Doctors keep pushing me to have a hysterectomy

Hi Ally,

Sorry to hear you are having still having problems. It's the second edition of the book that you will find most useful, which is not yet available on Amazon. You can order it from wholewomancenter.com/store

My guess is that you can see 10 surgeons and get 10 recommendations for surgery. That is their job. In the scheme of things 18 months isn't that long. Do you have a uterine prolapse? I am pretty sure pessarys are for women- not old women- and goodness knows if a pessary is for an old woman than by that same thinking isn't surgery for old women?
I wish you didn't have the pain. Have you considered that your pain could be caused by something other than the prolapse? Pain down the leg could be nerve related. I have had help managing pain through massage and chiropractics- have you tried that yet?

I've got this too, had it pretty much as long as I can remember. my pediatrician told my mom it was 'growing pains' and 'attention seeking'. but I digress.
I definitely think my prolapse is related to this condition. for whatever reason my fascia doesn't always behave itself. but I will say that my flare ups have been few and far between lately. and not as debilitating as they were in the past.
I've been seeking chiro help, and making sure I eat well and get decent sleep (ok, hard now with baby, but still I do what I can)and walk every single day. I take care of myself religiously, for when I slip up and let go I end up with the searing pain.

In my mind, its all related. and I think the reason each of us has our own unique prolapse story is due to our 'package deal'.

allysp, I'm wondering what you mean by 'pelvic floor dysfunction'. you've mentioned that you had that before the prolapse, but I'm not sure what you mean by that. I hope you don't mind my asking. if you do, just ignore me : )

I have been fighting blindly against hysterectomy for a number of years with an ever-increasing prolapse problem. It is now a Stage 4. After reading a book called "No More Hysterectomies" by Vikki Hufnagel, I started seeing physicians in this area asking for the more simple repair methods outlined in the publication, and no hysterectomy. During my search through a number of gynecologists, I have even had one glance at me and say "I am trained to do hysterectomies" and I believe that is the major mindset of gynecologists in this country, and backed up next by the urologists I have also seen as I have become rather incontinent and wanted to know their opinion. The more I read about the severe permanent complications and damage to one's entire personal image and life, the more I am not going to let a hysterectomy happen. I have read today something regard exercise and posture repairing prolapse. I would like to find that information immediately as I am scheduled for surgery to shorten the ligaments/fascia holding up my uterus the first week in August. I am also, I was just told this past Friday, scheduled to have a "Burch Procedure" done on my bladder at the same time by some physician I have not met. I was able to watch a video of that procedure being done on the internet from an Atlanta physician group of Drs. Miklos and Moore. I will definitely be calling my physician and saying "no" to the procedure where my bladder would be cut open, pieces of it would be sewn with big loops into the "coopers ligament" (where I am sure it was not hooked when I was born, and then sewn back up (sloppily in the video). No thank you. So, I will be back to insisting on only reattach the uterus, then repair the damage from my three children and the ensuing episiotomy with the first one. I just love episiotomies and just love that we were duped into thinking it was just "procedure" to have one back in the 70's when I had mine. And what a great idea hatched by some simpleton: cut through muscle and skin, and sew back just the outer skin! So, where you once had a muscle or ligament (I forget exactly which), you now are left with only skin to hold you together for the next 30, 40, 50 years. Ha! I have also requested that, in addition to reattaching my uterus in the most minimally damaging manner possible, to locate the remaining muscle tissue on each side of my pelvic floor and reattach them back in the position where they belong. She has agreed to do so.

Again: the alternative method for prolapse. If it were to work on me, it would work on anyone.

I am 57, and I am cute as a button, and I have never even had one hot flash, and my body has been real real happy and taken me through a lot in my life, and I am not going to be so disrespectful of it as to just let some doctor slice out what he thinks is of no use and toss it in the garbage. No, thank you.

You can order the book from www.wholewomancenter.com/store. I had a rendition of the burch procedure and a resulting complete uterine prolapse, which started me down this path of discovering how to restore original pelvic organ support.

The uterine suspensions are terrible, which you will learn about in the book. Reapproximating your pelvic floor muscles may very well send them into spasm and chronic unreleasing, likely affecting bowel and sexual function.

I still have prolapse, but my uterus is tucked well inside and I am otherwise very comfortable and active.

It sounds like you have a very good mindset for not only understanding and incorporating this work but also helping to get the message out to the rest of the world's women.

Were you planning on having Vicki Hufnagel do your surgery? You might try to find the article People Magazine ran on her about four years ago...a shocking expose.

Wishing you well!

