Western Medicine vs the rest

Submitted by louiseds on October 14, 2007 - 10:55pm
Body: 

Hi All

I have lost a lot of faith in Western medicine, but I think that may be because I had too much faith in it in the first place. To tell you the truth I have excellent, not so wonderful and downright expensive, damaging and useless treatments from many different forms of therapies, both medical and non-medical. I now regard all of them on a pretty equal footing.

One thing I have learned is that a person has to have an active role in any sort of healing therapy for their 'self', whether physical, mental, socio-social or spiritual.

Another thing I have learned is that the human being is a highly complex organism made up of inter-related and interlocking systems. All therapists have their own world view determined by their teachers, and this often precludes the world view of others. It is a bit like religions really. They could be all a little bit right, but none of them admits it! IMHO, to treat the healing of the human being as exclusively the territory of any one healing paradigm is just puerile and over-simplistic .

Unfortunately, Western medicine seems to lead the way in Western societies with many governments having universal health systems, funded by the taxpayer. Oh, the power of the medical lobby! Other healing models do not seem to have this benefit, so Western medicine can get a little lazy and arrogant because of this often privileged position. The whole international medical research system is built on principles of Western medicine and does not recognise research done by other branches of healing. It also does not see that its own research projects are often not objective, being funded by companies that have a vested interest in finding uses for, and testing of their products. This criticism is often pointed at non-medical therapies too, mind you.

Sometimes these scientists do find answers to the questions they ask, which we all hear about when there is a medical breakthrough. However, I often wonder if they are even asking the right questions.

I use as an example a research project at one of the big US university medical centres (Whose name escapes me at present, but I could dig it up, as I had several emails to and fro with the appropriate professor in charge of the project). This team is investigating the use of medical imaging on newly delivered Mums to see if they can diagnose postpartum prolapse early. These women have scans lying down in the machine.

We know from this Forum that many Mums have postpartum prolapse, and that many of these resolve to become assymptomatic by about 12 months pp. Problem solved. We also know from this Forum that prolapses that are a problem for a woman in everyday life may remain undetected at a gyn visit (examined on your back). We also know that a medical practitioner can only tell if a prolapse is a problem, and the true degree of it by examining the women standing.

So this very expensive machine is being used an enormous number of times by the research team who are scanning 100's of women, possibly at the cost of the woman, possibly at the cost of the manufacturer of the machine (whom I guess is the sponsor of the research) to find out stuff which in many cases is irrelevant for the woman with the prolapse.

Why aren't they pouring their resources into finding out why women get prolapses in the first place?

Why aren't they pouring their resources into finding out why women who have had babies are the main group who have prolapse diagnosed?

Why are they not asking if it is because of the way their labours are mismanaged in hospital?

Or is it because women are not generally examined vaginally very much before they go into labour the first time, so pre-existing prolapses have not been identified?
There is no doubt that a pre-existing prolapse is at great risk where a woman labours on her back and delivers sitting semi-upright, where forceps and episiotomy are used, and where labour is hurried artificially.
We know from women on this Forum that childbirth with pre-existing prolapse does not necessarily worsen the prolapse, especially where the woman is well-educated in natural childbirth and is not in a birthing environment where intervention happens at the instigation of the hospital staff to meet the requirements of insurance policies.

Why are they not investigating how women who have not had a pregnancy are getting prolapses?

Who is going to get the benefit from this research?

The woman identified with postpartum prolapse who has been medicalised and identified for further treatment, maybe unnecessarily?

The Professor, who will have his research paper written up in a prestigious medical journal?

The University medical school that will gain prestige from conducting the research and experience with using the machine, that will increase their income-producing ability?

The manufacturer of the equipment whose efficacy has been extended by the research, which will be good promotion for sales of the machine in future?

The experience I have had corresponding with this professor has shown that the term ‘medical science’ really can be an oxmoron. Some women may be assisted in healing by diagnosis with this machine, but they are still not asking why she had the prolapse in the first place, and whether postpartum diagnosed a couple of days after delivery, lying on her back, is relevant to anything at all.

