100% Healing?

I strongly suspect that a young new mom with PP prolapse, who fixes her posture now and diligently uses the tools and practices this work offers, may very well heal her prolapse and prevent its return. Only they will be able to answer that question, and only some time down the road, not now. I realized long ago, that was really not the goal for most of us, but rather, to learn to understand our bodies and manage this condition joyfully, once we lost our fear and were able to move on in our lives. I wouldn't even trade it away now, even if I could.

I'm glad things are going well for you; you seem far enough along with this work that you should grasp the point I'm trying to make. And maybe do a little more reading and studying of WW, because this work is not about the vaginal walls repairing themselves. That is the erroneous concept that many women buy into, when they go to doctors and are pushed towards surgery.

Keep up the good work! - Surviving

Wow - 100%! I think that's actually quite a big ask! 100% of anything is pretty unusual!
But to attempt to answer a straight question with a straight answer:
Obviously everyone's different, so women's experiences & treatment results will be different:

For sure, many of us feel like they've significantly reduced their symptoms.
Some may even have no symptoms, but feel they may relapse in future if they don't continuously continue to live the WW work. So we don't know whether this group has fully recovered or not.
Having engaged with this forum for some years now, my understanding is that some women report full recovery. However - who is to know how long this is the case?
I've also read of some women who do not appear to benefit significantly from this approach. However - it's usually hard to really know why this may be. Is it that it doesn't work for some women, or that these women are not engaging appropriately or regularly or long enough to benefit?

Your question is a good one. Basically we could really really do with short, medium & long term outcome studies of this approach. If anyone has any ideas how to go about this, or has access to grants/funding for the WW practitioners or Christine Kent to do this, or any other ideas - that would be amazing!

If the WW approach was researched, developed & marketed like a big drugs company - I suspect the results would be very positive.

Love & best wishes,
wholewomanuk

Always Hopeful,
I was in a similar position to you with prolapse during my 2nd pregnancy and I went on to have a third no problem with the births...
As there was no other alternative to surgery for managing rectocele, I managed the best I could, but my hips and prolapses got worse, because unlike you I didn't find Christine's approach for another 17yrs and was doing the conventional posture and exercise.

I believe that being in WWPosture, places all the organs at the 90 degree angle to intra - abdominal and gravitational pressure...our heart, stomach and uterus and bladder to name a few.
This means that the esophagus, and vagina have kinks in them like a hose, protecting against the pressure.
WWposture also allows all the organs to have the space to work freely in the space they are meant to have, not squashed like in conventional posture and tight clothing... and soft furniture....

Yes my vagina was stretched and the uterus pulled out of place by forceps, but since adopting WWP I have hardly ever experienced vaginal "wind" some call it farts but I hate that word...lol That wind is the result of conventional posture keeping the vaginal walls open.

After 4yrs of WW and now in menopause and doing everything the WW way, my vagina is strong at the entrance, my vulva which was saggy is now taught...I am stronger and fitter all over...

There are no guarantees and yes sometimes we have to stand alone in what we believe in and do.. I tell others about what I do but it takes them to do it and realize the results..I can't do it for them!

I see myself as a living Whole Woman experiment and so far it has helped me beyond any expectation I ever have had and can see myself into a healthy and happy older age with intimacy better than ever!

Wishing you all the best,
Aussie Soul Sister

hi always,

if i may suggest, i think the way you are thinking about prolapse is not useful. "healing" is a medical paradigm. "you have a disease and we'll heal you." the reason medical approaches are ineffective is because prolapse is a symptom, not a disease.

if you have a habit that continuously annoys your husband or partner and he constantly reminds you of it and you ignore his input, you have a frustrated partner that will give rise to symptoms in your relationship.

prolapse is no different. you have a relationship with your body. it's telling you something and you aren't listening. prolapse is your body's way of telling you that you have a pelvic alignment problem. and if you don't listen and respond, the results are no different than not listening to your partner. the noise level of the conversation gets louder and louder.

