right chair

Hi Halo and welcome. There have been many chair discussions on the forum, so you might want to put that in the search box and browse for threads that seem relevant to your situation. A chair needs to allow you to maintain WW posture/lumbar curvature. Any chair that forces you into a position of having to collapse your spine will be bad. As you get more used to the posture, you will be able to judge this for yourself.....and this is true of any and everything as you go through your day with prolapse. It's all about maintaining the posture. - Surviving

Dear Halo and welcome!
I too sit at a desk - top, at my dining room table.
Lately I have found sitting for any length of time difficult as it puts pressure on my veins at the back of my thighs and knees.
I am right now, sitting on a cushion, aware of discomfort on my chair,which has a hard wood surface - proved to be too hard, without anything on it.
I can & have spent way too much time sitting at the desktop.
I do put my feet/legs on other chairs to the side, which have "rungs" on them, to take the pressure off.

I have tried sitting on the floor with the desk - top monitor on a coffee table, but the computer box is too big to move around, and I have to set up and move things back every time.
I would have more flexibility to move it somewhere else more permanently if it was mine alone, but it is a shared device....
If I could stand up to use the computer I would, & only yesterday was toying with ideas like adapting a vertical computer desk, as it would help me be more active, and take the pressure off.

If I had a laptop, I would use it standing up, and alternate with sitting on the floor.
If you look at Christine's videos, I think she has shown the ottomans she has had made with a little computer table for her laptop, and she also has made them chair high so she can use her office computer....that may be useful to consider at home.

As Surviving suggests, there are many chair discussions to search here also - the paradoxical thing is "modern" furniture along with clothes/shoes etc, are far away from how humans naturally lived and worked in harmony with their natural posture.
Let us know what you work out - often a process/journey of trial and error...and amazing discovery!

All the best,
Aussie Soul Sister

Halo, welcome. I've been struggling with chair issues too. I would love to be a floor-sitter, but I work with a PC on a desktop. It's tempting to put it all on the floor, but moving things around if I want to change from cross-legged to legs stretched out would require readjusting things too much because of my vision needs.

For now I'm looking at two chairs at a Scandinavian shop and one at an ergonomic store. All seem to offer me the reward of being able to maintain WW posture, but none are cheap, so I'm taking my time deciding. At the Scan store are the Swopper and the Varier. You should be able to google and find them. Both of them allow rocking motion, but don't really conform to my bum. At the ergo store is a saddle chair that I like called Bambach Saddle Chair. It doesn't rock, but the seat feels comfortable.

I also found a meditation chair that accommodates a cross-legged sit, but it's very expensive. It's called Sukhasana.

If only I could take them all home and "try before I buy"!! That would be grand. At this point, if I could afford more than one, I think I'd get the saddle chair and the cross-legged chair.

For now, I just perch on the front edge of my old chair with my feet slightly up from floor level with a heated ergonomic foot rest. It's tempting to feel like I HAVE to make all of these changes immediately, but I don't. I had prolapse for a year before I decided that I needed to figger out what it was and then stumbled over this site.

I wish we had a "like" button like Facebook has.

What a great thread! Yes, we have had many conversations about this. There are so many options, some better than others.

My answer after all these years, is that there are a lot of products on the market for a reason. None of them is perfect.

My favourite seat, which I have posted about somewhere, is the base of an old office chair with five castors. I removed the whole seat and bolted a piece of heavy ply to the base. I have an old sofa cushion sitting on the top. It has no back, which makes me totally responsible for the shape of my spine. The height is adjustable but once I got it right for the height of my keyboard I have never changed it.

When I am sitting elsewhere I try and pretend I am on my stool, and kind of perch on the edge (which is usually higher than the back). I don't use the backrest part at all. I will choose a bar stool over a chair, a chair without arms over one with arms. A semi squat with wide knees on a very low stool also works for me. I have discarded all but long skirts so I can do this 'modestly'.

My car has a foam wedge under the car seat cover to make the base more horizontal, and a cheap covered foam lumbar support cushion slung from the head restraint. This foam wedge is also very useful in planes, trains, buses, and as a seat on the floor if I have to, or want to.

Being willing and able to adapt to my environment for better wellbeing is one of the ways in which I reduce the limiting effects of prolapse on my life. It means I make whatever use I can of what is available to me at any time. If I have to sit in a comfy sofa or chair for a while it really doesn't matter in the long term.

