adding too much fiber at once because I can also have diarhreaa & fecal incontinence at times. I'm working on the WW posture and can tell a difference. I do believe my uterus has moved up a little. Please give any advice that will help me.

Hi Sheepherder,

Sorry you are struggling. Yes, start slowly and don’t push yourself. The exercises could be anything (in WW posture!) and those are simply what I chose. Holding the baton overhead with shoulders pulled down dramatically strengthens the shoulder girdle and helps to reinforce natural spinal curvature.

All kinds of women have all kinds of limitations and this is why I am in the process of producing a wide range of exercise options. If you cannot hold the baton above your head, try crossing and grasping your forearms behind your back. This too fortifies the posture. Place a pillow or two under your bottom when sitting on the soles of your feet, which will take the strain off your thigh muscles.

Understand that it isn’t *this* particular workout that is going to reverse your symptoms. In fact, if you are working beyond your limits in sub-optimum posture, you may be placing more, rather than less, pressure on your pelvic organs. Think about it: when the spine is hunched over and the belly automatically pulled in - even a little bit - internal pressures that in normal anatomy pin your organs into position at the front of your body, are working instead to push them further backward toward the pelvic outlet.

Lifting is a very individual issue. Some women refuse to lift a bag of groceries, while others are moving boulders and lifting fenceposts. I think the general consensus is to lift wisely (I have one demonstration of lifting in the dvd), not excessively, and understand that symptoms made worse by lifting are reversible with proper care and rest. I, for one, did a lot of heavy lifting into my early fifties, but the time does come for all of us when those days are in the past. Be gentle with yourself.

If you are leaning forward when increasing intraabdominal pressure and *not* straining against the toilet seat, your organs are protected. The same dynamics that pin the organs into the hollow of the lower belly clamp down even more so under increased pressure. All animals strain some - that is what the urge to push is all about. Feces don’t just drop out of the body, but must be pushed out. Not to worry as long as you are in a half-squat position.

Yes, don’t radically change your diet all at once. Bit by bit while paying close attention to what your body is telling you.

Hope you find this helpful.

Christine

This was helpful and reassuring. I'm still working on all facets of the WW posture, and have started to use it while walking. I have read "Saving the Whole Woman" up to about halfway through the chapter on surgical intervention. I am so glad I found this website! After reading it I hope that I will never need surgery. I feel badly for all the women who have had to go through such debilitating surgical procedures. I am also very impressed and thankful for the amount of scientific anatomical information you included. Even though it may be hard to read and understand it is very helpful in explaining something most of us know little about. I now realize that my problems probably started with the birth of my first child 31 years ago, because I was told to push before my body was ready and with each episiotomy I had (I had 3). Thanks for helping me to understand.

Hi I am very worried my prolapse is getting worse .I tried exercises but it is getting worse .I stand alot in my job!

Hi Springtime, can you explain a little more about your prolapse, what type of exercises you've been doing, and whether or not you have had any surgeries? Have you adopted WW posture? - Surviving60

Hi I havent been doing exercises apart from swimming.I had laser treatment for abnormal cells about 25years ago .I havent adopted WW posture !

Hi Springtime, Just one question. Is their a reason you have not been doing or adopted the WW Posture???? The WW Posture is very important with a prolapse.

Jaylove

I will give it ago