your body is your friend. it wants you to be healthy and happy. what christine has really done is to understand what the body is trying to tell you through your prolapse. if you listen and respond by changing your posture, your body will respond in turn by stabilizing and reversing your symptoms. healing isn't the issue. the issue is having a healthy relationship with your body and responding when it tells you something.

granted, we've all grown up with a system that wants to make symptoms go away without addressing root causes behind the symptoms. but this is not the path to health. prolapse isn't a static condition. here today and "healed" tomorrow. it is a dynamic in your relationship with your body. get lazy with the whole woman work and your body will be right there to remind you to get back on track.

your prolapse is the voice of your body. listen and respond. when you are doing the right things, your body's "voice" will disappear. but understand that what your body is telling you doesn't mean you can respond for a week or two then go back to your old habits. your body is telling you to make a life change. and as you read over and over in this forum, these changes can be challenging, but they pay big dividends by protecting your hip joints, your pelvic organ support, and urinary continence systems for the rest of your days.

i hope this is helpful.

all the best,

lanny (christine's DH)

Really love this response Lanny. This has so much been my journey with prolapse and finding Whole Woman as part of it.

Some women have had long stretches of time being symptom free, especially if they are younger when starting this work, but does that mean they are healed from prolapse? That's why I like Lanny's analogy of not treating prolapse like a disease, because although you can become completely symptom free at a younger age, like after the two year healing period postpartum, prolapse can come back again at an older age.
That is why we are always stressing the importance of living in the whole woman way for a lifetime. As Lanny stated so well above, that prolapse is an indicator of what we are doing right or what we have become lax in. If you are not feeling anything, then you are on the right path. You could say you are healed during that time period, but what if prolapse came back with a vengeance years down the road again? No one is accusing you of not believing in the work, but I think your expectation of "healing" is problematic. That's why I buy into the management aspect of this work, because I know it is something I can control.
Some women in other cultures never feel the symptoms of prolapse, because they have had a lifetime and family history of the correct posture without even thinking about it. I sometimes envy these cultures that were not influenced by the westernized ideas we have been exposed to. Since we haven't had this kind of background, we do have to put forth this added effort until we become comfortable in our own skin, knowing this is the right path for us, and whatever stage of prolapse we are in, we have the whole woman work to back us up, always.

Always Hopeful, do you have Christine's book or any of her DVDs? I get the feeling that you are trying to learn and understand this work simply by following the forum. The book does give lots of background information about the anatomy of prolapse. Her analogy of the stretched-out sweater comes to mind. - Surviving

I actually value the term healing, although I've never sold the WW work as a "cure".

We've had many detractors over the years, like the conventional prolapse forum recently mentioned, which doesn't allow WW to be talked about - LOL!

I also remember someone (from that same group) coming back time and again insisting that the WW work does not provide 100% reversal of symptoms. Rubbish!

First of all, at least one large study has been conducted on women in the military - women who have never given birth. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but almost all of them had at least stage one prolapse. Another huge percentage - something like 50% - had stage two prolapse. And yet another much smaller percentage had stage three, all the way to the vaginal opening.

Would it be this way if we were all native women sitting on the ground and living in traditional ways? Probably not! The western vagina seems to settle out with a small bulge in front and a small bulge in back. This is generally not symptomatic and women (even female soldiers!) don't even know they have prolapse unless a clinician points it out. For many the bulges worsen and we become symptomatic. Unless prolapse is at the vaginal opening, it's just not a problem.

I think it is curious that Aussie Soul Sister described to you her amazing healing story, yet you seemed to have ignored it. We have had countless such stories and at one point some extremely helpful member compiled many of them into one post. Perhaps you can find that with the search function.

In answer to your question, !sn't there more that could be done?, I would refer you to the following blog post:

https://wholewoman.com/blog/?p=1757

Prolapse is virtually always about the abdominal organs having prolapsed down and in doing so pushed the pelvic organs back from the lower belly. WW Firebreathing is our most effective exercise for pulling the abdominal organs up and the pelvic organs forward.

