Prolapsed uterus and pessary use

Hello,

I had a triple prolapse that was at the bottom of my vagina, If you read my post "Yes I am healing", it tells you about my story. I felt exactly like you and was not able to stand or walk without feeling like something was going to fall right out. I began by sleeping on my back only and doing my exercises that I will post a YOUTUBE video about this weekend, I will then put up the link.

Also the most important thing I did was begin to get a mayan abdominal massages. This is what helped me the most. It got my muscles and ligament fresh blood so that they began to heal. Please believe that you will get better.

I have faith that if you try doing these exercises your body will begin to repair itself. It may take time but it will happen. I have done the massages 6 times, once a month and will continue them until I am fully healed. It will take at least 1 month to see any results so please do not give up!

I too was going to the backroom because of the heaviness, I no-longer have that feeling.

Hi pompom12. Any kind of pessary that holds the vagina open is working against the principles of pelvic organ support. Maintaining the vagina as a closed, airless space is what keeps the organs from getting jammed in there! Pessaries can also aggravate a rectocele, or create a prime environment for the formation of one.

Keeping the uterus inside is a challenge, but it is a goal that you must keep working towards. Read some posts by Fab, Aging Gracefully, WholeWomanUK and others who are managing with a significant uterine prolapse. They can give you a realistic idea of what your expectations should be. - Surviving

Hi Pompom,

In normal anatomy, the vagina is a closed, airless space. In this way it is closed down against the forces of nearby organs pushing into its space. A pessary holds the vagina slightly open and yes, you are experiencing the result of pessary use and something we caution women about all the time.

I know it is difficult to accept, but the only (reasonable) thing to be done is to move the organs forward through natural breathing, posture and exercise. You've been with us a long time and I'm wondering if we can help you troubleshoot what you might be doing wrong, leaving out, etc.

Christine

Your comments were very comforting. I have been doing the whole woman exercises for over six months and they have helped tremendously. When I am under stress, things go down hill. I'd love to know what a mayan abdominal massage is and have more information. I'm disciplined enough to try all helps. lovinggma

Hi lovinggma and welcome. Hope you are doing more than just the exercises. Have to train yourself to live your life in the posture - every waking moment. That takes time (for me, lots longer than 6 months), but it does happen.

Please read these words from Christine regarding mayan massage: "You might be able to affect the pelvic fascia a tiny bit by massage - but the organs can only stay in their anatomic positions by the forces of intraabdominal pressure." She is talking about posture here. But if the massage feels good, you can do it, it won't do any harm. - Surviving

Hi Pompom,

Urgency is a common symptom of cystocele and yes, a pessary often disturbs the urethra/bladder angle and increases stress urinary incontinence (losing urine when you sneeze, cough, etc.)

Although being an ideal weight is beneficial in so many ways, I have never believed there is any correlation between prolapse and being a few kilos overweight.

The only thing to do is move the organs forward toward their natural positions behind the lower belly. We do this by moving our muscles and bones, and also by forcing the organs forward with our breath.

It often takes women years to realize this is as good as it gets. Surviving tells a story of sort of dallying in the postural work for quite a while and they one day deciding to commit in a deeper way. Surgery doesn’t work, kegels don’t work, massage is not enough. What it takes is constantly moving the organs forward by how you sit, stand and move - with a little firebreathing and other WW exercise thrown in for good measure. The whole thing is based on natural breathing - allowing your belly to come out on the in-breath, and fall passively back on the out-breath. Many of our exercises - like the New Kegels you mentioned - are simply exaggerating this natural breathing dynamic.

Does this make sense to you?

:-) Christine

Never tried the mayan massage although I do have the book with instructions, I would think that as the massage goes upwards from the pubic bone to the abdomen that it may in fact push my bladder backwards. Also you are to put pillow under knees which will also tilt your pelvis backwards. Just my oplnion, My pop def feels less in these last few weeks that I've been using the posture and exersizes so I don't want to tempt fate. I will leave well alone.

