new member menopause

Dear angel,
Welcome to the forum. I congratulate you on all the work you have done thus far. I am sorry to hear about the fibroid tumor. It does appear to be very large. I am not sure what I would do in your situation.
You say you are using apple cider and honey. I find the honey helpful. You can also drink water with some apple cider (1 or 2 teaspoonsful) and this might be helpful. Starting the day with warm lemon water (juice from half a lemon) may also be helpful. Christine has made a salve from red clover and this preparation may be under resources and her living arts videos.
You can also try to do some of the exercises seated in a chair in WW posture. Fire breathing and belly rolls can be done this way. That might give you some relief.
You have waited a long time for the fibroid to shrink. Maybe you should give it a bit more time before you make a decision. You are experiencing a lot of symptoms at once and it is very frustrating.
I would also try some meditating and visualization work. Definitely try to get more sleep. You can try to take a few whiffs of a hops and lavendar mixture (grind up equal parts and add some sea salt to preserve it). This may help you fall asleep and stay more soundly asleep for part of the night . There are also calming and sleep inducing DVDs available quite readily. I have used these and found them helpful.
I'm not sure I have been any help. I hope that your situation becomes more positive shortly.
Good luck,
WWPA

What kind of surgery are your doctors saying that you need, Angel? I would guess they are pushing hysterectomy, because that's the usual response even to fibroids much less severe than yours. Some will perform a myomectomy and just take the fibroid; but those surgeons are harder to find. You might consider contacting the HERS Foundation. They can counsel you and possibly locate a trustworthy surgeon in your part of the country to give you a better idea of your options. That uterus is worth saving. We can help you deal with the rest. Good luck to you - Surviving

I would just like to talk about uterine prolapse in general, it might only reinforce what you knew yourself already or have already picked up here, but mostly to separate out a little more the two issues you are dealing with. Taking note that I did not have a large fibroid.

During peri menopause my uterus was constantly up and down with the rhythm of my monthly cycle. I too was hopeful that with the cessation of mense the uterus would sit back where it belonged. I read that wrong. Instead it stayed down.

Your instincts are telling you that your uterus is keeping everything else up and this appears from where I am standing a major concern that after the hysterectomy that there is a good chance you may have further prolapses of bladder or rectocele because your fascia has been stretched. Instincts (in this case I think, reasoned logic) should of course be listened to and acted upon. But what to do at this point?

I too found great difficulty even in pushing the uterus up at first. I thought the intestines may have been hanging low and pushing down on it. Then I also thought like you that my uterus was fat. Acting on these two concerns spurred me to fix my diet so that I had as little gas as possible and that my regularity was enforced, and secondly, I decided to lose weight; thinking fat me = fat uterus. This however takes time. I am no radical dietary/exerciser. It has taken me two years.

Firebreathing is hard when your uterus is down. Now that I have stabilised things in my intestines (probiotics and magnesium), and lost weight (10 kgs, 22lbs) I found that if I bent over at the hips, my hands on the floor and derriere in the air, it was an excellent position for firebreathing because I could now lift the uterus inside and then firebreath and I could feel the vacuum. I can also diaphragm breathe rapidly while in this position and it is like the pelvic cave opens wide. You have to stick your fingers in to feel that, if you are game enough, if not there is no rush.

Yes, the sleeplessness is a problem. I am not sure how best to work on that. I was afraid to take sleeping tablets as both my mother and mother-in-law did and I was not sure they were a good idea. Just my personal take on that. I became a 2 0’clock in the morning avid reader of just about anything and I am sure that too was not the best of solutions. I have read that it is due to low levels of free testosterone and free androgens, in other words, the male hormones which cause this. But really my knowledge on these things is less than basic.

At menopause women even without prolapse can suffer recurrent vaginal and bladder inflammation as you probably realise already. Obviously, the prolapse will not help. From my limited knowledge I gained the impression that the medics put this down to low levels of oestrogen or high Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) and either too little or too much of the Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG) and so want to supplement with HRT. So I can see how the estrogen dominance is problematic in more ways than one for you. And why you would be wary of red clover tea. Aussie soul sister suggested coconut oil to keep things lubricated and I have been doing that and plus I like the smell. But my problem was dryness not irritation.

