Newbie in Mexico!

Submitted by JSS23 on November 24, 2012 - 11:30am
Body: 

Hello everyone - I'm a 66-year old retired gal living in Mexico - just last week I learned I have cystocele and of course the first thing the doctor proposed was surgery - though he did say "if you can learn to manage this we may be able to put it off for a few years" - which is better news than what I gather a lot of you on this forum hear. I've ordered Christine's DVD and book, but they will take a couple of weeks to reach me here, so I'm doing what I can of the exercises I found online, until the materials arrive.

Can anyone give me some guidance about how often to do the exercises on the YouTube and Christine's free videos? Number of reps of each, number of sets, how many times a day? Just the more the merrier? Also, I want to purchase the yoga DVDs too - which one of the three should come first? Or, realistically, do you just need to get all of them? Is there a "correct" order for beginning to work with the yoga DVDs?

Ironically, my doctor also says my problem may have come from genetics (it is true that both my mom and sister have had these problems) but exacerbated by the fact that over the past couple of years I've lost about 70 pounds. And, thinking I was going to now finally get myself strong, I've been lifting weights, working diligently with a trainer three times a week, and inadvertently probably wrecking myself. So now it's back to square one and I am bound and determined NOT to have the surgery, even if I have to buy a lifetime supply of sponges, tampons, cotton balls, and anything else I can stick up there plus do the exercises till the cows come home!

This is a wonderful forum and website and I am so glad to have found it!

Thanks---

Forum:

MsNightingale

November 24, 2012 - 12:47pm

Welcome to this site and how I love Mexico !! Are you from there or did you retire there? It sounds like you have a wonderful attitude and are willing to just get started! Good for you. Have you looked about on this site much yet? You will want to search around and enter questions into the search tab and post as often as you want. The very first thing is for you to adopt this WW posture. Go to the FAQs tab and pull down the video of Christine explaining your new posture. It takes some work but it is ever so worth it. If you are able, and it sounds like you are, start taking walks in this posture....slow and mindful. It is not about how much of anything you do here, it is how mindful you are of staying in posture. Once you have it (and if you are normal, you will ache a bit and feel sore in the first couple of weeks) you will realize how beautiful it is and how strong you can be. I believe that many of us have experienced some prolapse following significant weight loss although I do not think it causes it. I too am in my 60s and I think there have been many contributing factors. The most important step for you now is to work on the posture. When you get your Prolapse DVD then take your time....do a little at a time and build yourself up slowly. They seem easy in some ways but I overdid it at first and really like to warn you of how much you have to gain by working it little by little. Some of us try for every day, and others do a couple times a week....that you will figure out. So, relax your tummy, lift your chest, breath nicely and calmly into that soft tummy, lift the crown of your head slightly and you are ready to go. This is your new self. I send you all the very best and look forward to hearing back from you dear JSS23.

Surviving60

November 24, 2012 - 5:59pm

Hi JSS and welcome. Just here to say hello and emphasize what Ms N. has written. The exercises help to reinforce the posture, and it is ALL about the posture. You have to be in that posture when you do the exercises, so start getting used to the feel of it right away. This isn't so much an exercise program as a new way of living. I've been doing this work for 2-1/2 years, also in my 60's and can truly say that I have never been better. Managing my 'celes is just part of it....this is about preserving healthy hips and spine throughout life. Restoring lower lumbar curvature not only supports the pelvic contents (enabling one to live perfectly well with prolapse) but helps prevent that hump of the upper spine that so many women develop. This posture seats the torso correctly over the hip joints and protect those joints as we age. Christine's work is a gift to womankind, but so many women are unable to get past the standard medical view of prolapse, and really take their health into their own hands. I am so grateful to be here and wish every woman could "get" what this is all about. Good luck to you and keep posting! - Surviving

JSS23

November 24, 2012 - 7:19pm

Thank you both so much for responding -- I really appreciate it!

I am indeed an American retired in Mexico – we’ve been here six years and we love it here.

