ANYBODY KNOWS about yoga and chiropractice??

Submitted by maya on June 13, 2006 - 2:14pm
Body: 

Hi everyone there,
thank you all for the support and love that is shared in this forum! We are making this world a better place, I believe.

I have couple of questions. I've had "the universal prolapse" (all three) almost a year now (since the birth of my second child) and I have resently wondered about few things.

First, I used to do yoga on daily basis for couple of years and I've tried to resume my poractice since my son's birth but... as long as I've done really easy practice without any strength building (standing) postures, I've been doing okay. But I really would LIKE to strenghten my stamina and I love the standing postures (warriour postures etc), but somehow I have a feeling that they aren't good for my prolapse. Few times I've done my practice for a period of 2-3 weeks and then I would feel more sensations while walking etc. But as you know, my sister, it is hard for one to know why, excatly, it feels more one day not the other, but I have my doubts about yoga... I have tried to read about this from anumber of books, magazines and online, but the thing is that often the sources state which postures are GOOD for prolapse but NONE says which are bad for it! And I am sure that there is tons of postures that aren't healthy for us. Does anyone know anything more precice about this??? Or even any resource for me to try to find more info??

My second question has to do with chiropractice (? sorry if my english has mistakes). I have a feeling that my bones in my bottom area (above by buttocks) are all in some weird position. If I look at my silhouette from a mirror, I can see that above my bum there is like a... ooh, how to explain this in English...it seems like there is like a bumb there. LIke the whole area just above my sacrum is somehow really protruding. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of a phenomene? Is it possible that the bones have stayed in some unusual position since the labor moved them around? I have thought of visiting a chiropractor about this, does anyone have any experience with that?

Thank you so much,
maya

UKmummy

June 13, 2006 - 4:35pm

Hi Maya,
There was a whole discussion on yoga a while back, and what basically came out of it was that indeed some yoga positions do probably compromise prolapse further. (I think the warrior pose was one of the ones discussed). Anyway, Christine compiled a great list of poses which are probably not good for us. I will try to find the thread and write back again! Don't know about your back but at the very least, an assessment by a chiropractor wouldn't do any harm I wouldn't have thought! Take care.
Michelle xxx

cannuckgilmoregirl

June 13, 2006 - 8:29pm

I'd appreciate receiving that list of poses you refer to.
thanks,
cannuckgilmoregirl

Grandma Joy

June 13, 2006 - 9:49pm

Hi Maya,

Chiropractic can be very good for you if you find a good doctor. I go to one periodically, but at the moment I am getting "myofascial release" all over but also in the sacroilliac area. Connective tissue can wreak havoc in the SI area and the release has helped my prolapse a little bit. I will start a full week of pelvic floor release in July. I had hoped to already be getting it, but I have other health issues that have to be dealt with first. When they were working on my SI and abdomen, I was amazed at the relief in several places that I could feel as the tension was released. I was shown a skeleton of the spine and how it's supposed to move when we walk but having a connective tissue disorder makes me not walk correctly which only tightens the tissue more. Actually, I get better results from the chiropractor after a myfascial release session. It is a slow process and the "posture" is a necessity.

My best to you,
Grandma Joy

rosewood

June 13, 2006 - 11:28pm

Are you familiar with the "Alexander Technique"? It might be worth looking into. I'm not really that familiar with the issues you are facing (besides prolapse), but thought it could help, and goes right along with the posture work.

Marie

granolamom

June 21, 2006 - 6:46pm

I don't know anything about yoga
but might be a good idea to talk to a chiropractor
I started seeing one before I noticed my prolapse, I had a whole host of issues. I've been going for a year now, and I can see significant changes on xray (he takes pre-treatment xrays and again 6 months into treatment) and I feel so much better. The amazing thing is that I can really see that my shoulders are in a completely different position than they were before I started. so I think that it could help your sacral spine. don't know if that will do anything for the prolapse, but worth a shot, imo

Hawaii Born

November 2, 2006 - 10:42am

HawaiiBorn Hello, I am a first time bloggette and found your question only today. I have been working with a wonderful "Network Chiropractor" in my town because my tail-bone had been curled into a fetal position (crunched into my left) rather than curved slightly. I'm learned a lot from my experiences with this chiropractor and see great improvement in my posture and the discomfort in prolapse eases.

About yoga: I was a long-time yoga practitioner and teacher (for a brief period) until I injured myself by over stretching the ligaments across my tailbone. Be careful with yoga instruction that is insensitive to the those with injury. Nearly 6 years since that injury I have stopped my yoga practice and am rebuilding with qui gong, Christine's posture exercises and mindfulness meditation.

Hope you are feeling much better.
Aloha.

louiseds

November 2, 2006 - 11:04pm

Hi Maya

Welcome back. It has been a few months since we have heard from you. Life goes on eh? Thank goodness we are not all sitting around prolapse pondering 'all' the time.