By the way, when I asked the learned Professor how horizontal scanning during the research project was relevant to the prolapse problems experienced by a vertical woman in everyday life I received no reply.

Keep it real. Do your own research so you understand the language and how the body works. Be prepared to put a lot of time into this. Ask for justification of opinions from all healers, both medical and non-medical. Check out the references. Be open to new ideas. Protect yourself from damage. Be prepared for failure and hope for success. No healer is God.

Cheers

Louise

AnneH

October 16, 2007 - 9:14am

You nail a lot of truth here. Western medicine PER SE is neither good nor bad, like most things. It is highly complex with many successes and many dismal failures. It would be as idiotic to reject it out of hand as it is to reject traditional alternative therapies out of hand. You don't throw out the baby with the bathwater... this applies to just about everything I've come across in life.

I hold a degree in Mechanical Engineering and this has led me to conclude that Western Medicine could benefit from being MORE analytical, not less, and your example of examinations while on your back perfectly illustrates this truth. They do this all the time. I had a slipped disk in my back and they did an MRI. I'm lying on my back of course. The results are a "mild" hernia and only "mild" narrowing of the intervertebral space and the doctors kind of scratching their heads as to why I'm in so much pain. I go to a chiropractor and he takes a simple X-ray of me STANDING. Results: SEVERE narrowing between the vertebrae. No brainer? It shouldn't take a degree in Mechanical Engineering to grasp this but apparently - in the medical field - it must.

Another example, locked sacroiliac. MRI, X-ray, show NOTHING. Again, go to chiropractor, he manipulates - or tries to - and the joint won't move. It is frozen in place. It's a DYNAMIC problem, not a static one. Would never show in a million years on a snapshot film. Not til they invent dynamic MRI could they diagnose this on film. Til then it remains an ART, and that is where traditional medicine excels where Western medicine fails... but that is IN ACCORDANCE with rational scientific principles, not against them.

Don't get me started on socialized medicine. The best thing for mankind is individual freedom with all its faults and failures. I would rather be free to choose whichever doctor I want and keep my money to pay for it than have some centralized authority taking my tax money and dictating how I get my healthcare ANY DAY.

Roxy

October 17, 2007 - 12:14pm

Well, of curse the first thing I did was go to Barnes and Noble and find books I thought might give me info on prolapse. In ten books, I found maybe 10 paragraphs. My doc suggested a hysterectomy right off the bat. My chiropractor did some research for me and came up with some good suggestions, my massage therapist didn't know any particular work we could do to help, but she suggested Dr. Northrup's book, which I had bought, but which had little information. She also sugggested Dr. Ruth (LOL!) but I was a bit squeamish when I went to her site!

Questions I want to ask seem un-askable to people I know, so I'll ask all you strangers!

1. Would masturbation with a dildo, both push the uterus up where it belongs, and also exercise the muscles (on orgasm) that they say we should easily be able to find when we do the kegel exercises? See, I told you it was a question hard to ask! But have there ever been any studies done on this? Where would I find that information? I love sex with my husband, but if this would help, I'm all for it every day of the week, several times a day. I'm sure other women would like to know the answer, but are all afraid to ask. I'm not trying to offend anyone, just trying to make sense of this problem from a mechanical point of view. You build muscle through resistance so why wouldn't this help, and why (because it's a woman's problem no doubt and unseemly to discuss) hasn't there been research that's easy to find on this? Any why no books on the problem at Barnes and Noble?
Roxy

AnneH

October 17, 2007 - 1:36pm

I think it couldn't hurt and might well help. Whenever you become sexually aroused, your vagina tends to "pull up" or "open up" in preparation for being penetrated. The uterus tends to pull back up toward the top of the vagina. It doesn't stay that way forever, but might make a few millimeters of a difference for a while afterwards. I would think a dildo would do the same thing a man's penis would, in further tucking things back upwards if only for a short while. The stimulation and active usage of the tissues has bound to be a good thing and help actualize whatever tone potential you still have left. Many women can prolong the arousal stage better when masturbating than when having sex with a partner, and/or reach higher levels of arousal, and perhaps that could give you even more benefits than actual sex, though I wouldn't recommend doing it instead of sex with your man, just in addition to, if you want. I don't have any research to quote at the moment; just my gut feelings about it... tells me only good can come of it... using common sense of course, like hygiene and so on.

