How long before results?

Hi Beejay

Good to hear from you again. Sorry to hear that you are not getting the progress you expected.

No, you are right I'm afraid. There is no holiday from POP. It is always there. It's just that sometimes you can forget it is there, hopefully more often, rather than less often.

Desperately wanting to do something like walking for miles and not even knowing you have POP can be very frustrating, and the frustration can sometimes be worse than the bulge.

You do say that some days you don't even feel it, yet other days when you are on your feet a lot, you do notice it. Finding out what you are doing differently is the hard bit. Once you know that, changing how you do things can solve the problem.

You may never get to the point where you never notice it, but you may get to the point where you are confident that you are not doing any more damage by moving mindfully, and you cease to notice the bulge so much.

I still struggle after 3 years with relaxing my lower belly but when I do my prolapses behave differently, immediately. Training my brain is the hard bit. I usually don't notice the prolapses a lot, but just recently I have realised that my menstrual cycle is going ga-ga's with perimenopause and my bladder seems to have been hanging lower than normal for weeks and weeks. However a bleed has started now (at the end of this 11 week cycle) and already it feels a bit different. I knew that something had to give, have been careful with posture, food, clothing etc for the last few weeks, and it seems to be easing, as I knew it would. I couldn't do anything else, and I certainly wasn't going to run off crying to the doctor and request a cut and paste job.

So yes, things do go in phases or cycles and you just have to take the good days with the bad. It is always management, for the rest of your life, so keep fine tuning, and keep going back to basics with posture. It might just be a phase you are going through.

You mention that sex is impossible. Have you tried and found this to be the case? If so, I am wondering if some changes in position might help, or some better lubrication? Penises are generally very good at getting past cystoceles and urethrae that are in the way. They are really only bags of water that have slipped out of place. Is there something else I have missed? Self-confidence? Partner-confidence? Pain?

I can't really give you any other tips at this stage, but how you deal with the *frustration* might actually affect your wellbeing more than the lump itself. Just acknowledge the good days and make your way through the bad days, knowing they will pass. Hopefully the walkers among our Membership will rally to your cry and give you some walking tips.

Cheers

Louise

Ooooo, ouch! I see what you mean! Hmm, that one might need Christine's attention when she gets back next week. In the meantime there may be women who have urethrocele who have made some progress.

Ladies??? Where are you???

You could also have a look at alemama's thread about the abdominal vacuum exercise she found on utube, which is to do with isolating abdominal muscles and literally sucking the organs back up, which might iron out your troublesome kink before you indulge in lovemaking.

I think that thread might have happened since you we heard from you last.

Nah, there is no such thing as TMI here, specially me! ;-)

Cheers

Louise

I'm so sorry this is causing you so much distress. Since I don't have a urethrocele strictly speaking, mine is a cystocele, I believe it is actually protective of my urethra whereas yours causes pain on intercourse. You've tried changing positions but have you tried additional lubrication? Perhaps friction is causing the penis to bring that tissue back down. Sounds like it's pinching you a bit. I think I would continue to try varying positions.

Don't know how technical I want to get here, but oh well. If you are lying on your tummy and he lies on top of you, that might take all the pressure off the front tissue, or it might actually cause the penis to poke it directly. Which might depend on how much mass is between you (how big your butt is, ha ha ha.... it seems my husband "pokes" me more the bigger my butt gets). "Doggeie" style is always a good one to try. And of course, if he lies on his back and you sit astride him, you can control the thrusting. I think, if I were in your situation, I might try to place a finger in the spot as he thrusts, to apply a little counterpressure and see if that doesn't prevent the painful tug. Like hook your index finger protectively around the urethra, alongside his penis.

Beyond that, I too am anxious to hear Christine's response.

took about a year until my bulge was smaller

re: pulling on the 'lip', maybe your dh could 'hang out' a bit longer until he's smaller and won't bother your urethrocele so much?

trying Christine's ballet workout from the new book. I find it pulls everything up pretty consistently. Even doing a bit of it helps, if not the whole workout. Plie plie plie! Remember, we're trying to make changes to the musculoskeletal system and this takes time and work. There's lots to try -- diet, too. Listen to your intuition about what your body needs each day. Give it some time. Hang in there. It gets way better.

Marie

Hey Beejay- I know how frustrating it is- and I got worse before I got better-I hope that doesn't happen to you but know that it is possible and that you will still get better. I guess if I had to put a number on it, I have taken about a year to see any lasting improvement. I have recently had a setback- but I am all the way back to better than baseline now. Before my physical symptoms began to improve I felt much calmer about prolapse- maybe 6 months? or so.
In the early days with prolapse I felt very similar to your faithless feeling-except instead of losing my faith in God I was losing my faith in my body and it's ability to heal.
Give it time.

