Persistent coughing

Hi skydiver,
Sorry to hear you are struggling. Coughing can certainly stress a POP, but you may find that it helps to bend at the waist while keeping the lumbar curve in place when you go into a coughing fit, rather than curling the spine into a c-shape which is what most people do.
Have you tried something like olive oil for your vaginal dryness?
Pap smears should not be that painful.
Have you integrated the postural awareness into your daily life? There is heaps of info on these forums and Christine's book and DVD's (especially the recently released First Aid for Prolapse for Elders DVD which you may find helpful)
Best of luck to you, let us know how you are doing!

Skydiver --

Search the forum for "coughing" and you should come across my posting about getting over a bad cough (man, it did a number on my POP! and I had been feeling SO much better!)

LouiseDS shares some excellent techniques for avoiding coughing all together.

Hope you feel better soon.

I have got to go along with what Christine says about kegels, or what I believe she says, and that is that I don't believe they help. If they did help, then I should never have a prolapse. I rode horses and owned them for years, Paso Finos. I took riding lessons for a long time before I bought my first horse and what I now know as kegels was using the same muscles to communicate to those horses while riding. The goal was to get the horse to do what you wanted it to do without anyone watching being able to tell how you were communicating with the horse.

For coughing. I have had sinus problems since I was a child. When I was around 40 we got the chance to move to Florida and I was really worried that the humidity and all the water down there would make my sinus problems worse. Instead they dissappeared and I was told that it was because of the salt air since we lived close to the ocean. After moving back to my home state 15 years later, my sinus problems came back. I thought that I would have to move back to Florida to cure it. Then a few years ago my daughter bought me a salt lamp. I had never heard of one before but they do work. It seems salt therapy has been used in Europe for many years but is hardly known in the US. It is used for sinus problems, coughs, colds, etc. You might be able to find them in a health food store but there are also places to buy them on the Internet. They will last a lifetime. All that needs changing is the little standard night light bulb that warms the salt. I have mine in my bedroom, leave it on during the day and I turn it off at night because the light bothers my sleep. It is like I no longer have sinus problems at all and I rarely get a cold and my husband hasn't had a cold in the last couple of years or so and he usually keeps a cold during the winter.

thanks little bit
I will look for those, my dh has chronic sinus issues, he started using neti pot regularly a couple of years back and his infection rate dropped significantly, but he still winds up sinus-sick a few times a year.
I'm always picking up valuable information here : )

You are welcome Granolamom. Another great thing about the salt lamps is that the one lamp will help everyone in the household. They run from about $25 up. I love this site too, it has helped me so much in the short time that I have been a member.

Hey Skydiver, also Search for "buteyko" which was the practice that ridded me of asthma, which I think was sinus related in the first place, believe it or not.

And thanks for the comments about salt lamps, everyone. I have seen them advertised and always wondered what on earth they were useful for. I thought they were just another pretty lamp (der!). DH has a sinus related problem, and I still have a bit of a problem sometimes, but my coughing and wheezing, and shortness of breath are a thing of the past. Buteyko was the key to the puzzle for me. I rarely cough at all now, not even in the middle of a cold. I think DH might need to try one of these. salt lamps. We live 100km from the coast, in a very dry climate with little salt and humidity in the air. DH just mentioned as minute ago that he didn't have any sinus problems at all while we were at the coast camping last week. He is keen to try one.

I just read Aza's comment. I am not sure whether she meant to bend from the waist or from the hip joints. I would bend deeply from the hip joints and stick my butt way out, and leave plenty of relaxed belly room so my uterus and bladder are hanging *lower* than my vagina, right out of the way, and have to go up before they can go down, if you get what I mean!

Louise

I am also struggling with sinus issues, just recovered from a 2 month pesistent cough.
For me, salty water rinses into my nose helps a lot, but a gluten free diet also helped. Did you guys know that chronic sinusitis is one of the leader symptoms of a hidden celiac? I read this last week.

Anyway, cough is dangerous, hard to get rid of it but I always try my best to heal. I use herbs and homeopathy and salty steam.

I am always having setbacks along with the cough, but now I know it takes less and less time to recover as time goes. With my firs post POP cough attack it took me a month or so to recover, now it only takes a few days.

Liv

Louise, I just did a search and found a salt lamp similar to the one I have at both vitacost and mothernature for just under $25. These are the ones that use the little night light bulb. They do have cheaper ones that use candles but I like the ones with the night light bulbs that I can leave on all day and not worry.