never heard of pop until I felt my uterus coming out of my body-help!

Big deep breath, woman. You have just made a very unexpected discovery which has alarmed you, and made you doubt so many of the important things in your life. You have just been socked in the guts. No wonder you are upset about it, and looking for answers. Many women arrive here in similar distress, and many of them are just as puzzled as you are about what has happened, and how. You are literally grieving for what you think you have lost. This is quite normal, even though it is not pleasant at all. Sometimes prolapse happens suddenly, as you have experienced. Sometimes it happens gradually. You may have had it for some time, and now a 'straw has broken the camel's back'. At age 44 you will be somewhere in the perimenopause period. It is very common to discover prolapse at this time.

You will probably be able to regain some of that pelvic organ support by changing your posture and the way you exercise and use your body for lifting and carrying. My guess is that the way you have been exercising has contributed to your prolapse, but there are usually several factors. However, there are no guarantees about how much improvement you will get. Your diet and clothing style can also help you to recover your pelvic organ support, as can the way you sit, and what you sit on.

Your toileting will become easier, once you become more familiar with how to empty your bladder properly every day, and solve any bowel issues you have.

I very much doubt that your boyfriend will leave you, and yes, sex will be OK again, once you learn what to avoid, and how you can use your body differently. You are the same person. He will still love you. Ya just have to tweak a few things. I bet his body is not perfect either. ;-)

Fear not. This is not life threatening. Your organs will not fall out of your body. You will not become disembowelled. They are behind your strong vaginal walls. Your uterus has come outside your body, but it can only come so far, and you will be able to get it back inside you.

Yoga and fitness classes can help our bodies, but most of the exercise systems in use today have been designed for men's bodies, not women's bodies, and pay no heed to the mechanical differences between the two genders.

The male pelvic floor has only an anus and a penis coming out of it. There is no big opening where our vagina is. There is nowhere for their rectum to bulge into. There is nowhere for their bladder or urethra to bulge into. They don't have a uterus. Their balls are already outside their body in their own little hairy sac, and that's the way they like it! ;-)

The female body is designed with a larger lumbar curve in the spine, which can make a bend where the abdominal and pelvic cavities meet at the top of the sacrum. This means that the female pelvic cavity is 'around the corner'. If a woman coughs, or lifts a heavy weight, or does exercise moves that cause her to tense all her abdominal muscles and fix her diaphragm, the forces in her abdomen will bounce off her abdominal muscles, and back onto her spine,or be absorbed by them. They never get as far as the vagina, because it is hidden 'around the corner', and is sitting on her pubic bones, not over a soft tissue hammock. Her pelvic floor is a stabilising wall at the back of her body, and does not have to deal with much intraabdominal force., as long as it is not at the 'bottom of the bowl'.

Unfortunately, the fitness trend for some time has worked against a woman having a relaxed belly and a butt that sticks out the back. Many women strive for slim hips, a flat belly and butt, and strong, well-defined upper body and arms. This is not in her female body's best interests, and it takes guts to go against the grain. However, the belly, but and breasts high and out the front is what your body *needs* to support its pelvic organs.

As a teacher of yoga and exercise you may have been pulling your tummy in, and tucking your butt down. This will have straightened your lumbar curve and lessened the bend between the abdominal and pelvic cavities. So your intraabdominal forces are going straight down onto the top of your vagina, and your uterus has been pushed back, and down. I think this is probably something like what has happened to you.

This is an injury to your connective tissues, so you will need to treat it as an injury, take some time off from your teaching duties and re-educate your brain and your body, so that it can support your uterus more effectively. Then work on ways that you can exercise without blowing your organs out the bottom.

Christine Kent's exercise DVD's have been designed to support this new/old feminine posture, and to overcome our western hunched, c-shaped ways of living, wind up the fascia that keeps us the shape we are, and get our pelvic organs forward where they are safe.

Take a look at the FAQ's tab and the Resources Tab, where there are some videos about posture, food and exercise. Then come back and ask some more questions. You can also Search the Forums for suitable keywords.

