Constant urge to urinate since childbirth in 2005... desperate.

Hi Loulou – the fact that you are getting relief when you bend over, tells me that Whole Woman posture can help you.

Your doc may tell you that you are anatomically fine and in working order, but make no mistake - your pelvic dynamics have been radically altered by the two surgeries. It might be helpful for you to tell us exactly which procedures you’ve had (for the benefit of the more learned folk who might come on here to comment).

Have you checked out Whole Woman posture? The idea is to get the organs forward into the relaxed lower belly, and away from the pelvic outlet. We do this by relaxing the lower belly and pulling up the chest, which over time restores the natural lower lumbar curvature. Take a look at the FAQ’s (scroll down for diagram, pix and a description). Watch the first video on the video page (go to Resources). Check all around the site, and read posts on the forum.

I have not had surgery, but I’ve been doing Christine Kent’s work for over 2 years. Although the ideal candidate has not had repairs, some of us (including Christine herself) have had them. But think about it. If you get relief when you bend over, then moving your organs forward where they belong should give you the same relief. It is not a quick fix. It is a different way of life! But it is also a return to NATURAL female posture, which is how we used to stand and move before we were taught to suck in our bellies and tuck our butts under. Keep reading! I think you have found the right place. Ask questions. - Surviving

Loulou, adopting WW posture will help you protect the surgeries you've had by minimizing pressure where you don't want it. These procedures have relatively high repeat rates, but I believe you have the power to influence that in your own particular case. I had big babies and significant episiotomies. I think I have all the prolapses to some degree, but mainly cystocele and rectocele which helps keep the cervix from coming too close to the opening.

Look on the blog for Christine's articles about "core" and why kegels really are not the answer. Give yourself a permanent break from doing those! I did them for decades, believing they were good for pelvic health. Not too long after menopause, wham, the bulges made themselves known.

Yes, the posture takes time to feel normal. After awhile, you won't remember ever holding your body any other way. There will be a stability to your hips and torso that you did not feel before. Christine's book is my bible, and her upcoming second book on hips is anxiously awaited by so many of us who are grateful for what we have learned in this prolapse journey. - Surviving

Hi Louylouandcharles

I really can't improve much on Surviving's answers. I suggest that you continue to practise this new posture, and come back and ask questions as you need to. Also, pay attention to your clothing so it doesn't compress your belly, and make sure that you keep your organs forward by maintaining your lumbar curve and sticking your butt out the back while lifting kids and other loads. Ensure that your diet will keep your bowel emptying easy and regular.

I also suggest that you purchase Christine Kent's book, Saving the Whole Woman, to understand the theory behind this work we do, and one or more of her DVD's of visual presentations of WW posture, and great exercise programs, to help you to strengthen your whole body to make it easier to maintain the posture and become more flexible.

Louise

I was speaking to one of my older friend she is at her 60's she said about an excercise which she does it every day before getting up lying in her bed
palms and feet closing and opening along with stomach breathing and she does it 30 times

I do this along with my regular WW excersise too when i am lying on the floor and relaxing...

I wonder how and why this palms, feet and stomach breathing works?

Everyone who has urge problems, please try it and report back the results!!!!

Another possibility Bluesky, is a neurological one. The sensations we feel that signal a full or empty bladder, or the urge to empty, are complex, with lots of nerve feedback mechanisms, and physical factors as well.

Have you done any bladder training? This is holding on, regardless of the urge to empty, for a little longer each day, until you can go a couple of hours between empties. I think the brain sometimes gets its signals crossed, maybe somewhere between falling pregnant and several months postpartum. Would this be any surprise, after the amazing thing your body has done? I remember feeling my urethra after one of my births. It was no longer small and round, but like a big, flat sock! It seemed to stay like that for quite a long while. Thankfully, over the years it has gotten smaller again, but is still bigger than it was pre-pregnancy.

There are continence clinics where they can guide you through this process and get your brain interpreting the signals accurately, once again, if that is indeed the problem. Or you can just do it yourself, holding on until your bladder really is full, before emptying. As long as you don't go overboard with drinking large quantities of water, the worst you can do is end up with a really full bladder, and have an overflow. If that happens, stop training. You are there!!