alemama

October 17, 2007 - 2:47pm

I agree with AnneH. If you have the time and privacy- it is worth the experiament. Let us know what you find out.

louiseds

October 17, 2007 - 8:31pm

Ditto with AnneH and Alemama

The more arousal and orgasms you can get the better, as far as I can work out. It's all to do with the mechanics of it, and nothing to do with love, lust or eroticism. Fantasy may be a part of it, but I imagine it could get to be a bit like using a treadmill instead of pounding the pavements, ie boring, boring, boring. I hope it doesn't dampen your enthusiasm for real sex. Oh yeah, don't wear out your favourite fantasies either! ;-)

The other good thing about masturbation is that it does keep the vagina and vulva in good working order, plumped up and moist, which can in turn make real sex better, that's as long as you keep up the lubrication at the beginning. IMHO, chafing can be a means of bacterial and fungal bugs getting hold, so hygiene and care of your body does become extra important. Go for it, I say.

As for why you don't find much about prolapse in books, well that's why Wholewoman now has over 1600 members. A lot of the stuff we discuss here is sharing tips for managing it. Can you seriously imagine a doctor suggesting very frequent masturbation with a dildo?? LOL I suspect the average doctor could roll "abdominal colpopexy" off his tongue without much effort, but "mastubation" would probably tongue tie him for the next 24 hours! LOL

Much of what we say would be just TMI for most people because it is a hidden and intimate thing that has a stigma attached. Unless women are prepared to be open about asking questions about it nobody is going to give any answers, or think it is worth writing about. Some women will not even ask their family doctor about it!

It is so tied up with a woman's sexuality, self esteem or loss thereof, the feelings of being damaged, unattractiveness; and the wives' tales about not having any more babies, sex is over, penetrative sex will cause more damage, that it is a disease of older women only, etc. That's why people don't write about it.

Doctors have appropriated it but are not willing to look beyond surgery for ways of dealing with it. It is just too much for them (and there are $$$ at stake!). That's why it is important to make friends with it, demystify it, stop the conspiracy of silence, and take it back and put the power of managing it back into the hands of women who have it.

IMHO the way society regards prolapse is just another form of abuse by neglect. Some of you may remember back to the days when babies with cerebral palsy were put in full time residential care because it was thought that they weren't intelligent enough to function as human beings. I think a lot of it was to do with locking people who looked ugly and couldn't communicate, away from the gaze of others. So it was for the benefit of those on the outside, not those on the inside. The rest of us could ignore them; pretend that they did not even exist.

In a way, prolapse is similar. Unfortunately prolapse happens in the same part of a woman's body as penetrative sex. Many people find sex itself difficult enough to talk about, let alone when the revered recreation area becomes damaged.

It is a little bit like crashing our Dad's car. Shame and guilt abound! Why??? It is not that the woman has done anything wrong in the eyes of society. Far from it, it is often an unwelcome side effect of having babies, one of the most-admired things a woman can do. By not talking about it we are trying to ignore it and pretend it isn't there, in other words locking it up away from the gaze of those on the outside.

The answer, of course is to get out there and get comfortable with it. Why is it so acceptable to talk about your knee replacement surgery in the supermarket, but talking about prolapse or incontinence will clear the aisles in an instant? It is all just tissue that has gone awry, after all. A few years ago having a PAP smear was not talked about but women are starting to become more open about it and encouraging others to have theirs regularly. Most men no longer flee the television when an ad for tampons comes on in the middle of their favourite sitcom. Maybe openness about prolapse will happen too, given time and openness between women, then men.

Go download the brochures and the bookmark from the main website and tuck a few of them in your handbag to give out to women who may be interested in being part of the revolution. Buy that copy of Saving the Whole Woman for your doctor. Practise saying the words "pelvic organ prolapse" in front of your close family and friends, and teach them to become comfortable hearing it, then get out and practise carefully saying it to others out there in the real world. Eventually they will get used to it instead of cringing as if you are a vampire or something. Just don't drop i first time into conversation halfway across a busy intersection, OK?