The vaginal walls can never be too big. They have the ability to stretch to several times what any prolapse would cause. However, they become slack when the uterus and cervix are tipped up and back. When the uterus is fully anteverted, or pinned down and forward into the lower belly, the walls are made more taut.

Beyond that, vaginal "nutation" (a term borrowed from orthopedics) takes place in WW posture. The back wall clamps tightly down against the front wall, closing the vaginal space against intraabdominal pressure. This is why, as Soul Sis said, we don't have vaginal air. When the belly is sucked in and the pelvis rotated backward, air (and organs) can move into and bulge out of the vagina.

If you are trying to categorize WW as a "maintenance" program, dream on. Woman after woman after woman is no longer able to sense her vaginal bulges with this work. If that isn't 100% healing, I don't know what is.

There is no other anatomically possible solution to prolapse than to move the organs forward toward or into their natural positions.

Christine

I really don't get the point you are trying to make since I am 100% satisfied with what Whole Woman has done for me: given me my life back.
I am sorry, but I do feel offended that you dismiss those of us that can still feel our prolapses, as if we have some how failed because we haven't achieved this 100% healing. You can argue statistical data with Christine all you want to, but there are those of us who do this work because of what it does for us; it's an all over body improvement that can't be denied. I have a severely prolapsed uterus that I did find at an older age, and when I started this work, I wouldn't even walk around the block in fear that my uterus was going to fall out. I lost the fear with this work. I now walk for miles, hike, and bike. I do everything I want to and more. I can't ask for any more than that, nor do I want to.
I do hope you find what you are looking for, but sometimes it does take just the doing of something to get the satisfaction you need, and not over analyzing it into an unattainable place until you talk yourself out of it.

I was just realizing in a conversation with my students a couple of weeks ago how many thousands of postpartum mothers we’ve helped over the years…and how validating it is that they aren’t coming back in droves saying the WW work did not adequately heal their condition.

My apologies, but your negative perception of how many women have been helped, and your statements that we dodge questions is irritating and simply not true. We go to great lengths to describe over and over again what the work is and how best to learn it. This is a totally unique and revolutionary approach to prolapse - and frankly the only thing that works. Furthermore, WW product sales are the only way the work stays alive.

I’m not clear what you are actually experiencing. Obviously you’ve reversed your symptoms to a great extent, since your prolapse has never come through the vaginal opening again. If your bulges are well inside, this is 100% healing! My sense is you don’t have a realistic picture of what a mature vagina is.

There are many pictures on the web and I’m sure some of these (click here) are of women who have never given birth.

Some vaginal openings are very small with no vaginal walls in sight, but I think in most women the vaginal walls are visible from the outside (click here).

Here is a text book diagram of a normal vulva, in which the front and back vaginal walls are clearly visible as small bulges (click here).

Here is another illustration of a normal vaginal opening showing the slight bulge of the front vaginal wall (click here).

My guess is that yours doesn’t look much different than these.

If your walls are bulgier, keep pulling them forward with WW posture and exercises. Sense how tight everything feels when you’re sitting on a firm surface with your lumbar curve fully in place. Many a gynecologist has pressured women into surgery for a “gaping” vagina. Understand that the vaginal walls follow the movements of the bony pelvis and close with lumbar curvature. Be patient as women have stated they are still getting results ten years down the road with WW.

There is really nothing else to do, accept to learn to love your womanly vulva as perfect and beautiful. I probably don’t have to mention that we live in a sexually-pathologic culture where now the adult female vulva is supposed to look pubescent - or even pediatric!

One last bit of advice is to enjoy your large, juicy vagina because it will not last forever. Sooner or later after menopause the entire thing shrinks, closes, and becomes fibrous and inelastic. The flower is only open for so long and then it closes. Vaginal atrophy is inevitable for all women. This is why a relationship based on love, rather than superficiality, is so precious.