Prolapsed uterus experienced without fibroid:
It can be heavy
It can be almost impossible to push up
It can hang out through the vagina for most of the day
It can be dry
It can chafe and bleed
It can pull on your groin and make walking difficult
It interferes with voiding and elimination by pressing upon the relevant organs
All of these things can be attended to and relieved and bettered.

And I haven't mentioned any of the benefits of keeping your uterus. I take from what you have said you are even more aware of these matters than most.

Now, can I suggest you have a closer look at the Fibroid and see what it is doing apart from the prolapsed uterus.

Best of luck and good wishes to you, Fab

Hi Angel

Yes, definitely look at the HERS Foundation site, www.hersfoundation.com , e hysterectomy.

Don't write off red clover. It is a very weak oestrogen, but is very good at occupying oestrogen receptors to prevent other types of oestrogen metabolites park there, and make them stay in the bloodstream where they will be filtered out by the kidneys and excreted. Gone! Not sure if will have the effect desired for your uterus. I suggest that you consult a qualified herbalist about this. A consultation with Christine might also be useful. Also, see if you can buy or borrow from the library either Womens Health Women's Wisdom, or the Wisdom of Menopause, both by Christiane Northrup. She addresses oestrogen dominance.

If you have had little shrinkage of the fibroid with menopause, it may be feeding off other oestrogen in your body. Think of it this way, It is another of nature's pessaries. It is unlikely that your uterus will actually come down further until the fibroid shrinks. By then you will hopefully be healthier and have WW posture. Your body will change a lot in many ways. There will be setbacks, but hopefully you will be able to ride them out. We will help you.

Louise

Dear Angel,
I agree with Surviving 60. Nora Coffee founded the HERS foundation. You can look in Christine's library. I think there may be an article by her. She speaks on one of the DVD's. Also I think Surviving60's suggestion to try to find yet another doctor is useful. You still are not comfortable,it seems with the doctors you have seen. Perhaps looking a bit more might bring you to someone you feel more rapport with. It would be wonderful to have the fibroid removed without losing the uterus. A teacher friend had this problem. The fibroid was removed. She is fine. I just don't recall whether she had a hysterectomy. She never mentioned it.
Some of the bigger teaching hospitals may have a more current approach. In the northeast the doctors seem more progressive on prolapse issues. I don't know where you live,however if you could ,you could contact HUP-Hospital of U. of PA for some advice.
You are truly in a difficult situation. As the others have said, we here at the forum will continue to offer support and help you get through it all.
WholeWomanPA

Hi Angel

Pessaries are more useful for women who have cystocele only, or mainly. I suspect that putting a pessary in your vagina will simply add to the pressure, but I could be wrong. The main problem you seem to have is discomfort and burning in your vulva. I would like to see you do some firebreathing and nauli, on elbows or and knees. This will help to move your organs further inside your body. They won't stay there permanently but if the discomfort in your vulva eases while you are on hands and knees with a relaxed belly, then you know that your vulva is OK, and that you can move your organs. Posture, seating, clothing design, and the way you use your body for tasks, and diet too, will help you to eventually get your organs better positioned.

Having said that, vulval irritation can also be present where there is oestrogen dominance. I think your decision to purchase Christine's Vulval Vaginal DVD is a good one. You will learn a lot about inflammation in general, but specifically about the vulva.

Perhaps it is both postural and vulval?

Louise

I did an experiment a year or so ago to check out the angle of my vagina. When I was standing in WW posture it pointed almost straight up. When I slouched it pointed more back. (Search 'chopstick' to find the gruesome details.)