I have spent a lot of time checking out posts and videos on the website and even on YouTube. I of course should have mentioned that I have been working on the posture, and like so many newbies, I am concerned that I’m not doing it right. Though it sort of FEELS like I’m at least headed in the right direction. I’m copying the instructions as best I can and trying to relax my stomach and pull my head up as much as possible. I am not seeing a direct correlation with “you relax your stomach, the fallen bladder goes right back up” – but I am bashing away at it and overall, I am sensing that as I get better at the posture I will feel improvement overall. Actually I feel better psychologically, if nothing else, now, knowing that I can really probably opt out of the surgery altogether and this forum and website are a godsend.

I will take seriously both your suggestions about taking it easy once the DVD and book arrive. I think that was my problem with the exercise regimen I was on before – I was having so much fun acting like a 40-year old and doing a 40-year-old’s workout as part of my weight loss journey, that I probably really helped to spring those tendons and ligaments in there with too many crunches. Oh well, onward and upward! (Upward being the direction I want my bladder to go!)

MsNightingale

November 24, 2012 - 8:06pm

You are off to a great start and wasting no time. You are so right....it is hard to know if you are doing it correctly, but I like what you said...heading in the right direction. You will be tweeking away at it constantly. You will not immediately feel like up with the posture, up with the prolapse (although wouldnt that be wonderful). Instead, as you put this into your life, little by little you will be giving your organs their correct place on the front ab wall up over the pubic bone. It doesnt happen over night. It sounds like you were in the habit of pulling the tummy in, and maybe tucking the tailbone as well, as so many exercise and yoga classes do. In time as you learn to relax there, along with the alignment of this posture, you should notice that things are moving in the right direction. Best wishes to you.

louiseds

November 24, 2012 - 8:43pm

Hi JSS23

Don't write off your normal exercise program yet. The WW exercise program is primarily about strengthening the muscles that are needed for maintaining the alignment of WW posture and making your body flexible. We don't specify a certain number of reps or sets. Your body will tell you when to stop each exercise. They are not meant to be gruelling, but build strength and flexibility slowly. Try doing them carefully and mindfully every day, but a few times a week is OK too. Just fit in a few exercises or a few reps when you have a minute or two. All over the world women are doing releves and plies at the checkout, using shopping trolleys as a barre; or foot circles while sitting at the bus station! ;-)

Once you really understand the principles behind WW work you will know instinctively when an exercise that somebody gives you is not right for your POPs, and you will probably be able to modify it or substitute a WW exercise that does the same job in a different way.

Congratulations on your weight loss. It will take some time for your skin and connective tissue to shrink back after big weight loss, just like after having a baby. Allow a year or two after you have finished losing weight before panicking about residual prolapse.

Brisk walking with long strides in WW posture is a wonderful cardio workout. You can carry or wear some weights to give yourself harder work.

How to do the exercises most effectively is all explained on the DVD. Call back with more questions when you have read the book and tried the DVD. This Forum is full of women who have their own experiences with the same issues.

Louise

Surviving60

November 25, 2012 - 9:07am

Yes, do lay off the crunches and weight-training, give your body time to learn the posture and incorporate it into every aspect of your life. As Louise said, you can get plenty of the right kind of exercise between WW workouts and lots of walking. Then, further down the road, you will have the ability to gauge what's good and what's bad for prolapse.

Think of the posture as moving things FORWARD, not upward. That's what's actually happening, and it will make it easier for you to visualize the connection between this work and your prolapse. Keep belly relaxed, chest pulled up, and get used to the feeling of giving your organs someplace to go, so they aren't crowding the vaginal space. Good luck! - Surviving

JSS23

November 25, 2012 - 4:09pm

Hello all - thanks so much for all your comments - I've been doing the exercises I know how to do from what's available "free" online till my book and DVD come here, and I already feel better. I've been doing the new Kegels, and even just getting onto all fours and sort of jiggling around till things move forward makes me feel much better. Somewhere here on some post someone suggested using a tampon - I went out yesterday and bought some of those super absorbent ones -- I figured, easily available in Mexico, sanitary, inexpensive, why not try? WHAT A DIFFERENCE! I've had it in all day long and it's the first day I feel like my old self. While I am busy hopefully retraining my muscles to hold everything where it was before the prolapse, this surely buys me some time. Such a simple solution and I am not even aware that anything is out of place!

Meanwhile I am indeed trying to incorporate the posture into every minute, but you're all right, it is a lot of work to keep oneself conscious, especially now that I don't notice anything wrong.

But I am definitely working on it!

Thanks again for all your advice!