I think I tempted fate :-(

This is when you need to do a few of the exercises contained in the new edition of STWW! :-)

pulling your leg. I love it that you learned all you need to do this work from the website. You've contributed so much, Sue, and I can't thank you enough - also for being a good friend. Btw, we bought wholewomangallery.com and are working on a place for member photos (not prolapse pictures - I have some useful ones of those to share with my self-check article) so we can all see what our dear friends look like!

hey sue:

glad you're feeling better. good to know that you can feel more discomfort and then pull back and quickly feel improvement. as i am still so new to all this, right now, my biggest challenge is probably not doing enough and i am used to being quite quite active so this is depressing me a lot. my pt has discouraged me from doing all the walking i am accustomed to and enjoy and so i am feeling depressed with that lack of exercise. but the worry is i will over do it and do something to have the prolapse progress. as i write those words out, i suspect that it doesn't really work that way, does it. just as i do not think the prolapse happened overnight, i suspect it also would n't just suddenly progress dramatically. and that it all can, in fact, be improved.

christine: wondering when you think the newer version of your book will be available.

happy new year to all.

susan

Sue…we were going to spend last evening with friends but had to cancel at the last minute because something terrible happened. Let me explain that we now live in the same little old New Mexican plaza that the wwcenter is in. My husb has moved his offices here too. We’ve remodeled about half the plaza into completely adorable spaces. I have the kitchen, bedroom and “ballroom” (aka the whole woman studio) and he has the livingroom and laundry room – plus we each have our own office spaces. Okay…so Albuquerque has just received its biggest snowfall ever. Something like two feet fell on this high desert town. He spent all afternoon shoveling snow from the walkways – I guess it’s kinda the manly thing to do and he was enjoying it. He said he was thinking how good the exercise felt and how glad he was going to be to relax and enjoy the evening’s celebration with our friends and their friends. So…after he finished beautifully clearing all the pathways he went into one of his offices – the one with the laundry room – only to find it under three inches of water. The water heater for the washer exploded and poured out hundreds of gallons of water. Luckily he had just bought a shop vac for his warehouse and was able to vacuum up most of it – but was completely exhausted afterward. I fed him an early dinner and we went to bed at 7:30. :-(

Susan...I will respond to your questions later…I have to run a couple of errands now.

Happy New Year!

Christine

Hi Susan,

I read your post and wanted to mention this. My PT is great and I LOVE the work I've done with her. However, she encouraged me not to walk in the early stages and I was really depressed about it. So, I walked anyway. And I found that after the first ten minutes, everything lifted and I felt much better. I started doing thirty minute walks, and am now up to one hour. On days leading up to my period, I go back down to 30 minutes. Just wanted to share that, in my experience, walking helped me a lot.

Good luck.
Ann

I have found walking an amazing thing - I first started it as a reaction to when my marriage broke up 15 months ago and wasn't specifically doing it for the prolapse. However, I am sure it has been one of the contributing factors to the improvement of my prolapse - I have absolutely no symptoms now and haven't had any for a month or two, even my period that came and went over Xmas didn't bring out the 'bulge' or cause things to drop. Strangely, I thought my periods had stopped (menopause) because my last one was last February - hence when I saw the blood I thought I was passing blood in my pee and got a hellofa fright!! Anyway, about the walking, it is fantastic, great for the pelvic floor, to clear your head, and to get you breathing fresh air. Life is lonely without my departed loved one, but it has its compensations, I still have my daughter with me and I have become stronger and more confident.
Cheers,
Wendy

Hey Sue

I feel exactly the same way.....so if feeling you're not on your own will help then here I am! I think I did too much over Christmas too. Going for a 2 hour walk didn't help me I don't think coupled with some clearing out and lifting. It's all coming out again and with that, the panic returns. Walking doesn't seem to lift things for me so I'm really amazed at what the other posts here are saying. In fact, I definitely feel worse after a walk. But then I wonder if my retrocele is the worst of the three - and whether my womb is sitting on top of it and pushing it out even more.
???????????????
I wonder whether I need to try and get to the gym....I have no muscle tone at all. But then is that going to make things even worse? Perhaps one of these V2 supporters I've heard other ladies talk about might help?
Hope you're feeling a bit better today Sue and NO LIFTING. I think I might go back to see my ob to request a ring to see if that will help me. I'm prepared to try anything as am back feeling I will be incapable of having another baby.
J xxxx

Hiya Sue
I know what you say about being blessed - I guess when it's bad I feel angry, resentful and fed up. Glad you're feeling better today. Maybe a ring isn't the best thing.... I've had a lot of help today from a massage machine that you use by fixing pads on to your back and you can have a variety of settings on it like cupping, acupucture etc. Have you tried anything like that? xxx

You are not the only one not helped by walking. I definitely feel worse the more I am on my feet. I feel more pressure the longer I stand or walk unfortunately. I am jealous of those that feel higher after walking? Then again nothing seems to help my rectocele. The posture helps my other prolapses but not my rectocele. It makes me wonder too what is going on? The only thing that helps somewhat is the v2 supporter so I wear it when I go out to run errands etc.

you know what is killing me right now? traveling. does anyone else have trouble riding in the car? It all started before christmas when I rode 14 hours out of 72 in the car. now even a 1 hour trip to my parents house is scary. today my husband wants to go visit a friend about an hour away and I am so aggravated because I don't want to ride 2 hours in the car today- not to mention I did way too much cleaning and laundry yesterday and I need to buy groceries. buying groceries is hard for me right now. I am going nuts. I am so tired of asking for help. It is frustrating not to be totally independant. anyone else experiancing this frustration?
as a side note- I love the gym (it may be the hour to myself:)) I feel really good after a work out. HMMMM maybe that is what I need to do.B