I am absolutely fed up with my rectocele. I have been in the loo for too long. It's wearing me out. I have tried everything but it's painful. Sorry I can usually deal with this but I'm fed up with toilets. I told my doctor but he just shrugged his shoulders. What now.?

Hi Cleo, can you be a little bit more specific? Are you going through a bout of constipation? Have you changed your diet recently, or your level of physical activity? Does splinting help? - Surviving

It's a normal reaction to suspect cystocele when someone talks about incontinence. I am not saying the incontinence is impossible with uterine prolapse, just that it is not usually counted as one of its symptoms.
The frequent, strong urge to go can be associated with uterine prolapse as you already have the organs pushing on each other, but again it is not what I would call the 'normal' symptom of uterine prolapse. Mostly, I can get along without this.
It can have a number of causes:
It is possible that with the upset that the cube has caused you, that you have developed a urinary tract infection. It would be worth your while to check this out.
If it is not this, then it is a good idea to look to your diet especially re constipation (frequently experienced when traveling), inflammation, and you will recognise this from that feeling of your abdomen boating, or an irritated bladder which can be soothed with a temporary absence of things like caffeine, and spices such as chilli and etc.
Whatever the cause unfortunately the strong frequent urge to urinate will not go away until one of these fixes is applied, at least in my experience.
In the meanwhile, the posture and exercises are helping with the prolapse and keeping organs a little more orderly, but naturally if you have any of these other difficulties, they tend to be undoing the good work. That's no reason to stop though.
PTs will of course advise kegels for incontinence as this was its intended use; for incontinence not for remediation of pelvic organ prolapse. So, just a heads up there.

Pompom, I do not believe your gyn can help you figure out where your organs are located. The incorrect orientation of the pelvis has been promoted by the medical profession for hundreds of years! Any scans or x-rays would in any event most likely be performed lying down, which is another problem that has added so greatly to this confusion. You seem to have gotten yourself fairly far afield from the WW work and basic understandings. Your gyn cannot help you with this. - Surviving

PT's and doctors will continue to give you the same old stories of prolapse treatment and management. It will be up to you to decide if the medical model has anything of value to offer you. They seem to be a big part of your life now.

I personally would not do kegels for the reasons that Christine has written about extensively - they pull the organs towards the vagina and thus can worsen prolapse. Besides, I can't see how tightening those muscles would make you feel less like you had to pee. It's not like the muscles are what's holding it all in. Instead, try posture, jiggling and firebreathing to get the organs better lined up so they aren't squishing in on each other.

There is nothing that will make your prolapse disappear. This is about management and acceptance. It took me at least a year before the posture became automatic, and I still have to stop and think when I bend, lift, drive.

So, don't dabble and stop hoping for a "fix" and get down to it, girl!! - Surviving

Louise invented the jiggling concept, but I don't think there's just one way. Fab has a special method, which might be worth searching for on the forum, as she has a significant uterine prolapse, and I think in that case, as with firebreathing, it works best if you can get the uterus well inside first. For me, with my 'celes, I basically just lean forward and jiggle my legs front to back (versus side to side) really fast. And sometimes put my hands on my belly to help move the organs into the belly. I'll do it before/after firebreathing, before/after using the toilet, or anytime the organs seem like they're forgetting where I want them to be. - Surviving