Then I did a test to see what the angle was when I was lying down on my front and on my back. I didn't do this with a chopstick!! I found that in both cases my vagina was like the slouched standing posture. I have quite a lot of fat on my belly, so I lost lumbar curve on my back because of the sagging effect, but I also lost lumbar curve on my front because my belly pushed my lumbar spine into being more straight. I wouldn't even bother repositioning it while lying down, but if you don't have much belly, then it might work on your front. Lying in coma/recovery position is probably the best if you want to reposition it before going to sleep, because the weight is off your belly, so you can maintain the lumbar curve.

I actually prefer to use hands/elbows and knees position or standing firebreating position to reposition organs, and do some firebreaths or nauli (which I am not very good at). These are positions that it is easy to get out of without generating a lot of extra intraabdominal pressure. When lying down it is not quite so easy.

Louise

OMG Louise, how did I miss these discussion threads? Made my morning....good reading on so many levels.

Angel, remember to think of trying to position things FORWARD, not up. I agree with Louise, lots of firebreathing, anything that you are doing in an upright position that tends to move the organs into the lower belly. That is the key element of posture - that lumbar curvature supports it all. Think of yourself as a four-legged animal from the waist down! - Surviving

Hi Angel, Fab has written about manually repositioning the uterus. I know she talks about a jiggle where she stands up, leans over with her hands on the ground in front of her, and then shakes her legs. I think I also read a post of hers where she lay down and used the heel of her hand to push it back in. Hopefully she will respond, as she has lots of experience with this.

Yes, as you describe Curiosity, it’s Louise’s famous jiggling only I bend at the hips and touch the floor with my hands about three feet in front of me so that my body forms a square and the backs of my legs, bum and the groin area are stretched. I rest on the flat of my feet or up on my toes and the tips of my fingers and thumbs and then jiggle my derriere up and down, even to the extent of many small two footed jumps. The vulva flaps. (This is done after tucking the cervix inside as much as possible.) Usually the cervix will recede further along the vaginal canal and up over the public bone while you do this. The sitting on the heel one is a discreet way of returning the uterus inside the labia when you are in company.

The key is in getting the upper stomach muscles to start pulling the uterus up, rather than you having to shove the poor old dear up and finding there is nothing to keep her there on her pubic shelf and she just flops back down again and as the day progresses gets tight and heavy. The WWposture does this pulling action of course. But when the uterus is hanging very low and heavy to start with, which it had for years when I was standing, its weight is a real obstacle to doing exercises that are beneficial in working the uterus back where it belongs. A bit of a catch 22.

When I am lying down, I lift the uterus by going on to my back and bending my knees so that my feet are flat on the floor or mattress. Then I draw the uterus inside me, (you are using the strength in your legs to do this). You may need to give it a hand (as the uterus inflates like a balloon when it is right out and is awkward to get back in, and you then often need to also arch your back to get it into proper position. And of course it is essential that the bladder and rectum are empty.

I also do exercises to get the uterus back where it belongs.
The exercises which I found most effective were ones that either found me on all fours on the floor or lying horizontal. Here I was not so disadvantaged by the prolapsed position of the uterus and I felt that any exercises I then did had the advantage of being done with the uterus where it should be and thus strengthening her in that position.

I started with cat and cow and downward dog yoga stretching postures, but these I did in a continual back and forward motion for fifty counts rather than hold as a pose to begin with. Mainly because the uterus had been down so long and so far that it was at that stage only in this way that it was able to even touch base with the pelvic bone. (A bit of momentum gained from the motion.) Now I can just do them as a stretching exercise as my uterus is more tame and my pelvic muscles are stronger and have more pull power.

I have a series of toe stretching exercises which I do while lying down flat on my back. They are very powerful indeed. You begin after having tucked your uterus inside to start with. Each exercise is done lying on your back, your legs straight down and your feet about eighteen inches apart, the backs of your heels rest on the mattress.

