New and struggling for normalcy

Hi Gayla,
Yep, you are completely normal in this neck of the woods. I am sorry you are dealing with the problems that you have, it totally sucks, but there is lots of helpful information here and women who can relate 100% to what you are feeling and experiencing. There is an online chat coming soon, so stick around! Using the search engine is really productive, too.

This site is so very helpful. It's been 7 months since I discovered my prolapse. This site has helped me realize that there are a lot of women out there with the same problems I have. To tell you the truth, it's not a big deal anymore. I don't keep checking myself to see how things are "hanging", and I just don't stress over it. The exercises and posture are so helpful. In time, you will feel more normal too. Keep reading the posts, and hopefully things will work out for you as well.

Hi Gayla

When you say mucosal prolapse, do you mean that some of the mucous membrane comes out of the anus when you empty? Or is is something else? Sorry if this is TMI. You don't have to answer my question. There aren't really any boundaries of TMI here. It is the one place where we can all talk straight, if it is in the name of healing and learning about our bodies. There is something very comforting in knowing that you are not the only person who feels weird. It kind of 'unweirds' us. ;-)

Louise

Too Much Information! ;-)

I had to laugh...a gastro doc trying to put a woman with a prolapse on prozac. In what world does that make sense? Good on you for taking charge of your own health and well-being and saying no thank you to dumb ideas :)

hi, I am 48 and recently diagnosed with uterine,cervix, bladder prolapse and possibly rectum also falling in. i am looking for some alternative treatments. I am on my 2 gyno dr with a biopsy scheduled this friday! they seem to be looking at the heavy menstration cycles as a cause of this I think? does anyone have any enlighting suggestions to this? i keep asking for a pessary but they seem to try to put it off then say these are mostly for old ladies and they need to do more tests! this new dr wants me to go to a urogyno for even more tests! this is very frustrating to say the least. I have been going for accupuncture along with taking ginseng with astragalus this seems to move things around a bit. would also like to know if anyone has tried the mayan massage and had good results with it?
frustated any suggestions.

Welcome to wholewoman and I'm sorry you had to wait so long for a reply...it's a busy time around here.

Heavy bleeding - including menstrual flooding - is very common at your age and a major indication for hysterectomy. Generally speaking, it has nothing to do with prolapse.

Prolapse is extremely common and the "garden variety" is cystocele/rectocele with the cervix/uterus just above. The Whole Woman work is geared to bringing the entire pelvic contents forward.

Mayan massage is a nice idea, but not very effective. Use the search box to the right to find lots and lots of discussion about it.

Best Wishes,

Christine

Christine thanks for responding. I will have to get internet again to get back on as i was using a borrowed connection. i will look and search for that topic. i also watched the video and how terrrible it is what they do to us in surgery! i do have and have read your book but i think i need the video because i may not be doing the exercises correctly. i will order it when i get connected again. i am going to have a biopsy in a few minutes and to check on getting the pessary again also so i can get back to exercising. I will check back when i can get back on the internet.
Thanks again!

Welcome to my club! I constantly struggle in the potty department. This month even though I eat healthy, I ended up with an impaction. I missed a lot of work and it will be costly when the bills come in. So I decided to go on the "25 to 30 grams of fiber diet." I have drastically changed what I eat and am eating carbs for the first time in years. I eat All Bran, etc. I found a chart on line of the fiber content of food and I have been trying to eat what will give me my goal. The potty issue is better. The GI doc said I have an older colon and need to take Milk of Magnesia daily for the rest of my life. I am doing that for now. Later on I hope to wean off of it, but I never want to go through what I just did again! I hope this helped you!

Constipation shouldn't be a such a problem, if the bowel is generally healthy. If I ate "All Bran" I think I would suffer too! What if you ate nothing processed whatsoever...only fresh fruit, nuts and seeds, raw greens, whole grains, high quality, fermented dairy and other probiotic foods such as raw sauerkraut?

