Everything's falling!

Body: 

Dear Group,
I wrote a couple months ago and just haven't had the time to get back on the site. I'm not even sure I'm doing this right. One day I will sit and read the instructions on how to post, "thread", etc. Bit complicated for me. Anyway, I have an urgent question. How bad does it have to get before you throw up your hands and give in to surgery? I just want to be "normal" again. My "lapses" have gotten horrible in the past 6 months for no apparent reason. Granted I haven't done anything to help them, but it's getting intolerable. I'd like to hear real stories from women with SEVERE uterine, bladder, and rectal (all at once) prolapses that have improved (prefer cured!) from the material in this website. Sorry Christine, but money's tight and I'm leary of purchasing anything-including surgery-without the FACTS. Someone please write! Thank you!!!!!!
Tammy
[email protected]

Hi Tammy! first, I'd like to say I too am leary of purchasing 'cures' online. the fact that this website is free, and that christine responds to practically every single post should tell you something. I personally bought the book, but you can get almost all the info from reading through the posts here. for free. I don't have time to actually do the exercises so I never bought the tape, but I walk using the posture described here.
I'm not 'cured', and to me things look the same, but I know I feel alot better. I don't even think about my prolapse most of the time (wow, never thought I'd say that!). I don't know how 'severe' my case is, I haven't been formally diagnosed by a dr. But I can see my cystocele (fairly large) at the opening and small rectocele which is sometimes outside, sometimes not. my uterus feels quite low to me round ovulation and if I'm slacking off on my walking, or if I'm otherwise rundown.
I don't think you can write off this method without first giving it a fair trial. which to me means, reading all the posts, posting your questions, getting to know your body, learning and practicing the posture, eating well. I'd think at least for a few months. your surgeon will stick around that long, I'm sure.
you write that things have gotten worse for no reason at all but you admit you haven't been doing much to prevent that. I think its gotten worse for the same reasons it started. its not going to get better unless something changes. surgery is a quick fix, sure, but not guarenteed to give you back what you had.
try the posture, really try it. and then if you still think you want surgery at least you'll know you've tried everything.

Hi Tammy,

Granolamom is right. You don

Thank you so much for responding! I guess the "fact" is that if I'm still questioning the surgery, then I'm not ready. I'm going to devour the posts. I hope someday I too can say I won't think 24/7 about the prolapses. I feel so "damaged". Maybe psychological help should be the first on my priority list. I am sooooo grateful you all are here!
Tammy

Hi Tammy,

Hope u r doing better. I think many of us take it one day at a time. I also hope there is a day where i dobn't even think about it either! I was just wonder how long u have ur prolapses? Are they really bad?

I discovered mine over a month ago and feel like things are ever changing. I have found some inspiration on this site but i hope that things stabilize for me. I am trying the postures but not sure if i am getting them right. It takes alot to strengthen the spine b/c i have always been the type to curl up or slouch when i sit.

Well, keep ur chin up. Have u tried a pessary? There r some women on the site who find it helpful. Just a thought.....

Hi;
I gained so much from reading this post.
I am falling out too.
However, what the surgeon wants to do to me sounds worse than what I deal with. and so I have not yet "had enough" and hope I can always keep this attitude.
Does yours bother you when sleeping- mine does not
When I swim, for some reason everything goes back in place.
Good Luck
Cathy

Hi Tammy,

I can relate to the fear's you're having and have gone through a period of being practically obsessed with fears re my prolapse, (Which was first diagnosed as severe uterine and three years later diagnosed as mild cystocle as i posted about elsewhere).

I changed a lot of my lifestyle habits, especially diet and weekend partying :) and even within myself feel emotionally much more balanced, calm and able to deal.

The change in diagnosis helped yeah, but something also clicked in my head, in terms of just a perspective that sunk in. For me now no. 1. is - I don't have any pain with this and 2. it's a kind of altered architecture.

This bridged gap that people get to is hard to gather from posts as, i think people post the before feeling's and thought's and then months later 'the after'. The connect is often invisable.

'Cos of this it seemed to me that there just seems to be two type's of women. Those whom it freaked out (for good reason) and those who are just the chirpy optimists who roll with everything.

When i first posted, i felt i was group a. and it simply wasn't in my nature to come to the conclusions of people in group b. 'cos that wasn't who i was. And somehow their cases weren't as bad as mine or they didn't have my circumstances, a partner etc..

Shockingly to myself, i'm swinging into the second camp now,especially from the support of christine, her book,video, postings to me and of course the other great women on this forum.

Oh and the fear instilled by lise-cloutier steele's book "womens stories of hysterectomies"!

I do hope you're not in any pain and hope that you're able to manage you're situation, make some progress, or if you decide on the surgery option that this goes well for you.

Best Wishes

I just sat down to respond to this thread, but see that Anne Helen has expressed it better than I ever could have. I will only add that I think it's a dangerous assumption that even a reasonable percentage of post-surgery women out there are doing well. No one can do very well with the sorts of anatomical changes wrought by reconstructive surgery. The women who say different are either beyond lucky, very out-of-touch with their body, or still able to maintain the deep stability of their original design, even though its interior has been completely altered. This architectural fortune does not improve with time, however, and post-surgery women will remain extremely vulnerable to further forms of collapse for the rest of their lives. Not to mention all the other effects this sort of major surgery has on nervous, endocrine, immune, and cardiovascular systems.

Researchers are getting closer and closer to the truths about prolapse and most of the truth has to do with our bones. It is both tremendously complicated and utterly simple. Human females had a brilliant and death-defying balancing act to strike with Mother Nature. We have described just what that balance is over and over again here. It doesn't really matter why your particular pelvis may be slightly tweaked one way or another. If you are female and able to walk upright on two legs, you have within you what it takes to turn back the evolutionary clock and stabilize your condition. Obstetricians call the normal pulling back of stretched out maternal tissues "postpartum involution", a process that takes some weeks to complete. I say through returning to the original design of our spine and pelvis we, too, can experience some degree of involution. And with this we must practice acceptance and contentment.

I have to say this site has saved me :)

When I arrived here I had a grade2 prolapse... I could feel it 'peeking' at the introitis when walking or standing etc
It was very uncomfortable.

I came here freaking out soooooo bad lol

Christine helped me so much by email and on here

I took on board the posture - Once i understood it
I did the half-squat thing on the toilet
I do kegels but not the hundreds and hundreds a day i did before - lol
Now...

A few weeks ago I saw a Gynae who told me I have a grade1 prolapse...

I am happy - But i think it is more a grade 1.5...

It hardly ever bothers me at all now - Around period time I can feel it a little more - but I dont have that ''innards falling out'' feling all the time now...

In the future - who knows what will happen - But for now I am really happy that things are better than they were - and I am not so freaked over it 24-7 again :)

I hope it stays where it is for life - But it will prolly return to challenge me again - who knows - lol