Cheers

Louise

Roxy

October 19, 2007 - 9:56am

Thanks for not thinking I'm a nut. Since some of you think this might be helpful, how do we get the researchers to start talking about it and get a study going? It would probably have to be all women :-) researchers. Does anyone on the site know who we could contact as a group to get some real research done on this and if the mechanics of it would really help? Way too many of us are dealing with this issue. We need a pink something (maybe some dumbells????) to pin on our lapels to get people talking about this. Any sites anyone knows of that we could bombard with emails to try to get our voices heard? In the meantime, I'm going to see if it helps. Certainly couldn't hurt (no pun intended---okay, well, maybe just a little!!).
Roxy

MeMyselfAndI

October 19, 2007 - 2:41pm

Louise.... You are one lady who knows her stuff!

:-)

Sue

Look into the eyes - They hold the key!
http://www.bringmadeleinehome.com/img/maddy544x150Banner.jpg

mumwithone

October 21, 2007 - 11:06pm

A friend of mine found a wonderful female doctor. During her pap smear the doc noticed she had prolapse. Instead of saying anything about surgeries she actually said well, you either have to have lots of sex or get yourself a dildo. There's someone from the medical profession actually advocating for it helping prolapse. If only there were more docs like that around (or maybe more female docs period).

Christine

October 21, 2007 - 11:44pm

Dear Louise,

Thank you for this very insightful and well-written post. It is all so very true.

I experienced my blood boiling when writing to Sheppie this morning about fistula. You know, the colorectal surgeons seem to be regarded as heroes in cases of obstetric and gynecologic fistula, which I find more than a bit appalling. Where were their voices down through the decades as obgyn became more and more destructive to women? Nothing less than a conspiracy of silence has allowed them to be beneficiaries of a grotesquely large population of injured women.

Human sacrifice is as old as humanity itself. Except today the deep spiritual justifications behind sacrifice have been replaced with shallow greed, gross materialism, a slaughtering of women, and sadistic silence.

Christine

louiseds

October 22, 2007 - 8:08pm

Hi Christine

Yes, it is morally disappointing that these medical specialists with their blinkered eyes have studiously ignored the damage they do to women's bodies. On the other hand another group of medical specialists, the cosmetic surgeons have already been dragged kicking and screaming to the debate on 'do no harm', and now openly admit that cosmetic surgery is often just that, cosmetic.

Mind you, there have been so many high profile cases where cosmetic surgery has gone seriously wrong, so they could hardly remain silent and continue to do what they were doing. The catalyst for change was probably that big class action about silicon breast implants, where thousands of women were severely damaged by the implants bursting inside their bodies, letting loose pockets of silicon gel that travelled through their bodies looking for an exit.

They now admit that changing the outside does not often change what is happening in the person's heart, and the workup to surgery often includes extensive counselling about why the person wants the procedure, and ensuring that the psychological side of cosmetic surgery is attended to.

However, it is one thing for a movie star to complain loud and long in the media to draw attention to shonky cosmetic surgery. Any publicity is good publicity. It is another thing entirely for a woman to go public on the fact that she can no longer have penetrative sex, or needs to self-catheterise because of the damage done by a surgeon who was attempting to 'make her as good as new'. Who wants publicity like that???

The other factor, of course is the long history in humankind of mutilation of human bodies as a part of rites of passage, and damaging traditions such as footbinding and columns of brass neck rings that are imposed on women in the name of beauty and status.

I wonder how many women regard a hysterectomy as a rite of passage out of the world of having more babies, or the ultimate in contraception? A rite of passage out of the world of slavery to their menstrual cycle? I must admit that I actually asked a gyno about ten years ago about hysterectomy as a form of side-effect free contraception. Was I mad? Yes, possibly. Fortunately he said there were better methods.

