Splinting

Hi aging gracefully

Splinting has been around for the ages, your local GP would know about it. As far as I know you use it if you have a rectocele, where the stool can get locked in a pocket of flesh which has sagged into the vaginal canal or out through the anus. You splint by entering a finger (some use a thumb) inside your vaginal canal and softly press on where you can feel the stool and so gently guide it down and away from the locked in a dead end position and out through the anus.

Of course, with a uterine prolapse where your uterus has fallen back from its position over your pelvic bone, your full rectum (wind as well as stool) and your full bladder will both tend to press onto your uterus and force it further down the vaginal canal. So that is why we talk such a lot about posture and diet. We aim to free up our mobile organs as much as possible and then coax them back where they belong. Glad you have joined us on our journey.

Heavy lifting as you discovered is contrary to a strong uterine position if approached in the wrong way. Ergonomics a section of OH&S is something you should study up again. On here we advise you to lift in WWposture. Have you ever gone for a walk in posture without your handbag? It is a freedom up there with a child’s day at the beach.

Once you have sorted things out, because prolapse staggers you at first, then you can start again to think in terms of weight bearing exercise for these done gradually and mindfully do improve the correct muscle strength which Christine’s Posture and “First aid for Prolapse” DVD begins and carries you through a lifetime.

No apologies for venting, now.

Best wishes, Fab

Hi Aging Gracefully

Welcome to the bottom of the POP learning curve. We have all started there. Once you start to understand what is happening with your body I am sure you will be able to get some improvement. Hopefully in time you will be able to get the weight of your intestines off the top of your rectum and back into your abdominal cavity. This will allow your rectum to be straighter. With a relaxed belly your bladder and uterus can move into the belly space and drag the rectum with them. They are all loosely tethered together at the midline. It is kind of like a vertical rotation of your organs which allows them to kind of wind up and forward instead of being in a tangled heap at the bottom of your pelvis. A fire hose will move water more effectively if it is straight than if it is in a tangled mess. The rectum, sigmoid colon and small intestines are no different. Hope your order arrives soon. Take a look at the Resources and FAQ's Tabs in the meantime.

Louise

:-)

Hello Aging gracefully. I want to thank you for your response to my post a few days ago. I do feel like you do and am in a state of highs and lows right now. I have been somewhat afraid to go out as well. I am so mindful of the importance of the posture right now that I am exhausted after only a few hours. I too, am looking forward to getting the book. I do have the older video and have been doing those exercises every morning. It seems like such a frightening thing right now. The most frustrating is the attitude of the medical community. Even a close friend who is a nurse told me that I have no restrictions and should do nothing differently. She said that when I am tired of the "annoyance", I will think about having the surgery. For this reason, I feel like there is no one nearby who I can go to for helpful ideas on how to deal with this. I am so glad to find this forum and Christine's technique. Good luck to you and I hope that we can compare notes once we both get our books and begin changing our routines.

In my view, most of the nursing/medical staff is trained how to diagnose and treat some illness. They have lost some "caring attitude"...all has become quite mechanical, just applying procedures. So, no wonder that your friend cannot see outside the box, as this seems to challenge the way she has been trained/"conditioned"...
I was watching closely the nurses in the hospital...they were very good nurses, only they seemed to "forget" that they were treating humans, not just parts of them!
Ikam

"Doctor, I have a sore head. I have been banging it against a brick wall every day, for exercise."

"Well, Louise, this is the worst case of Headus Achus I have ever come across. I will give you a prescription for some pain killers.That way, you will still be able to bang your head against the wall every day. You won't have to change anything you do. Come back if you get sick of the painkillers, and I will give you a little operation to amputate your head. "

;-)

This was exactly what happened to me in the hospital. I refused to take a painkiller as I was not in pain...then when I started to feel pain I requested a painkiller...I was told that I should have taken a painkiller before (when not in pain) to have a "top up" of painkillers in my body!

I was surprised by the amount of people going through surgeries to "change their body parts" (hips, shoulders, etc.)...

Yeah! I just wish doctors would cut themselves some slack and not pretend they know everything. We would all be better off if we had more participation in the treatment we are given, and they would be able to drop their delusion of being closer to God than we mere mortals!

... Not all of them, just the ones who don't want to answer questions, and who don't explain things, and treat functioning adults as imbeciles, just to save time!

Hrmph!

L

Love your skit, Louise. So hilarious and so true. Graceful, you are so correct to have picked up on the whole hip issue. This posture is not just about prolapse. My mom's life changed in an instant when she broke her hip. This will not be my fate..... - Surviving

Hmmm...I felt as if I was treated as imbecile! When I said that I knew something about the medication, I was challenged with the question: "who are you, a nurse?"...I had to actually tell her that I did not like her tone of voice...