Christine

This discussion is so interesting and revealing. I think that it took me a long time to accept the 'look' of my new post-partum vagina. It will never look like it did pre kids and it took me ages to realise that the lumpy bits at the opening front and back are probably more 'normal' tissue than prolapse. The laxity and prolapse fluctuate and sit higher and further up than this tissue which is always there.
The images on this post are so reassuring too!
Thank you Christine for putting them here and to the original poster Always Hopeful - the way I see it is if you have torn muscle or detached muscle it's unlikely to heal in the sense that you might mean but our bodies are remarkable in their capacity to strengthen and compensate in other ways. A previous post that gave me great comfort from a woman using the name Full of Grace said "I have no note of my pelvic organs". She was I think more than 2 years pp after her third child (2nd with prolapse). This surely is a testimony to healing! There are loads of similar stories on here but I doubt that your vagina will ever look bulge free - I think that it can feel 'normal' agai with time and effort.

Hi Always,

This process is so sweet, and we've been blessed to experience it over and over again. Thanks to the wonderful members who jumped into the conversation in support of WW. This is how we help each other and we will never tire of helping you understand and become comfortable with your maturing self. However, only you can do the work.

You are not the patient, you are the Physician!

Christine

Sorry for the delay, I have not been able to log in and comment for a while.

My prolapse, rectocele was I believe the result of the use of forceps ( first child was posterior) and episiotomy, and larger than average babies.I expect that conventional living and exercise contributed also. I was also an extreme sloucher.

There was no problem during the next pregnancies with the rectocele. With the second and third I had two push deliveries, but always had an episiotomy and with the third there was panic because the cord crowned first and that episiotomy was long.
The main issues after pregnancy was regularity and I did have large round BMs to deal with.
After the second birth I developed a fissure which took six months to heal which the GP told me was normal time to heal...
I used too much fibre for years, and later on ate more fruit and veg instead of dry fibre which helped much more.
I wouldn't say that after the third my prolapse was worse, just the fairly challenging issue of managing elimination for a while. I did notice that my hip instability began in the years following.

In hindsight, I believe there is a level of healing post - partum, but with conventional living it was inevitable that prolapse became worse along with hip instability.

This came to a head about 4yrs ago and when I found Christine's work, when on the cusp of menopause... and thinking that pain and disability was my future....

The advice I would give you is that you have the opportunity now as a I wasn't able to at your age, to live in WWPosture and strengthen your body to get the best it can give you for life.

I think that resting after birth is important. I had significant blood loss after the first two deliveries so needed a day sleep when home for the day. Often you are tired anyway with the third so when home I used to sleep in the afternoon when the baby slept and the older two became very good at using the video player while I slept. I did a lot of walking when my children were very young, mainly because I had no car.
If I had done it in WWPosture and exercised, and toileted in the recommended way, I would have prevented such a major setback years later.
You have Christine's wisdom to work with now.....
I hope this helps,
Best wishes,

Aussie Soul Sister

In the Pregnancy and Prolapse chapter of "Saving the Whole Woman", Christine addresses the question of why prolapse so often happens later in the PP healing period, not immediately as one might expect. What she has to say is very important for the overall understanding of the anatomy of prolapse and how it is best managed. Interesting post, Soul Sis! - Surviving

Thank you so much for your insight - I have recently found this site and have been reading lots, I've placed an order for book and dvds and am awaiting there arrival. I will definitely keep this in mind when learning the posture and exercises.

Hello All,
I am very glad to have found this site and wisdom. My dvd's are on the way but I believe that I already understand much of this process.
Although I have not been clinically diagnosed, I know my body pretty well. But here are a few things:
1) I have a "ball" near the front opening of my vagina. I can push it back "up". Although I have noticed this once before, recently following a bout of bronchitis in which I coughed very hard and long and often for 2 weeks, it suddenly became very pronounced. Well, yeah :) It has never spilled out of my opening, but does this
sound like a classic uterine prolaspe?
2) I use an inversion board to great overall advantage. Any thoughts?
3) No urinary incontinence, but some burning sensation within my vagina, especially with intercourse on occasion.
4) I just turned 60.
So--here I am sharing my intimate details with you kind women, imagine. I do wish, and I will share with others, that more crones in my life had shared this knowledge involved in post menopause. Just the natural aging of our "flowers" seem to be secret or lost or "bad" in this USA culture.