The concept of suffering and sacrifice for later redemption run deep through Judaeo-Christian roots and fairy tales (think The Little Mermaid here); and the greater the suffering the greater the redemption. I wouldn't mind betting that suffering and sacrifice in the name of later redemption run deep through all the world's major religions, so this is not exclusively the realm of women considering POP surgery. It is almost a natural human tendency to self-mutilate in the name of later reward. Why else would women wear 6 inch stilettos with pointy toes? Or go on ridiculous starving diets so we can have a body that looks like we are ... well, starving? Or have her healthy uterus cut out?

The woman who seeks surgical solutions does not feel wonderful about herself. She thinks that the magic wand of the handsome surgeon in the silk bowtie will do its work while she is under anaesthetic, and she will wake up healed of all her troubles.

Perhaps all women who decide to have POP surgery need to go through a compulsory deep whole person assessment of their motivations, and look at ways they could address their negative attitudes towards their bodies before the surgery is booked? Now there is Wholewoman as an alternative, the incidence of surgery would probably plummet.

I agree with your last paragraph, except to say that "the shallow greed, gross materialism, a slaughtering of women, and sadistic silence" have not replaced the sacrifice. They have been tacked on to the end of sacrifice, as further payment for the redemption that never comes.

It is Ursula the Sea Witch all over again! Not only does Arielle lose her voice, but Ursula gains the best voice in the ocean, a source of great power and prestige.

Perhaps Ursula was not the Sea Witch at all, but Neptune's lost sister who left the ocean as a young woman, as she could never inherit the kingdom because she was a girl? She went on to medical school for many years and specialised in gynaecology, then returned to her homeland to make a buck and get her revenge.

Cheers

Louise

mumwithone

October 22, 2007 - 11:04pm

I just read your comment and I agree wholeheartedly on much of what you said, but I just wanted to raise a different angle on women who opt to have surgery. For me, I was thinking I would 'need' surgery after my second baby to deal with the awful discomfort of my POP. The reason I thought this was not that I had issues with myself, or my self image, but purely because I couldn't control the urge to go to the toilet at the time. I thought surgery was the answer not because I thought it was an easy magical fix, but because that's what the obs, the GPs the health nurses, the physios all said I would need, as though it wasn't even a matter of choice. If I hadn't found this site I probably would still think I'd be up for surgery after the baby. I didn't know anything about the ability of the body to heal, I thought I'd be racing off to the toilet for the rest of my life and end up with no bladder control. The urogyn actually told me that some women can't even get from their cars to their workplace without the need to pee. That was a very scary thought. I'm just lucky I had the foresight to realise there wasn't much information forthcoming about what surgery actually entailed. I think the medical profession is very much to blame here, not women who are looking for solutions to life affecting problems.

louiseds

October 23, 2007 - 7:08am

Hi Mumwithone

Hmm, that's a very fair comment. It is often the lack of information about dealing with prolapse without having surgery that pushes women towards surgery. And health professionals have to actively seek that information out. It doesn't just percolate through to them via their normal communications networks. I guess there are two broad categories of women who seek surgical fixes. There are those who are directed towards surgery because they want to get functional problems fixed as you describe (that was me too), and surgery is all that is on offer, and there are those who yearn to be perfect, to have the genitals of a virgin. The latter is the group I was talking about. When you think about it carefully I think there is a teensy bit of that sort of attitude in most of us. It is just that most of us wouldn't actually follow through on surgery for vanity's sake alone. Good point though.

It is the *fear* of what might happen a few years down the track, rather than the reality of a bit of leaking now, that sends us to the doctor to explore the options including surgery. It is interesting that you mention the doctor commenting on some women not being able to make it from the car to the office without peeing themselves. That still happens to me occasionally, but it is less than once a month, and usually when I have a very full bladder anyway. I don't regard it as a big deal.

The problem for me is not getting from the car into my workplace without peeing myself. It is getting out of the car, bending from the waist to get stuff out of the back and calculating how may trips inside I will need to make, then lifting stuff out in an awkward position and getting inside with it all and putting it all down before actually getting to the toilet. If I just get out of the car and go inside to the toilet it is not a problem, especially if I do a deep forward bend when I get out of the car, to tip everything back where it belongs before going inside! You can't win. However, if this was happening several times a day I would be worried.

Cheers

Louise