1. Stretch your toes downward as hard as you can so that the soles of your feet are hovering over the floor/mattress . Hold them stretched like that for as long as comfortable. Then release. Repeat two or three times. 2. stretch your toes back towards you, again as hard as you can. Hold them stretched like that for as long as comfortable. Then release. Repeat two or three times. For both of these exercises you should feel tightening in feet, ankles, front and back of legs, knees, front and backs of thighs, derrière, hips, stomach and ribs.) 3. Stretch your feet towards each other and downwards so that your toes on each foot are facing and possibly touching. Hold them stretched like that for as long as comfortable. (You should feel tightening in feet, knees, groin, bum, small of back, ribs.) Then release. Repeat two or three times. 4. now stretch your toes and feet away from each other and downwards so that your heels are facing. Hold them stretched like that for as long as comfortable. (You should feel tightening in feet, knees, stomach, ribs and small of back.) Then release. Repeat two or three times.

There are others but this is the heart of sending uterus home.

cheers, Fab

I would be checking out for a Urinary Tract Infection; some bacterial infection would cause burning. The vinegar and honey would definitely be helping, but not likely to be a cure for bacteria. The vinegar is for fungus and the honey to restore good bacteria. Have you been searching these things in the search box?

If your doctor finds it is not a bacterial infection for which you really would need antibotics because they can be quite tenacious and hard to shift, then I suggest you make an appointment to talk to Christine.

cheers, Fab

Bravo Angel! So very happy for you. Those are great results and you are doing a spectacular job. Keep up with the posture, vinegar/honey, and the red clover. I'm not sure how much you can take, but we can search for that on the forums or someone will chime in. Can't recall if that detail is in the DVD but I assume that you did not find it there.

Is it mainly the floor work that is bothering you? Try lots of posture walking until that particular symptom improves. You'll get there. Thanks so much for posting, this is great encouragement for others who are in the same boat fibroid-wise. - Surviving

Hi Angel

Here is a website with a lot about red clover. The page I am sending you to has some dosage levels. I will leave it up to you to decide whether the site is authoritative. It looks pretty good to me. http://www.mdidea.com/products/herbextract/clove/data10.html . There is a product called Promensil, http://www.promensil.com/, which I purchase from a pharmacy. This is a very mainstream product with two dosage levels, one equivalent to dried herb 5gm per tablet, the other 2.5gm per tablet. I have used this product at the 2.5gm dosage and found that I got significant improvement in my skin. I also found that I got less hot flushes during the night (which was my main problem. I can say that it did have an effect.

Phytoestrogens like red clover are very weak in their oestrogenic action. In a woman who is oestrogen dominant I would think that their additional oestrogenic action would be negligible (my opinion only). The benefit of phytoestrogens is that they are like bicycles in a car park. Compare each parking space with an oestrogen receptor in your body. If everyone rode bicycles (weak oestrogens) air pollution in cities would be much less. If each bicycle is parked in a whole parking bay there would be no parking spaces left for big gas guzzling vehicles (strong oestradiol metabolites). The gas guzzlers would have to keep driving around and be unable to park and do their inflammatory work.

The improvement in many conditions as a result of taking red clover seems to be that these weak oestrogens take up all the parking spaces on the beta oestrogen receptors in the body, so the inflammatory metabolites of our own ostrogens cannot park, and get back into these organs where the beta receptors are full. They just have to go round and round in the bloodstream until they are filtered out by the kidneys and excreted, when they can no longer cause inflammation.

Fibroids shrink when oestrogen levels are low. Yours are shrinking. They increase when oestrogen levels are high, which yours are not. The vulva has a lot of beta receptors. It will respond somewhat to red clover.The vagina doesn't. It doesn't seem to respond. The uterus has both alpha and beta receptors. Breasts seem to have alpha only. Therefore oestrogens that attach to beta receptors (eg red clover-type) cannot technically attach themselves to breast tissue. However, there are differences between individuals.

I really think most of the research about red clover is about breast cancer and the risk of breast cancer. As oestrogens have a bad reputation re breast cancer, that is the message we get. As there are multinational pharmaceutical companies who have a vested interest in promoting their oestrogen-containing products, are they going to turn around and say that phytoestrogens are OK, even if phytoestrogens have all the right characteristics to fight cancer, rather than cause it or worsen it? I don't think so.