Oh Ikam, I am so proud of you! No health *Care* professional worth their salt would treat a patient in that tone of voice. I am sure that she wouldn't like to be treated like that. Do unto others ...

:-)

Medical professionals don't like it when patients come in armed with their own information. You would think they'd be used to it by now, the internet is how old now??

It is so sad...My doctor (GP) has learnt that I "know a bit"- she allows me know to have my ideas...(in her 10 minutes appointments...)...
But i was really surprised in the hospital...
I am still dealing with feeling "poisoned" by the amount of painkillers I had to take...

And I think we do know a lot, and not just because of the internet...we do know about the impact of meds on our body from our experience!

They seemed to be so well trained in lots of complicated procedures/treatments. And they seemed to be very efficient...
They had no skills in "caring on emotional level" for their patients...
And I do understand (they were so busy!)...
I felt really strange in the hospital/very vulnerable and exposed...and somehow left on my own resources after the surgery...

I haven't had to resort to splinting yet, but I'm wondering if people use a squatting aid when they have a BM? In the states this would be incredibly strange to use, but I know in other countries having a squatting toilet is quite normal. I am actually considering asking my husband to make me something! That will raise eyebrows for sure. He's probably already tired of my incessant information sharing about POP. :)

The product I've seen is called a Squatty Potty. There was a Mercola.com article today about the possible role of the traditional American toilet in development of things like POP.

Spam, here's a discussion of the Squatty Potty.
http://www.wholewoman.com/forum/node/4643

This might be a bit politically incorrect, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if doctors feel just as disempowered by Big Medicine and Big Pharma as we do. They are pushed by their employers to see more people quicker to keep the cost of wages down, and maybe to impress their Sickness Insurance company by keeping their operating cost down for themselves.

As individuals they don't have a lot of time do do the amount of reading and critical analysis of all the 'reading stuff' that is pushed their way. They mainly consume secondhand information, packaged for them by their suppliers.

After all they are kind of the customers of the pharrmaceutical companies with all their slick promotions. It is probably not easy for doctors to see the forest for the trees, so they may stick to the best promoted treatments, and not know much about them. As long as the Pharma companies tell them that they have proof that it works and that it won't do harm, who are they to challenge that wisdom, if they don't have the time and resources to check out the fine print themselves?

When you are ignorant, and being asked questions that you don't know the answers to, the best self-defence is attacking the person who is asking the difficult questions. Look at the way politicians conduct themselves!!

Many doctors don't have time to 'care' and there is no incentive for them to 'care', when their core activity is prescribing. They may care very much but the system they work in does not value 'care' a lot. It is consults/hour that matters.

The only answer is to vote with your feet, but in the complex world of sickness care we often don't get the choice of who treats us.

I don’t understand what it is with all this anti doctor talk. I broke a hip. It was an accident, but ultimately my fault, my responsibility. The team of medical staff put a screw and a plate in and I am walking around. They fixed me. I am extremely grateful. Left to my own devices I could have died or limped in pain for the rest of my life. Only through the most propitious of circumstances would I have healed straight. The medical staff extended professionalism, kindness and compassion in their treatment of me. They did not and could not and should not give me emotional support. I had to do that on my own. They have their own families which require that, just as yours do. If anything I should have extended equal kindness to them which I endeavoured to do and failed abysmally. That would be the minimum I could have done.

Dear Spamelah, (as googled and led to wiki) Mercola does not believe in grain, my first impulse is to applaud him, but there are no details as to what he is saying so I very well may revise that, and besides, god knows how we will feed the multi millions of humanity without it. I believe there are certain stages in life where grain is alright and others where it may be best forfeited.

He does not believe in vaccinations, well for someone like myself who has suffered because I was not vaccinated (it did not then exist) I cannot applaud him. I would have to call him an idiot. So consequently I did not read far enough about his squatting toilet. No, I nearly did, but did not go back.

Squatting (from my own view and without Mercola’s imput) is perhaps for people who are used to it although you need to be careful here for there is squatting and squatting. Squatting with legs parallel is another dimension to squatting with legs wide apart.

Squatting alongside Malaysian/Indian/Pakistani/Afghani/Iranian/Turkish/French women in public toilets I saw a variation of styles, but I have no feedback because at the time I was not looking at it from the point of view of prolapse. Just because from a culturally or financial perspective/necessity you behave in a certain physical manner does not mean it is good or bad physically.

