Rectocele

Hi NFP - you have been a forum member for a lot of years and have participated in many discussion threads, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you cannot access the comments on the forum. You'll need to describe this in a little more detail.

A small rectocele is not a reason for hysterectomy and surgery. Whole Woman has been working hard since 2003 to keep women out of the operating room, managing their symptoms with posture and other tools developed by Christine to assist in keeping the organs in proper alignment. If you consult with a surgeon, you cannot be too surprised when the recommendation is surgery. Management of rectocele is no different from management of any other type of prolapse. Go back to the videos you have, or consider updating your resource library with some new products from the Store. And keep reading the forum. - Surviving

Are you using the search box to look for discussions of rectocele? When the Search Results come up, you have to click on the title of the discussion you want to view. Then the whole discussion will come up, including the comments for that discussion. If you click on "comments" on the Search Results page, nothing happens. - Surviving

There are many contributing factors to developing rectocele......chronic constipation and straining, childbirth interventions especially episiotomy, extended pessary use, and of course, a lifetime of bad advice and bad habits, bad posture and the resulting unsupported and misaligned organs. It's unlikely that one instance of explosive diarrhea is the cause of your rectocele, though it makes for an easy scapegoat for your gynecologist. More likely you had a rectocele that was not particularly symptomatic, but was aggravated by the probing and is now causing discomfort. That's just my take on your post.....You do seem to have this doctor on a pedestal, despite the fact that she was ready to slice and dice you all up, the minute you said yes to her recommendations.

I do love this quote from Christine's latest newsletter: "For some, stepping away from the medical system as we know it is as easy as stepping off a curb. For others, it’s like stepping off a cliff." I would say you are somewhere in between, but I do admire your thoroughness, and your willingness to try and engage in a dialogue with someone who, in truth, has no interest in hearing about prolapse management through posture. - Surviving

The argument that "whose hands" pelvic floor surgeries are in makes the difference between success and failure is an old one. However, decades of catastrophic failure rates clearly reveal that these surgeries don't work no matter who is performing them.

The WW argument is that they *can't* work because they are built upon a flawed conceptual framework of a "pelvic floor" that needs to be made smaller, tighter, stronger. It is simply the wrong concept, and since female pelvic surgeons are cut from the same cloth, they are often just as aggressive in their practices.

Hi NFP,

I am happy to hear that you have found WW methods to be helpful in the management of prolapse symptoms. I also find your arguments somewhat disturbing.

In reading through this thread it is clear you see many doctors:

“my cardiologist and primary care physician”
“my gynecologist”
“two different female doctors”
“I recently went to a friend of one of the doctors who is a gynecologist”
“Several doctors recommended that I have one against my better judgement and I gave in.”

How fortunate that you and your husband have avoided common surgeries, but as you say “My medical doctors are well aware of my position on this matter”, so obviously you are not a surgical candidate in their eyes. Yet you must know, NFP, that more women than ever are undergoing hysterectomy and other devastating pelvic, hip and knee operations. I have to wonder why in the world an 80-year-old would find a pap smear and vaginal ultrasound necessary. The doctor certainly didn’t need the very questionable ultrasound images to diagnose rectocele.

Why would you dismiss the healing power of warm sea salt water just because your doctor dismissed it? I would never allow Calmoseptine near my body. It is a hydrocarbon-based product born of the industrial chemical industry that includes the white crystals of chlorothymol, glycerin from the animal-tallow industry, and phenol from petroleum.

And let’s be clear that honey and vinegar do not cause an overgrowth of yeast. These are the very best biologic medicines available for restoring the vaginal microbiome in the older woman, yet some women react negatively to various vinegars.

You say “By stepping away from the medical profession as we know it we will never make a difference.” Yet, there are many MDs who have done just that in order to make the world a better place. The doctor you are so highly in praise of offered you a devastating surgery - a surgery she undoubtedly performs on dozens of women every [edit:year]. I’m having a hard time finding admiration in that.

Yes, women do need to think for themselves. And also understand the subtle but profound differences between a self-care mindset and one that is medically-dependent.

Christine

I edited the above post.

The average pelvic surgeon performs around 50 hysterectomies every year.