Sue - your post made me laugh. Thanks for that - I do sympathise with you over the twit who made your shed though. What an idiot! I got the massager from one of my mum's contacts who brought it back from malaysia - so that doesn't exactly help. It's called an AK-2000-III whatever that is but I'll ask my mum for other links as she's a physical therapist and is helping me a lot so she has other machines that are good too.
Mommynow - it sounds like we have so much in common. I just had a quick peek (excuse the pun) on your history - what you say rings so true for me - it sounds like our symptoms are pretty similar. Perhaps I'll get one of these V2 things then if you say it helps? Any idea where I can get one from? I'm in the UK? Perhaps it's time I engaged a personal trainer - I'm fed up of not being able to do anything xxx

Jbee,

Would you remind us of the surgery you had? As I remember it was like a perineorrhaphy, or episiotomy resection. Have you tried the firebreathing?

Christine

Hiya Christine

I had a cyst that wasn't draining and full of stuff that my gyn pointed out was causing pain (I hadn't realised with everything else going on) so had that excised. It was quite large and was where the epi was. I also had an extra entrance to my vagina removed (where the whole thing had tried to heal after my stitches came away from epi) How on earth did that happen?! And then for good measure they also took away a lot of scar tissue from further up my vagina. The gyn thought the op might well help my rectocele by giving me some more support....I just seem to have taken a big step backwards over Christmas and I must admit that I have been tempted to look at the prolapse surgery again as my biggest terror is that something dire will happen to my womb and I won't be able to use it again.
I have tried the fire breathing, yes, but I must admit I haven't tried it recently. So, I'm going to do it tonight - thanks for the prompt. The more I learn about things, the more I think that it is this rectocele that's the most problematic and might be why I can't stand for long periods....J x

I'm running out the door to an appt. but just a quick response. The well-known surgeons and researchers, Nichols and Randall, understood very clearly the result of adhesions between the lower back vaginal wall and anterior rectal wall. When the space in between these organs is melded together the vagina and rectum must function as one. N&R mention this phenomenon in reference to traumatic birth and, of course, omit the obvious fact of scar tissue from operations in this area. Mommynow had a very difficult instrumental birth and has similar, intractable symptoms as you. I think it would be well worth the effort to locate a PT who specializes in breaking up scar tissue in that area. The literature strongly suggests that further surgery is not likely to be of benefit.

Susan...was thinking you asked something that would've taken longer to answer. The second edition of STWW will be available soon! I can't promise exactly when as we still have a few more steps to complete before publication.

Thought you might all like to hear how God works in mysterious ways and I've absolutely got to rest up this afternoon.....My darling son dropped his wooden high chair tray directly onto my big toe and it's been bleeding underneath the nail ever since. I think I'm going to have to go to A&E to have it drained but there's not a jot of washing/cooking/cleaning that I can do. That's it! I tell you what, at least it takes the prolapse pain away and makes me concentrate on another part of my body !!! (LOL) xxx

Meant to say, there's nothing else for it but to put Pride and Prejudice on! Or perhaps it should be Desperate Housewives!!!!!

Sue

Tried to send you an email regarding the links for the massgers but noticed someone else tried to send an email and thought there may be problems with it. Did you get it? x

AnnW said, "And I found that after the first ten minutes, everything lifted and I felt much better. I started doing thirty minute walks, and am now up to one hour. "

WOW! Thank you for posting that. I haven't been walking because I feel so bad down there, but after I read your post I tried again on our treadmill. I had to lean pretty far forward the first ten minutes for it not to feel bad- but after 10 minutes, I was able to straighten up and walk normally.

Now I can walk again while watching my favorite TV show. Hooray! Thank you! :-)

Hi Alemama

This is one of my soap boxes. Try typing "car seat slowing progress" into the search box. There is a bit of a string of comments in the first search result.

Under my comments I would now like to add that I have changed to a different lumbar support. The one I have now is only about 300mm tall, so it doesn't push my shoulders forward at all. I just put it where it feels comfortable, still with my butt as far back as it will go. Also, if you have an adjustment on your car seat which allows you to make the part you sit on more horizontal, that might help too. I did see one post the other day on this forum where the woman found she was eventually able to discard the lumbar support. I have not found that, and really miss it when I don't have it. Small price to pay.

Cheers

Louise

I typed it in and read through some posts. I did a great job of sitting in the posture - I don't think that was the problem- I think it must have been the amount of time I spent in the car. What do you think? it has been a while since that trip and I feel like I have gotten back to where I was before I went. I don't know- I am getting used to my "baseline" and have decided as long as it doesn't come down any farther I will be okay. glad to see you posting again - B

Hi B

You could be right. It's always a good idea to stop for a break and walk around and have a stretch every hour or so when driving. Also with all the factors that can pile on top of each other sometimes, getting in the car for a long drive can be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

I know that for me the long drive to a holiday destination a few weeks ago was preceded by a week of premenstrual bloating, worry about the trip and packing, the stress of losing my job suddenly and rying to get it all wrapped up before I went, the physical liftng and carrying that needed to be done to get everything into the car, then out again at the other end to set up our camp site (it's summer here). No wonder it all felt like it was falling out again! But a week or so of fishing, relaxing and walking fixed me up again.

The difference is that these days I know this will happen, and I know my body will recover quite quickly. Gone are the days of fear that all my pelvic organs will just fall out one day. (And the job thing is not a great stress now. I can find another one.)

Cheers

Louise