I know from personal experimentation that squatting with legs apart is not good for uterine prolapse. I cannot speak for rectocele or cystocele etc. Consequently, I do not squat. Squatting with legs parallel is not so bad as squatting with legs wide and squatting parallel is the more traditional pacific/ oceanic position pre westernization. Again, I do not know the statistics of prolapse in pre westernization Oceania so who is to know what is good and what is just needs must?

In the western world there is hardly the need. Sitting on a western toilet/throne is also not good for uterine prolapse if your legs are spread. Sitting with your legs parallel serves little difference because your pelvic area is suspended over a cliff and there is the tension of organs to evacuate. Organs are subject to abdominal pressure and gravity downwards.

So Spamelah I suggest you look at it from your own prolapse point of view and decide from there.

Can you sit in such a way that you can support your pelvic organs either with your muscular/skeletal system, posture or with a prosthesis of some sort?

We think in posture or in the case of cystocele leaning forward is your best bet. It does nobody lasting hurt to experiment. When nurses say that a woman with prolapse is without limitations, you can believe it. It just means your prolapse does not get better, in fact it probably gets worse in time if you are post menopause. If you are postpartum, you will heal come what may, but it can return later and often does. But I can assure you with a prolapse since my 23rd year and now 66, prolapse itself only slightly limits activities. Christine’s method makes it comfortable and can cure.

Best wishes, Fab

I’m not anti-doctor, though I do find it condescending, as in Ikam's case, for any medical person to scoff at a consumer’s knowledge or research into his or her own condition. That being said, I will admit that I am anti-Western-medicine when it comes to women’s health, with all that I have learned in my 2+ years with Whole Woman. The docs do fail us miserably in that area. There is so much ignored evidence of the harm done to women, with unnecessary and life-ruining pelvic surgeries being churned out like some kind of industrial machine. And WAY too much influence by big pharma. - Surviving

I think that they did a good job...only they did not know how to "care for feelings"...not that I expected, but there were moments, as when the nurse told me "you are going to be discharged tomorrow because we need this bed", and she went...and I cried as I did not feel prepared...Later I asked her for a chat, and it was much easier...
But, I understand they are now in conflict between the need to move patients quickly, reach the targets etc.
I am really unsure about keeping people, including me, on morphine...
Some time ago I had an appendix removed, I was in pain, but I felt it was "normal" to be in pain after a surgery...
I did not have much pain after surgery, but I am dealing now with some "toxicity" in my body...
I wish we could have a choice...I rather be in some pain, decide myself if I need a painkiller and deal with the consequences...
When I go to the dentist I often refuse the anaesthetic...sometimes it is not really needed!

When I had the hip operation, I had a drip in my arm and was able when I felt the pain more to press a trigger which would release morphine via the needle in the back of my hand. This meant I had control over the dosage. I react to morphine in that I hallucinate. But pain wise I really did not find a great need for it, but then I was lying prone. The nurses expressed surprise at how little I had used. So I would guess some people feel or fear pain far more than me. Trying to judge what the individual person would need would be rather difficult. I was very pleased with this arrangement for I know on a previous occasion I had to beg for pain killers which were a long time coming. Pills it seems are dispensed at scheduled times, so the patient waits.

best wishes, Fab

I was a professional dancer before becoming a nurse. In all honesty, the most difficult dance I have ever done is the one that "bridges" the pain control of a patient post surgery. I'm sure there is some study out there to back me up, but bar none, my experience has been that small, *frequent* doses when pain levels are low (as in the patient controlled analgesia that fab mentioned) are waaaay more effective than waiting for pain and then having to "chase" it with larger amounts of drugs. Without fail, the patients that refuse my offer of a minimal dose of oral pain medication while they still have a surgical nerve block masking pain are the ones requiring large amounts of IV narcotics once that block wears off. I do not talk down to them about this, but do try to educate and then respect their autonomy regarding the drugs they want. Consider that in the current Middle East war, they have found that blocking pain with a nerve block at the site of injury immediately is eliminating phantom limb pain in soldiers who may later require amputation. Nerves tend to "hoard" pain sensation. If it can be stopped before they get too used to pain, then overall pain sensation is diminished. Hence the practice of nurses pushing pain meds before the sensation of pain (a valid practice, but admittedly not one that should be made with a condescending attitude). Sorry Ikam.

Bad_Mirror, thank you for this explanation. I guess, the nurses have no much time to explain this to patients. This sounds as so called "pain management". maybe they should issue some leaflets???
Yes, after the surgery I was pain free, I was surprised...
But, also my pain threshold is quite good, so I may require a little less meds than others...
But, it is all in the past...just makes me wonder why things are done this why...but you explained this to me...
Now, I need to concentrate on phisio and sleeping (I seem to be sleeping a lot recently)...
thank you gain...
ikam