I wanted to share some personal thoughts - i do believe surgical skill makes a difference for sure, but only in areas like transplants, brain surgery, bone surgery etc... but the shocking and really scary fact of the matter is surgery is business... and it's especially 'good business' in areas like female pelvic surgery..... it's an area that women don't want to talk about, an area that is SO VERY misunderstood by the entire industry, and an area where long term results are not tracked, monitored or discussed. it's so easy to say - "hysterectomy" to any number of female issues and a lot of women agree and get them done (like mesh and slings etc etc Christine knows what she speaks of very well in this area as she was one of them! and thanks to her going through this - she's saved so many women from the same path!!)

but a hystorectomy - no matter how 'skilled' and careful and amazing and compassionate the surgeon is - the surgery itself compromises the entire female support system. so surgical skill is not the deciding factor here... and yes - plenty of women have pelvic surgeries and are seemingly ok but huge numbers are not. I don;t know that anyone would agree to surgery with the same failure rates as pelvic organ surgeries if they really knew the right rates. I was reading that failure rates are as high as 60%... how is that ok?? and that proves it's not surgeon skill...
it's hard to get real failure rates because there are many different kinds of surgeries... failures occur sometimes years after... and 'failure' comes in many forms, some women might still have incontinence but if it's light, they think oh that's not really failure - i can live with it.... and so on...
i'm not really directing this at you NFP since, as you say, you're anti surgery... but I just wanted to lay down my thoughts here on this thread...

your doctor - as kind and smart and compassionate as she is - her first solution for you was surgery... and if you were not the type of person who didn't want surgery? what about the next patient that comes to her with a rectocele who doesn't know any better? who trusts their doctor to make the right choice for them?

Thanks much for your thoughts Typicalme. I so hope we can raise a new generation of women who understand at a very deep level that only they can heal themselves. I think we forget that we live in very strange times, when a relatively small group of men (and now women) have taken the wildness from women, and hypnotized us into mistrusting our body, and nature.

What is so ironic is that all the poking, looking, and “surveillance” will eventually bring about what doctors are looking for, and what women are afraid they will find. As the ancient wisdom traditions teach us, the body cannot create anything - it is impossible. Only the mind creates.

I'm sure by now you may feel that we are picking on you without cause. The truth is, you started a discussion here, raising issues that cut right to the very heart of the Whole Woman mission. We can't let our message get watered down for the masses....the masses need all the information they can get. Christine's position on the medical management of prolapse, and the role of doctors in perpetuating this damage to countless women, has been clear from the beginning. Just because yours took "no" for an answer, doesn't make her one iota better than the rest of them. - Surviving

We never mean to hurt anyone’s feelings, but only get to the heart of the matter, and what we are discussing in this thread is truly the core issue for us all.

I like to believe humans developed naturally up to a point. Of course it is all “natural” because the evolution of humankind just kept rolling along through the ages. However, things took a decidedly unnatural turn when the scientific, industrial, and medical revolutions got a foothold. Francis Bacon, the “Father of Science” vowed that nature would be “Bound into service, hounded in her wanderings and put on the rack and tortured for her secrets.” Things haven’t gone much better for women.

Before the early Modern Age women were in charge of women’s health, which had to do primarily with the birth process, and tending to infections, broken bones, and infectious diseases for the whole community. One can only assume that a woman of any age with prolapse would've gone to the village midwife, who probably would’ve said, “Oh yes, I see that occasionally, just carry on with your work and you will be fine.” And because women did not sit in soft furniture and were far more active, their symptoms were likely very manageable.

However, surgeons have always been necessary members of the human community. When a midwife encountered a true obstructive birth, or dead fetus that could not be born, she would call in the surgeon - who was also the town butcher. The surgeon would extract the fetus so the mother’s life could be saved. This was true for amputations as well. It was simply the natural order of things that hunters and butchers were men.

When man-midwives took over the birth process, a slow and steady march toward surgical birth and surgical intervention for all manner of common women’s conditions began. I have no doubt that if the women of the time could have seen into the future they would’ve been horrified at the state of women’s “health” today.

Gynecology is and always has been a surgical practice. The only hope for the possibility of change is if women walk away from a system that has arisen from male domination and control. I hold out far less hope that NFPs wonderful women doctors will begin a new profession based on the correct anatomy of the female body (for God’s sake!) and natural solutions to common women’s health conditions, although this is what is truly needed.

Christine

…that many doctors - particularly cardiologists and internists - have left the standard medical model to focus their practices on health rather than treating the symptoms of disease. My husband’s former client Dean Ornish is one of them. Dr. McClanahan from Correct Toes stopped performing foot surgeries in favor of rehabilitating feet. The list is very long, but such is not the case with gynecology, even though most obgyns are now women!