Oestrogen metabolism is far too complex for me to understand it fully. I know that red clover has done some good things in my body. That is about all I can say. There is plenty of information out there on the Web, and in books, but there is not yet a lot of information freely available about beta oestrogen receptors because they have only been discovered relatively recently, and the research is no doubt being funded by someone who wants to make money out of making the results available. These papers are often available via scholarly databases and you need access to a paid subscription to the relevant journal to view the Full Text of the paper.

I think we can safely say that plants that contain phytoestrogens are good for us because they ultimately reduce inflammation in our bodies. Keep a quantity and variety of them in your diet and you will be healthier as a result.

Louise

To Angel and all ladies. I am 56 and have been on the site before with POP and two years menopausal. Enjoyed reading this thread. Thank-you to all for the information on exercises! Angel, so glad to hear your fibroid shrunk!! I discovered I had one on the outside of my uterus after I was in menopause, so not sure how long it has been there. I have been encouraged this morning! Its a beautiful day in Pa.

Angel,
You are truly an inspiration to all of us!! I have so enjoyed reading this thread. Such wonderful advice from everyone, and you seem to really have your head wrapped around this. I had read that the fibroid can shrink after menopause, but you are the first, i think, have read as a work in progress. Please keep us up-to-date on how it is going with you.
My mom had a grapefruit size fibroid when she was about 50, with lots of heavy bleeding. That was 20 some years ago and she opted for the hysterectomy.
I have a uterine prolapse and right before my periods it likes to really slink down there, so I can't imagine having a fibroid in there making it even heavier! When I start to feel sorry for myself, I start to think of you and your wonderful up beat attitude through all this. Thank you!! Keeping our uteruses is probably the best choice we have made!!

the horse has bolted for some of us, but it might be worth passing the word to younger women. A study by the US National Institutes of Health has associated Vitamin D levels with uterine fibroids. Those women with adequate levels of Vitamin were 30% less likely to develop fibroids. The more time in the sun, the less the risk. Early days yet, but worth a thought.
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/apr2013/niehs-15.htm

This article is a good find, Fab, thanks! - Surviving

just wanted to say that although sunshine is the best source of D3, it's almost impossible to get that much unless you spend at least 15-30 mins per day in the sun in a bikini with no sunscreen. I'm not about to go anywhere in a bikini anymore! My doctor tested my D3 levels and they were VERY low and I was an outside gardener/landscaper until I prolapsed. I'm now using a sublingual Vit D3 + K . But, you must be careful not to overdose! Too much D can cause cramping and other problems so make sure you get your D3 levels tested. I think I also read something about the newly established ' safe upper limits' on D3...check the internet for that info.
I'm in agreement with Angel about the cosmetics, plastics, etc... Too many estrogen compounds. Pesticides on fruits and veggies also contain them. Also, I've noticed that even though fibroids run in families, I tend to think a lot of it has to do with the way women in families are taught to express themselves and nurture themselves.
Dr. Christine Northrup has a very interesting chapter on fibroids in her menopause book and I agree with her that fibroids, like other 'female' diseases and disorders often result from a woman's spirit and creativity being stifled by something negative. I had a tumor on my ovary back in 05 and at the time had been in a horribly abusive marriage ( not physical but mental and emotional) and I refused chemo and surgery. Sadly, I think I just wanted to die at the time but anyway, my doctor being supportive of my decision to seek a different path of therapy said, ' Please do just one thing for me....do the one thing you've always wanted to do and really focus on enjoying it, developing it and nurturing it'. So, I bought a violin and began taking lessons. Within 6 months, my tumor was gone. I'm not recommending my choice to anyone else but I do believe that when our spirit is oppressed and suffering ( and frankly, at that point, I really had no spirit left alive in me) our bodies respond by showing us. Our bodies never lie.
A woman doesn't have to be in such an extreme state of spiritual deprivation like I was. It's pretty typical for mothers and women to neglect to nurture themselves and give more than they get back. As silly as this may be, one of the things I do on a regular basis ( besides playing fiddle) is color in my coloring mandala book just to keep my creative juices flowing. It's actually called The Mandala Coloring Book or something close to that.
This week has not been a good week in terms of my prolapse and I know it's due to a buildup of stress relating to my unemployment, stress about not being able to work at all in this condition---- a form of 'oppression'...plus... I over extended myself doing some spring cleaning that resulted from the stress. Ugggh I'm paying dearly. Take Care of yourself first!