First off you need to look after your uterus. If it is patchy, red and sore, it needs a bit of pampering. Christine has brought out a DVD called “Vulva Vaginal Health” which would be worthwhile having a look at. In the interim could you regularly apply your favoured lubricant and just a pea size amount of raw honey once or twice a day. Also, it is important to keep the uterus inside as much as possible. It should be possible for you to sit down regularly when teaching. Whilst the uterus is outside, it is drying and this alone can make it sore. Apart from the fact that the organs push on each other and cause problems with defecation and voiding, I think after a while the surrounding muscles of the pelvis and the uterus itself start to fatigue and a confusion sets in so that a resulting muscle tightness means that when you do void, the tight muscle can also mean that you do so incompletely and so thus the continuing urge within a few minutes of going. It’s best to wait it out and make sure you do complete after two or even three goes sometimes.
The immediate benefit of jiggling is in pulling the uterus inside. Firebreathing also helps in this. The jiggling for uterine prolapse works best if exaggerated so that you bend over as far as to place your fingers or the flat of your palm on the floor and then jiggle on your toes up and down. To start with it is best to return the uterus inside with the flat of your hand and then jiggle when the uterus is already there. As you work at it, the uterus will begin to return with the simple bend over and jiggling especially if you make sure to lubricate until you get that side of things straightened out. Surviving's advice about when to jiggle and firebreathe is spot on.
The inflammation I talked about can be sought out in detail from a Floyd H Chilton. His book has various titles according to the country of its release. “Inflammation Nation” or “Win the war within”. He it was who talked about the importance of the ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 and that modern food meant we were eating too much of the latter. He also came up with the Inflammatory Index based upon the concentrations of fatty-acid concentrations. My suggestion was however, until you have time to go into all of that, watch and look for patterns when you have that bloated feeling what foods or seasonings you have been eating, or that allergic reaction like hayfever or soreness in the vagina within say twenty minutes of eating, or the diarrhoea/constipation syndrome which may be indicative of IBS which again really relies on your isolating the food culprit and eating far less of it. The inflammation appears to overwork the bladder, in my experience; voiding only small amounts instead of a good stream. It is however better out, so I do tend mostly to go along with it and work on starving myself of the offending food. It should then resolve fairly quickly.

I just received the video, but my question is: how come I know so many women w/posture much worse than mine & they don't have this problem? I asked my masseur if my posture could be changed & his opinion was that, after 50, the skeleton is really basically set. I'm trying the posture, but sometimes I just feel lower back pain from it & I don't know if it's sincerely changing anything :/
Also, my Dr. insists that she put the pessary in & only take it out after 2 months. I used to use a diaghram, so wouldn't I be able to put it in & take it out in a similar way? Is a pessary that much different? I agree w/ what Cristine said on the video; if using one, take it out at night...that sounds better to me! Any thoughts on these issues & also...what are the 'new kegels?' I cannot afford to buy any video at this moment...!! :(

and welcome to Christine's site. Well whether women have a worse posture than yours may be true from observation, but women don't tend to talk about pelvic organ prolapse. As to changing posture, it's a matter of the muscles being put back into their correct orientation and if you adapt WWposture it is an effort to start with as your muscles are so used to being one way and now you are training them back where they belong and taking your prolapse with them. They are stretching and initially they are not going to like that much. It does take time for this new orientation to be comfortable. We are talking mostly muscles as they are what will carry the weight of the new posture. The lower back pain could be normal or you could be over emphasising the lumbar curve. It's a matter of pulling your chest up rather than pushing your derriere out.
As to the pessary, yes you should be able to order one which you yourself can take in or out. Ladies have talked about pessaries here so you could put pessary in the search box on the top left of this page and bring those threads up. If you keep searching this site, there is a video on the new kegels. Just take yourself through the tabs at the top. The more you learn, the more you will understand the basic premise and how it all works together. Happy reading, happy adventure.

I really appreciate your reply and all the information you are taking the time to relay. It's true; women don't talk about this much; that's why I appreciate this forum : )
Thank you; I'll look it up & I'll be back, probably with more questions!
I do agree with everything you've said..
Thank you for the guidance

If you go to the Blog tab up above, then find the search box on the right-hand side of thescreen, and put "new kegels" into the search, you will find the article. Scroll down to the bottom and you'll see the video clip. And yes, most of the footage in that clip is directly from the First Aid for Prolapse DVD. - Surviving

thank you