Christine

Thank you, Christine, for your prompt response. I have already ordered and paid for the book as I want it now, as one can readily see. I have met with Ms. Hufnagel, but got to a point where I needed to have a licensed physician to prescribe medications, and also hit a road block for my excellent insurance provided through my law firm did not cover surgery in Mexico (where she has physicians who she has trained) meaning I would have to find funding of the $26,000 from some other source, which was an insurmountable task to date. She seems to have a great respect for the human body is all I can truthfully say, but I must now find real answers to my immediate problem and let my insurance pay for it. Now: I am scheduled for abdominal surgery to make the reattachment of my uterus. Not good? Heaven knows I have suffered humiliation after humiliation and almost disbelief as doctor after doctor entered the examination room and surely wondered how I walk around. I walk around because I have learned to cope and deliberately "replace" everything, don the perfect jeans in which nothing in my body dare slide anywhere South, and I am good to go for an hour or two. I am off work because after that brief time of "good to go" I am a victim of unyielding incontinence of both kinds a human can have. Not too cute, and unacceptable in the business world. It is time for me to leave the "humiliation" behind and get on with life. I have a grand daughter almost 3 years old and she and my daughter are counting on me helping them buy a horse and teaching her to ride, among other kind and loving invitations I have from them. I must be in the best condition possible for at least another 10 to 20 years.

Again, I am truly still rather paralyzed mentally about having any surgery at all. You are saying that having the pelvic floor repair from episiotomy (the only thing left is one kind-hearted little anus who is growing more tired each day) is not a wise decision? I have no idea who to ask this of as all of my friends (and some family) have immediately succumbed to the all-powerful doctors demand for hysterectomies; therefore, I must seem to be some sort of radical. But, I will never forget one of them telling me right after surgery "I feel just like a little boy. You should have one too." I have, or had as he died when he was 27, a magnificent "little boy", but I do not long to be one. I want to be me. I am hoping that is not an impossible thing to want.

Again, thank you for your response,and if you need a warrior on your side, here I am.

Medusa,

I DEFINITELY will take you up on the warriorship!

You will learn the whole story of prolapse from the book, so there is no need for me to re-write it here. I would love to hear that you were able to improve with this work, but your condition sounds pretty severe and therefore we must tread with the utmost care. Read up on uterine suspension!

It is true that all I have is my own experience, the stories of many other women, and the medical literature from which to draw. With that I will try to give you my best perspective on the subject.

If you haven’t already, please read my blog entry on perineal laceration. Because there really is no guaranteed surgery to give you back your perineum, you must try very hard to understand the anatomical issues in order to determine whether there may be any benefit in undergoing a repair.

First of all, it is important to understand the vagina as a sphincter. In structure and function, it is really no less a sphincter than the anus or the outlet at the bottom of the stomach. For the most obvious reasons it should be an absolute given (and I’m sure it is in areas other than ob/gyn) that sphincter muscles should NEVER be cut through. Your innate sensibilities tell you this as mine tell me, but how could we have known as young, trusting women giving birth?

It is much less likely (but certainly possible) that your pelvic wall muscles were cut, but rather the bulbocavernosus muscles surrounding the vaginal opening. Like many severed structures in the body, these have a tendency to retract and can be difficult to identify, grasp, and stitch back together. It doesn’t help that a huge percentage of practicing obstetricians receive inadequate training in episiotomy repair.

What also gets cut in standard episiotomy is the perineal body. This structure between vagina and anus acts as the mast of a ship that many other muscles and ligaments of the pelvic interior feed into. The perineal body is described as having a “fibrous core” that gives resilience to the pelvic wall in the form of distensibility. With increases in intraabdominal pressure, the pelvis moves toward the back and it is the perineal body that most allows this extension.

Researchers have identified “disintegration” of the perineal body as the starting point of prolapse and incontinence. Weakening the mast allows the entire structure to ever-so-slightly begin to collapse. Often this is first experienced as intermittent stress urinary incontinence. Nerve damage causes what is left of the musculature to slowly atrophy over time. You describe quite well what is left in a 50-something year old woman who has had two or three episiotomies: Thin skin and virtually no area between vagina and anus.

The best of the pelvic surgical literature clearly states that it is unwise to try to create a new perineum by pulling together and closing the pelvic wall muscles. The area has a propensity for developing a ridge of painful scar tissue. Furthermore, these muscles must relax and open for defecation, which becomes difficult if they are partially stitched together. Do you see?