I don't think you're silly at all, Gillian, to add a simple pleasure like coloring in a book to the other valuable things you discovered about yourself and your health. I looked at that book online -- looks deliciously intricate to me and fun. Whether it's a small exercise in relieving stress or the big letting go of the supposedly proper expectations that drive us, it is necessary to find relief. I congratulate you on allowing yourself to heal. Even when in our own minds we lie to ourselves, our bodies are true to us.

I worked at one time in a dermatologist's practice. He said they (dermatologists) knew that PABA caused skin cancer (and it was confirmed in some literature he had from the American Academy of Dermatology at that time and is now publicly acknowledged), but he continued to advise the use of sunscreen and gave away samples that contained PABA. I guess that's job security. I use sunscreen, but only sparingly and as necessary...on my face, ears, neck and shoulders in the spring until my skin is better able to tolerate the sun.

I really appreciate the encouragement Bebe. Those coloring books come in different styles and I think the one I have is the healing one. It's really quite fun and the pictures look good enough to frame when you're finished! The pages are thick enough that you could use watercolor paints too.

That just really ticks me off when I hear about doctors following the dictates of industry instead of doing what is right. The sad thing about most of those sunscreens was that they didn't even block the harmful rays! All we got was less tan, less vit D and lots of toxins and UVB rays ( or was it UVA rays...in any event, the toxic sunscreen wasn't blocking the harmful rays)

Bebe and all, here's the book I use: Coloring Mandalas by Susan Fincher. I like hers the best because it's spiral bound and large pages. Also, my version is the " For Balance, Harmony and Spiritual Well-Being". I use colored pencils, pastels, crayons and paint. Enjoy!

I am a great fan of Dr Northrup. She really regards a woman as a whole person. I think her Menopause book is exceptional.

Louise

I'm very fortunate that my personal 'family' doctor is like Dr. Northrup. He really does spend time with me and he's as much a spiritual counselor as a medical doctor. The health of our spirit is the root of our physical health. I wish that everyone could find a doctor like him because his whole purpose is to teach prevention and not treat with drugs and surgery unless absolutely necessary. He also does not have an ego that gets defensive when his patients ask questions and do their own research. He actually loves that about his patients because it shows that they have self respect and want to be healthy.

I'm feeling a bit better today. My prolapse isn't quite as noticeable or uncomfortable. I spent about a half hour last night in bed just really breathing slowly and completely relaxing my entire body. As someone noted in another post ( I believe it was Louise), I need to keep a journal of what works and what doesn't. Journals are SO helpful to us and our doctors ( some doctors anyway).

Once you gain some understanding of what is happening inside your body, your fear and worry will largely disappear, and be replaced by the urge to tame it. Worry causes us to slouch over and close up. This protective slouching is exactly what you need to overcome. It might not feel like it to you, but I think you are on your way to progress already.

:-)

Thank you ladies, for all the information in this thread!!

It has been encouraging reading this morning. My fibroid has been assessed as 'as big as a grapefruit' and is in the wall of my uterus. Since I started on this forum (and the other reading I've done), I've almost eliminated my sugar intake, caffeine, and processed foods. I've also taken out my juicer, and have started on a regime of drinking fresh vegetable juices daily.

My purpose is to reduce my estrogen intake and increase my iron.

This 'thread' has made me aware of the absolute necessity of perfecting the WW Posture so that, as my fibroid shrinks, I will be able to keep my uterus and bladder in place.

Again, I thank you all so much.

If you have any more tips on shrinking fibroids, I'd love to hear them.

Love
want2know