I guess what strikes me most about this thread, Beejay, is the importance of stabilizing prolapse through posture. I think it’s fair to say that younger women want reversal (sooner rather than later!) while older women cultivate a deep appreciation for the grace of stabilization.

I have always written about the fact that the natural curves in the human spine cannot be straightened out. If we lose one of our curves, the spine will always compensate by developing a more pronounced curve somewhere else. Girls who have been implanted with metal rods in their thoracic spine to “cure” scoliosis often develop “flat back syndrome” where the lumbar curve is entirely absent. Much more commonly, women over time lose their lumbar curvature, which results in a more pronounced hump at the base of their neck. Almost every woman who comes into my studio has some level of this progression. As I point out in my book, extreme cases of loss and transfer of spinal curvature can result in spinal cord compression, neuropathy, and progressive prolapse.

Practice the whole posture and in time you will come to understand the deep gift of our natural design.

Christine

Oh, not at all Beejay…how many women tell us their bulge is no longer “peeking” or that they are no longer aware of it all the time? That’s certainly reversal in my book. The reality, however, is that endopelvic fascia is very difficult to remodel and virtually all of us will remain with some level of bulge. The giant blessing of this work, however, is that prolapse doesn’t have to get any worse for the great majority of us.

Christine, you mean Wholewoman work aims to bring about stabilization of fascia to prevent more damage, and aims to reverse the degree of symptoms??

Louise

:-)

Hi All

I have been doing the posture, exercises from DVD for about 5 months now (am 16 months post partum) and I don't feel the bulges most of the time but I have aches and pains- in lower back, buttocks, sitting bones, back passage, and now recently muscular aches in abdomen. I guess I am wondering if these will improve at all, are they posture learning aches or prolapse related-has anyone else had experiense of these? Louise has talked about Feldenkrais really working in terms of the body relearning to use different muscles but I cannot find any practioners in the UK.

I am also finding it hard to continue diapraghmatic breathing when I am in the posture and wonder what I am doing wrong? Maybe a too tense belly? Any help is much appreciated!

Thank you

Frankie x

I get them too, when I have not been using the posture and then go back to it. I think, in my case anyway, its nothing more than stretching out tight muscles and using previously underused muscles.

I'd try keeping the belly more relaxed for diaphragmatic breathing. see if that helps

It is reassuring Granolamum that someone else gets them too though I wouldn't wish them on anyone! I will try and keep my belly relaxed.

My worry through all this is that because I have had two bad tears, I will not improve as I keep reading that you need an intact pelvic floor to stabilise and improve prolapses. Is there any hope for us with damaged pelvic floors?

Hi Frankie

Here is the
Feldenkrais UK link .

Re diaphragmatic breathing, try placing your hands down low on your belly, finger tips touching, with your little fingers just above the pubic bone. Now, instead of concentrating on your diaphragm, concentrate on breathing downwards into your hands, and feel your lower belly 'yielding' to the breath. This way you get the feeling of relaxing your lower belly, as well as breathing into it with your diaphragm. I think of diaphragmatic breathing as only half the story. It could be called breathing down, as opposed to breathing up which I would do by using my rib muscles and inflating my shoulders.

I think we get into trouble with breathing because all the exercise and relaxation techniques I have ever learned up until the last few years tell me to breathe in deeply and fill my whole lungs. You know what this does? It makes you lift your shoulders to get as much into your lungs as you can. What are we trying to do with shoulders in Wholewoman? We are trying to drop the shoulders. So by breathing into the lower belly it accomplishes two things, relaxes the lower belly and allows the shoulders to drop. It you need extra lung capacity for extra exertion you can always get it by using up breathing as well.

Hey, this sounds like I know what I am talking about. Nah, it is just what Christine Kent and my Buteyko teacher have taught me, then I have carried it a bit further to solve my own body challenges. I am confident that this is working for me. Hopefully you will too.

Cheers

Louise

Thanks for the Feldenkrais UK link and I am so excited because there is a teacher in the next town to me! Will call her early next week and see what she says - will let you know.

Have been sitting on the computer taking breaks and breathing into my hands. Very weird but I feel like it is toning my tummy muscles as well as they are aching. I do feel at the end of the day at the moment as if I have done a workout just by trying to retrain my body to adopt the posture and make it its own. Mind you I also did the firebreathing exercise this morning so that could be a big factor!

Frankie x