I too have struggled with this (but not to the point of impaction) and it is so annoying! but ultimately, it comes down to diet.
at the moment i am eating mostly veg wtih lots of greens, raw veg, some fruit but less (trying to kill candida), protein largely in the form of pulses but also nuts, fish, occasional chicken, a bit of grains but not much, and live yogurt.
soooooo much better! barely an issue! i started having lentil dal for breakfast with yogurt and that has been very good. mid morning i have some fruit, then a raw veg snack, then lunch of stew or salad, afternoon more snacks (i eat a lot!), dinner of usually some sort of fish or eggs or occasional chicken + more veg.
week before my period i add in soaked flax and that helps for those annoying few days.
also, i just started this last month taking magnesium citrate which Christine recommended (well, she recommended magnesium, health shop recommended citrate) and that is helping lots with the can't go in the afternoon thing. my main issue with that is if i don't i get anal fissures which are awful, but (knock on wood) i've had a whole month of all being great!

Hiya gkids,
and welcome! you say you've tried accupuncture--did you mention about heavy periods, and did it help? it was great for that for me, means now i have a heavy 24 to 36 hours and then quite light, rather than many days of heavy. just a thought?
Kiki

Hi gaylaonline and gkids, how are you both doing? Just caught up with some old threads and would love an update

Hi Gayla

How you feeling now. I have been sick and am now back on deck. I note that you are using quite a lot of laxatives. There are some that will ultimately reduce bowel tone. I think senna fits into that category, so weaning off that might be a positive move. But what do you replace it with? I hope you have gotten some ideas from the other women who have made food suggestions. The search engine will give you heaps more.

Constipation seems to be an irritant factor, or cause, or something, with most women with prolapse. Keeping it under control is the one thing we find is critical, and even doctors will concur with us on that. There is one thing you have not mentioned. There are some very gentle enemas out there that will clean you out, and bring you back to base level again, so you can stop worrying about what is stuck in there and get on with preventing it building up again. Using an enema occasionally will also allow you to stop worrying about what happens if it gets worse. I find that worry is my most constipating thing. I am in the middle of sorting out my Mum's position in the Aged Care system at the moment, and it has me all clogged up. I know that when I get it sorted, my bowels will return to normal again, until another big worry comes up.

The fact that the gastro guy suggested Prozac seems a little weird, but maybe it is an indication that you are exhibiting a lot of worrying on the outside. Sometimes we are like we are for so long that it becomes normal, even though others can see us as being outside of normal. Perhaps addressing the amount of worrying you do, and finding other more constructive ways of dealing with things will help you to worry less, and maybe lessen your constipation. I am talking about writing, and meditation, giving yourself treats and self care, and other ways of being in charge of your own life, and being comfortable being you.

Hope these suggestions work.

Louise

ps, could your constipation be diabetes related?

Hi Gkids

Christine said that heavy bleeding and prolapse are not related, but I am not so sure. I think when there is heavy bleeding there is often a lot of fluid in the pelvic area. This makes for more crowding in the pelvis. If there is crowding then good only good WW posture with a relaxed belly will allow the pelvic contents the room they need to prevent downward pressure on the pelvic floor. If you slouch and let your pelvis turn into a bowl, normal intraabdominal pressure, from breathing and everyday movement, will literally squeeze your organs backwards and downwards, down the plughole, which is what prolapse is. During perimenopause bleeding does often get heavier for a time, then tapers off again as menopause gets close. Coincidentally, perimenopause is the time when women seem to most often report POP and heavy bleeding, which I think brings POP to the fore. That's how I think they are connected, parallel but not necessarily causal.

At any rate, "This too will pass". You will not be in perimenopause all your life, and you won't be bleeding for life. It will end, as it does for all of us. This heavy bleeding is usually just a phase, a very annoying and somewhat debilitating phase, but it is not harmful in itself, even if it can be a bit hard to manage. I suggest that you check with your doctor to make sure that it is simply perimenopausal heavy bleeding, not something more sinister. When you are cleared as 'normal perimenopauseal' you can stop worrying, and be reassured that it will not last forever.

Another possible cause of heavy bleeding is retroverted uterus. Mine finally flipped over to normal at about the time my heavy bleeding eased off. Connected? I am sure that it was Wholewoman posture that convinced my uterus that it would be more comfortable if it flipped forward. Perhaps I was so close to menopause at the time that it had shrunk to the point of being able to flip over? I will never know. My last period came about two or three years after that. The periods became shorter, and lighter, and more sparse, then petered out altogether.

Louise