Hello 1000changesforgood and welcome,
It could be the cervix you are feeling. Here is the prolapse self exam that comes from the book so you can be more sure:

https://wholewoman.com/library/content/articles/prolapseselfexam.pdf

Regardless of the kind of prolapse we have, it is treated in the same way, with whole woman posture and all this wonderful work behind it.
The burning sensation can be greatly relieved by a dab of raw local honey inserted vaginally twice a day.
I also have the uterine prolapse, and this work has literally given me my life back, so welcome to this wonderful community.

Aging Gracefully,
Thank you for your warm welcome and fast response.
I could not download the self exam (yet--funny Mac) but just did one (I think) and voila! I feel a bulge near the back of my vagina as well. Does the "ball" near the opening of my vulva sound like the uterine kind to you?
I understand that the treatment is the same and it sounds very sane so far. I feel like I am home :)
When I get better educated I hope to know what is prolasped because I like to send special messages to special areas.
Just spending the last day adjusting my posture is exciting.
I will be interested to hear if anyone has an opinion or experience with inversion. Seems as though it wouldn't hurt and may help. I do really like it.
Thanks again,
1000

Just put inversion table in the search box; there has been some discussion on the forum about it.
The ball in the front could be a cystocele also. Is it soft and spongy or more firm?

With your link I was able to download the pdf and got mirror and did a better exam. I do believe that it is Stage I uterine. And it is smaller than the last week--and it is more firm than squishy.
That coughing really did a number on hard contractions with many muscles. I could feel the "push" in my vagina.

Ya, coughing can be hell on prolapse. Some ladies like to bend over getting the organs to rest in the belly more, or sit down really extending the belly and lumbar curvature during a coughing spell.

Good tips, thanks. Also for searching for inversion for me.
I'm off to errands but will return!
Good day.

We have had some discussions of inversion tables, but when you start getting into this work and understanding the anatomy and dynamics of it, you'll realize inversion is not the solution. You can get as much relief more easily by just getting down on hands and knees and letting the organs settle and rest into the lower belly - because that's where we are aiming to get them to return to! The organs have fallen back, not down. - Surviving

I know I have a prolapse but not been to doctor, my question is... is there any point going to see one? I have ordered materials here to improve things myself, I don't see any advantage in going to the doctor? Great site btw :)

Hi flowerpower and welcome. My personal answer is, no, no point unless you have concerns that you might have other medical issues besides prolapse. But it is certainly not for anyone here to advise a woman not to see her doctor. So, follow your instincts on this one. I've never had a formal diagnosis. I have no interest in hearing what my doctor has to say on this subject. I've learned what I need to know here. Christine has pointed out that the women who have the least success with this work, are those who are unable to separate themselves from their doctors' recommendations. Prolapse is not an area where conventional medicine shows its best side! Glad you found us!! - Surviving

Hello surviving60, thanks for reply. I avoid GPs like the plague most of the time ;) Though I must make myself go for a smear which is well overdue so thought I might see what she has to say then only out of curiosity. I find this site and the women in it very interesting and it all makes sense to me. I am not a strong believer in "conventional" at best of times.

Thanks. Yes, I do not look to "being a bat" for a prolaspe solution. I have been hanging around looking at the sky years before I have had a prolaspe. I understand that the pressure to the eyes is not good for glaucoma, just was wondering if there was a downside in prolaspe.
I do so love my belly and have been breathing only there since a voice teacher taught me so when a teenager--but I have not been standing in posture correctly/naturally. So, I trying that and will also apply tomorrow in my walk through the woods with the dogs. Will try to be mindful and see the difference. Thanks again.