It is instead suggested that the long-since retracted and atrophied superficial musculature (the vaginal sphincter) try to be located and put back together. Just as in an external anal sphincter repair, it is very questionable whether this can provide improved structural support and function. Women have perineal repairs all the time as part of posterior colporrhaphy and there is no question that these operations have very low success rates.

You mention anal incontinence, but as my paper on laceration indicates, women are warned by physicians to examine their symptoms carefully and decide whether a procedure carrying only a 50% chance of improvement is worth the chance of actually being made worse.

Okay…deep breath…the good news.

What we are learning to do with this work is to shift our weight, in both standing and seated postures, off that area by holding the entire pelvis forward and over its natural floor, which is the pelvic bones that come together like the straps of a saddle underneath us. This takes time to learn and more time to adjust to, but it is possible that it may be what you are needing at this time. It was for me. I have a situation that sounds very similar to yours (without the incontinence) and I never question that this area need not further deteriorate for the rest of my life. I know this to be true because I eat well, have sex very carefully, stand and sit in ways that strengthen rather than stress, and use a nourishing and building salve morning and night. The lower back vaginal wall is actually very resilient and can respond to having to act a bit externally as long as it receives a high level of care. Surgeons even devised an operation (since abandoned, thank goodness) where they turned that area backward to try to act as a partial anal sphincter.

Understand that this is my best perspective, yet we all have different conditions and must be responsible for our own decisions.

Please enjoy the book and read with a warrior’s eye!

Christine

I was just notified via email that my book will ship tomorrow. When it arrives here in Hollywood, I will set aside time to devour it at once. I will fire up my obedience quality and obey the instructions since I have but one month to make a vast difference in this body; and, since I cannot be at work, I am going to the gym (1/2 block away which is about as far as I can walk - plus I am choosing carefully exactly what exercise this body can handle) on a daily basis for I want to be physically ready for whatever must be done.

Thank you again for your kind assistance.

Respectfully,

Riordan

I would take a break from all formal exercise until you read the book. This is more about learning to hold and carry the body in a different way. Some forms of exercise can cause more harm than good. Rest, eat well, stop ALL straining on the toilet, and begin to get a sense of trusting your body to, as Louise said, “rehabilitate from prolapse”.

Christine can i ask what you use to *quote*
''use a nourishing and building salve morning and night. ''

could you let me know what it is you use and how to use it?
I have read your book and continuing to use the posture, I do symathise greatly with allysp I to have significant symptoms from my prolapses but I will not be having surgery, I am trying my best to live with the situation and find that stress can play a big part also keeping my mind occupied and not dwelling on myself helps but some days can make you feel so down when the symptoms are severe, but hey i dust myself of and next day start again, the couch is there if I need it to recuperate a bit. I am however going to the Gynea on 26th July to try a pessary, I am not against anyone seeking respite and after all a pessary is a better option than sugery and i know of many woman who have used this method succesfully for many years. I just pray that i am one of the many that it helps. I would demand to see if a pessary would help your situation, here in the UK the doctors are more symathetic and when I asked concerning a pessary I was referred without any problem, but here in the UK doctors advice the pessary to be kept in for around 3 months to 6 months and we are not encouraged to take it out daily....ladies are however checked regular to see that all stays well but as christine said the Vagina is quite resiliant and much worse could happen than having a pessary fitted so good luck allysp if you decide to go for one

Hi Ally

I wish I could give you suggestions to help but I can't, except to say that pain doesn't always manifest itself at the source. It is called referred pain. I have had it, where I have had a full body massage for pain, but the inflammation found and worked on by the masseuse is not where I feel the pain, eg I feel it on the left side, but the right side is where the inflammation is.

Does that ring any bells with you?

Cheers

Louise

Hi again Ally

Yes, it will probably be a waiting game, but I would go back to the Ob-Gyn and tell him about the heart thing. It is not a good thing to mess around with hearts. Better safe than sorry. It might just be bothersome, but you need to find that out for yourself.

Cheers

Louise

Hi Anne,

I don’t want to let (the whole) cat out of the bag quite yet, but we will soon have the best salves and lubricant available anywhere! Look for a LOUD :-) posting in about two weeks. I needed them desperately, as so many women do, so had to work a little magic to manifest them.

Christine

Thank you Christine i'll look forward to that
Anne

Just wanted to add that I also have fibromyalgia and 4th degree prolapse. Hmm. Connection? By the way, granolamom, I was also attention seeking with growing pains as well. Took 20 years for a diagnosis.

Christine. It was so informative and well articulated. I'm curious about what you meant about being careful having sex.

Riordan, you are a strong woman! Your inner wisdom will guide you.

Blessings to all,

Marie

...slowly and sweetly.