Try searching 'bladder urge' or 'urge incontinence' or other similar terms to find other women's stories. There are plenty of them! While it may not be directly associated with prolapse, it is within the same ball park. Remember that there has been great distension in the area of your bladder and urethra!

Louise

Louise, reading this I find myself wondering, if bladder training and continences clinics might not possibly have kegel-based programs? Which might help you hold in your pee if you are ready to explode, but in the end will do your prolapse no good? Just curious as I have no other knowledge of what a continence clinic would do. - Surviving

Hi Loulouandcharles,

I just wanted to chime in here and say I had the urge problem as well. It happened around the same time as discovering prolapse, so I assumed the two were linked. I did the bladder retraining as Louise has suggested above. I know this is not for everyone (as Fab has pointed out previously, possibly not for women with significant uterine prolapse), but I found the urge did go away after several months of bladder training (holding on for longer and longer between going to the toilet). I was motivated to do this because if i went to the toilet whenever I had the urge then the urge would get worse. Avoiding constipation was also a key factor for me. Another thing you might want to check is that you are emptying completely. I did not have this problem but lots of others have mentioned it. And also checking for a UTI might also help.

Hope this helps!

EDIT: just wanted to add that my urge symptoms were over a period of 6 months, so nothing like the 7 years that you have experienced... all the best - I hope you can find something that works for you.

I urinated a lot. I limited caffeinated drinks to one a day. Cut sugar from my diet. After the irritation from caffeine and sugar to my bladder settled down I found that water in, still meant urine out.

This naturally led to a general reduction of liquid consumption. I drink on average two glasses of water, one cup of coffee with cream and one cup of red clover tea and another cup of water on very hot days like today 32 Celsius here. Previously, I drank just about every hour. I was addicted to liquid; just as much to water as to caffeine. In fact, cold, iced water was what I desired most. So now I drink lukewarm water. Like all addicts, the desire is from habit as much as the pleasure of altered states and I have to be careful.

i think I was overworking my bladder.

I urinated frequently, so I looked at what was irritating my bladder. Externally the prolapsed uterus irritated the bladder, so I worked at keeping the uterus up as much as possible via WW posture, walking and exercise.

As Curiosity says, constipation is another thing that is worth making the effort to avoid as a full rectum pushes onto the uterus which in turn presses onto the bladder and so becomes another external irritant which you can do without. This also applies to wind and that is why I have limited all those foods which give me copious wind.

Because you have had your uterus and bladder lifted, one assumes that they are not external irritants to your bladder.

Sometimes I did not fully empty. If I hang on to my urine when I am busting, I find that it is hard then to completely empty my bladder and it requires as you, Loulouandcharles, mention a change of position and a bit of uncomfortable to-ing and fro-ing to then wring out the last drop. And all the discomfort, anxiety and straining that this involves is not something that anyone wants. Other times it coincided with a full rectum and I was not able to empty my bladder enough for the need to urinate to be fully satisfied until after the rectum emptied.

Sometimes I had a terrible urgency. My experience with urgency is that I really need to go even if it is to express just a little urine, it is there and ready to come. Urgency was not something I experienced every day (not constant like you describe, but could last for two to three days) and so I tried to track what was different on those days. So for me it became a matter of watching out for anything that irritated the bladder internally (apart from the pressure of the fallen uterus externally and diuretics such as caffeine and alcohol mentioned above). I also found that this urgency corresponded with some infections like influenza or a tummy germ or extra exertion on the day previously all of which indicated rest as the best antidote and a good cup of red clover tea.

The danger of urgency is that it can become urge incontinence if you hang on. The danger of hanging on is that you get a distended bladder which in itself can lead to prolapse.

In your case, if I have it right, you have the constant urge but not the urine to go. Was it diagnosed as vesical tenesmus? If so from what little I have seen on it some of the above may help. It seems your lying down and the relaxation that this implies is also beneficial.