Yes, we do spend too much time sitting. The more options we have, the better it is for our bodies. If we get uncomfortable in a well-chosen seat it is a sign that we need to get up and do it differently for a while. Spending a lot of money on a chair might work, but you can't always have it in your handbag, wherever you go. The temptation is to use it, whatever it does to our body, because we have so much money invested in it. Not good justification. The cheaper the chair, the more likely we are to discard it if it causes problems.

It is not so much about which chair, as about how we use the seats we have.

I find that it is when I sit in the defined posture for a length of time that my prolapse feels better. I sit on the very edge of the chair /seat ensuring that my leg is placed firmly on the ground since I tend to curl them and tuck them under. At both home and work I have chairs which are adjustable and position myself so that I am reading print in the chin down position. I have not thought of adjusting every seat to optimize posture since that will make getting around restrictive. I have tried to maintain the WW posture sitting as it were at the edge of a seat whenever I have to sit, sometimes in other homes , offices or restaurants. The real challenge is when travelling strapped to a seat in the car or on flight. I haven't really thought my way around that .

I actually took a long car ride from Wisconsin to Arizona last year. I brought along my lumbar pillow and thought I'd just make the best of it.
Instead of sitting straight forward in the seat I ended up sitting at an angle with my knees together on either side while leaning my elbow on the pillow. Some of the time I would go back to straight forward with pillow behind me, but I just kept adjusting.
It actually amazed me that my prolapse was none the worse for wear after this trip. I also brought along my whole woman dvds so I could do my excercises in motel rooms, along with jiggling and firebreathing.
Overall, I would say it was a successful trip.

Thank you Aging Gracefully.Where did you place the pillow ? Across your your knees?

I actually placed it on either side of me if I was getting tired just to have something soft for my elbow to lean on. The angle that I was sitting in the seat seemed to be enough to keep those symptoms at bay.

Kittu, in addition to any other pillows you use for support and comfort when travelling, remember that the most important support is for the lower back to protect that lumbar curvature. Even for relatively short rides, having a cushion or even an old sweatshirt stuffed beind the lower back is so very helpful to keep you on course with this work. Car seats are notoriously bad for the lumbar spine. - Surviving

Thank you Surviving60. I drive to work and back. Strapped against the seat , the lumbar curve disappears. I will now wedge a cushion into the small of my back. i can't begin to tell you how this forum and the support one encounters here is such a boon. I return to it again and again for emotional sustenance

I have been away for a while, away from internet connection and have been wanting to ask if anyone else has problems when leaning forward in a sitting position. For me this triggers urinary frequencies and burning pubic and vaginal pain every time, so annoying.Most times I can adjust myself to avoid it but in some circumstances it happens even after just a few minutes in this position. If I sit at the sewing machine it does it to me every time, ( now I sew standing up ) resulting in soaking in tub, my exercises, drinking alkaline water and ice bags for days,, even sitting forward to hold my gran
daughter on the edge of a chair while balancing my five year old grand daughter on the arm of the chair so we all don't end up ass over tea kettle did it to my a few weeks ago. Sometimes I feel I am walking a tight rope, searching for answers and balancing all at once. sorry long winded, but I seem to never get past how sitting can cause me the worse pain, and I could kick myself for allowing it to happen , breathing and postures have become a way of life for me but still now and again I mess up,
I have so much respect and regard for all of my friends here, reading silently for a long time and just joining in 9 months ago, I will always be so thankful for what Whole woman has done for me.It not only help me heal my body but helped heal my mind and inner soul. Gave me confidence to take charge of me and not handing my fate to someone else, expecting someone else to find the answers, it takes work but anything worth having takes work.

Aging Gracefully I also went on an 8 hour almost nine hour drive a few months ago and actaully just returned, far far north near Hudson Bay , and how you described your positioning was to the letter how I did it too, I had absolutely no problems at all, I suppose its different for each person but trial and error, just keep trying things until they work, thats what I did and through time I figured out for me what works,
the great thing about these forums is we can all help others, inspire each other, share with each other what works for us ,
sometimes I think we become focused on the pain we close off our thinking to finding answers, we become panicked when the pain worsens and then we get more stressed, this forum has answers if we just relax and open our minds ,,
I have learned so much from you all!!

Yes, so true wise owl! An open mind, willingness to adjust as needed, and a little creativity goes a long way in this work.