I have been thinking the same thing, and trying to get my head around where exactly all these bones are in relation to what I see in the mirror. I guess you may have been following the dialogue on Christine's blog about the misrepresentation of the female pelvis in all the textbooks, re its actual orientation in body. Nobody, it seems, can come up with a good reason why the pelvis is represented as a dish, when in reality it is closer to vertical in orientation when a person is standing or walking. I have personally asked a few doctors and nurses about this and their attitude seems to be, "Oh ... yes, you could be right. It doesn't really matter though. They are only pictures." Hmm...

My largest girth measurement is about 7cm down from my waist, and I have a rather flat set of buttocks. When I stand in posture my butt still doesn't stick out at all, but my belly looks lower and my whole lower torso looks smoother, less 'cellulitey' and bumpy, so that suits me just fine. A woman with more buttocks than me would look completely different.

Just yesterday I came to the conclusion that the position of the dimples is smack bang over the widest part of the sacrum and the bump, below where the dimples are, is the bottom of the sacrum. The coccyx starts above my bum crack and extends downwards and inwards quite sharply, finishing up horizontal, about 3-4cm above my anus. For some stupid reason I thought previously that my coccyx went down much further and was a gentle curve. Maybe I have been looking at too many medical textbooks! The reason there seems to be no evidence of a lumbar curve at surface level is that all the little fin thingies (processes?)that stick out of each vertebra are in the line of a gentle curve on the outside and have strong muscles on either side, which does not reflect the curve of the actual vertebrae and sacrum on the inside. Just have a feel around if you can, while having a look at some of Christine's illustrations.

It could also be useful to have a look at some side view x-rays of somebody if you can, so you can see the line of the body against the line of the bones and where the coccyx really is. Chiropractors seem to be the only people who take X-rays side on.

It's funny how we get around in these bodies of ours for all these years, and have no idea where all the bits, even the structural bits, are on the inside. I have only discovered this now after years of trying to make sense of anatomy texts, exercises, prolapses etc. What hope would the woman in the street have??

Re yoga, you now know what you can and can't do to your body with its prolapses, and you know the average yoga teacher's attitude to correct posture. If correct Wholewoman posture puts you out of balance in yoga's standing postures, then maybe these particular standing postures are not OK for you. You may be able to amend them to suit your new posture, but I don't know what the yoga purists would say about that. I suspect that yoga may have been developed by men in the first place, but I could well be completely wrong. Every body's proportions are different and the weight distribution is different too, so the balance has to be different as well.

Best of luck.

Cheers

Louise

maya

November 15, 2006 - 4:41pm

Hey,
thank you for remembering me :)

It really is some time now that I have been in the forum. I am doing pretty well. Going through some changes in my life, writing a book about pregnancy, labor and motherhood and learning some new bodywork. Maybe, in some wierd (read: karmic) way, this prolapse is acting like a blessing. I've started studying massage therapy (to actually become a massage therapist) and I am very interested in healing a trauma via gentle massage and body awareness that it can enhance. Of course this has all to do with the prolapse (and even more to do with the traumatic birth that led to it), although the massage thing has been a dream of mine for many years... I also went through some sort of depression, maybe PPD, and feels like I'm finally emergine from it. I didn't really even realise that I was depressed... I just had that pain and anxiety in my chest... So now I am of course more aware of different sides of motherhood. After my first born it was all just ecxtatic and beautiful, whereas now I have seen the both sides of the coin, so to say... So I believe it will make my book better... :), wierd again, but true I think.

It felt nice to have someone say "HI", it feels like this site is a place to come and be open and receive... I am so happy about this!

About the sacrum etc. By now I actually think that something happened to my tailbone in the labour. I am planning to have an x-ray taken from it. As I have an old x-ray prior to my children, I can make conclusions. I read about hypermobile joints in coccyx etc, and I think that's something what I may have. The inetersting part is, if that is the case, what does that have to do with my prolapse!?

And lastly: I started doing Feldenkreis and I am actually attending a class spesifically about pelvis. IT HAS BEEN ABSOLUTELY GREAT!!! I really recommend! New insights and gentle practices...

well, be good all,
healing light,
maya

granolamom

November 15, 2006 - 7:31pm

sounds like you've taken the lemons life handed you and made lemonade! a book, a new profession, I'm impressed!
back in my PT school days, I had a professor who was Feldenkrais trained and we had Awareness Through Movement classes every week. Once I got the hang of it I realized it's pretty cool stuff. powerful too. but I hadn't thought to apply it to my prolapse-y pelvis. thanks for mentioning it.

and I'm glad for you that you've emerged from your PPD. May the sun shine from here on in!