If you are worried about nerve damage, obstructions etc it might be worthwhile trying to gauge how much liquid you urinate per day. Frequent urination with only small amounts can point to urinary tract infection. Most people urinate about 3 cups to 2 quarts of urine a day, but it does depend much upon how much you drink. If you urinate frequently, and in copious amounts this can point to diabetes etc. If either of these is the case, it might be worthwhile reporting this to your doctor

It’s recommended first of all Kegel exercises. And make sure you do not have a urinary tract infection. If you have urgency incontinence, start with diet modifications and avoid carbonated, caffeine drinks and chocolate.

If urination urgency is prolonged, you may need further evaluation and further surgery.

With respect, Alison, I hear a very authoritative manner in your post. We cannot allow you to make a definitive statement like this, "If urination urgency is prolonged, you may need further evaluation and further surgery." That tells Loulouandcharles absolutely nothing.

Suggesting here that a woman may need more surgery is a bit of a laugh. Perhaps you are on the wrong Forums?

It is not how these Forums work. None of us is here to look for someone to tell us what to do. On these Forums we encourage women to get to know their own bodies, and to figure out what they can for themselves, and seek to learn what their body is doing. Understanding her body is an essential part of this process. Seeking medical advice is certainly appropriate if and when needed. We give Loulouandcharles the credit for being intelligent enough to decide for herself whether or not to have further professional evaluation.

We have only a sketchy idea at this stage what is happening in Loulouandcharles' pelvis. We are not medically qualified. Are you? If so, please let us know about your qualifications.

If you want to comment further I suggest that you change your manner. You will get a much better hearing if you take the more cooperative approach that we try to use.

Sorry if I sound gruff. I confess that I am annoyed. I feel better now.

Louise

Hi Allison, generally people come onto this forum looking for support and suggestions for dealing with prolapse and related issues. Generally they do not pop up out of nowhere to give superficial and questionable advice. Let's hear some more about you. - Surviving

Hi Loulouandcharles

This would drive me nuts, so I understand your distress. You seem to have tried everything with little result, and have had two surgical procedures which didn't help. Sadly this does happen sometimes, where the surgery doesn't help with the troublesome symptoms. The neurologist may be able to help work out what is causing the sensation. He may be able to refer you to a pain specialist, who helps people deal with unwanted chronic sensations and pain. They have lots of different ways of dealing with discomfort.

Good luck with the neurologist. Be wary of doctors offering more surgery. Think long and hard before you go that route and get a couple of opinions. Hopefully you will be able to resolve it with other means and not have your body altered further. The first operation is most likely to succeed. After that subsequent operations are statistically less successful. Here's hoping.

Keep calling back and let us know how you go. Keep up the WW techniques, which will help to normalise your body and how it is arranged.

Louise

I am missing something here, Loulou. Please be patient while I just recap.

Ok, so you had a caesarean birth which went ok. You had no aftermath to be concerned about. You then had a vaginal birth which required forceps and an episiotomy. Five months after this second birth you developed two pelvic organ prolapses and a continuous urge to pee. You then had operations to lift your uterus and your bladder, both of which were successful. However, your constant urge to pee did not abate.

Now, the advice given you here was from women who have not had pelvic organ operations, but they can relate to the constant urgency to go. Certainly not for seven years, but otherwise for months and in other cases for days and those days repeated. Now most of us associate this urgency with our prolapse.

However, as we took steps to improve our situation, we found we could free ourselves from the urgency aspect to the extent that prolapse does not necessarily mean urgency to pee. In fact, most of us have learnt to understand our body to the extent we can predict that if we perform a certain action then a bout of urgency will happen.

Now your prolapses have been corrected and you have pointed out that this is not a factor in your case either.

Yet your urgency to pee remains.

Now the processes through which the women on this forum have eliminated their urgency to pee has been enumerated for your benefit above.

It may be a little premature on your part to dismiss it all as your having tried all of that and it has not worked.

Certainly go and see the neurologist and the urologist. You owe it to yourself to do that. Then if they have little to offer you and you find yourself yet again on your own, perhaps start over with the advice given above, go about it meticulously and stick with it for months, even years. What would you then have to lose?