Louise

Welcome to this site. I cannot add much to the wonderful descriptive post by our dear Louise. I just wanted to tell you that following two years of serious study of yoga, my pop first occurred. Of course there are many contributing factors and you might find some of them in time as you reflect on your life and situation. However, the important thing now is to look forward and to adopt the posture with all of your heart. When the shock and fear and upset has passed, and yes it will, you will find your way. My hope is that you will become a beacon of light for the ladies that you teach yoga and fitness to. When you are stable and symptom-free (yes, that might well happen) you could possibly adjust your yoga teaching so that you actually teach yoga that is good for women, not just with this issue, but to prevent this issue. I know that probably sounds overwhelming right now. The shock and grief is enormous. You are not alone, we have all felt that. Read and educate yourself here. There is much to learn and there is so much hope and joy in the learning and the healing and then, wow, in going forward in new directions. Best wishes to you!

Hi seriously,
Welcome to the WW community. I am so glad you found us! As you can see from the wonderful posts above there's alot of support, advice and information available here.

Reading your post reminded me so much of me about 1 1/2 years ago. I was and still am also a yoga teacher and absolutely devastated when I first experienced uterine prolapse, which I think also triggered some pains down my inner thighs and down my buttocks and backs of legs. I was not in a good way physically, mentally or emotionally. I didn't know what to do, cried a lot, worried about sex, appalled that I had this as a yoga teacher!.. Bit of a wreck really! So I do empathise...

I can honestly say that for some time now I am happier and healthier than I was pre-prolapse, thanks to the WW approach. The corner-stones of the WW work is WW posture, WW toilet training and healthy non-constipating diet. However it's a holistic approach, so don't be surprised if once you emark on this approach you start to see everything through the lens of 'is this good for me/does this fit the WW approach?', and may find yourself making some changes, which all contributes to good health and good pelvic organ support.

I suggest you buy the 'Saving the WW' book and one or more of the WW dvd's if you can. As a yoga teacher you'll probably feel drawn to 1 of the yoga dvd's. If you live near a WW teacher you may also find it helpful to receive some extra support at this vulnerable time.

Personally I find doing a WW practice as part of my daily routine, (approx 20-30') makes a significant difference to how successfully I manage my prolapse. Mostly if I take care, do WW posture/practice/good diet, relax etc then I'm symptom free, an dif I don't my symptoms begin to reappear. Simple as. How much women recover obviously varies from woman to woman. Many of us manage our prolapses successfully rather than have no issues at all. I think of myself as having a tendency, like some people have back issues, which I need to bd aware of and take care of. If I do that - I'm ok. Of course each woman has her own personal story.

Don't worry about sex. Sex is fine. Actually my experience is that sex is good for reducing and managing my prolapse. The cervix is basically pushed back. From myown experience and what I've read on the forum, chances are your partner may not even be aware of your prolapse if you didn't talk about it! The pelvic organs are moveable. They have to be for the pregnant state.

Basically there are things you can do to make things better and things you can do to make them worse. Learning the WW way is about gaining this knowledge. Then you can adapt your life and your yoga with this knowledge in mind.

This knowledge however is not generally known in mainstream medical treatment. So your options from your doctor are likely to be kegels, pessary, surgery or nothing for now. Hopefully as more and more women get familiar with the WW approach this situaion will ghange and this safe, natural, very cheap and effective approach will become mainstream.

When I was first in a state I found this suggestion useful, wich you may want to try:
Find a safe, private, time and space. Have clean hands: Then slowly and mindfully:
Take 3 slow breaths, lengthening the exhale.
Gently push the cervix up your vagina. (You may need to bend the legs, crouch down, foot on bath rim...)
Come into a WW standing position with chest lifted up, abdomen and bottom relaxed.
Go into a full forward bend, bending at the hips, hands towards/on the floor. If you're comfortable stay there for 3 slow breaths.
Come up side-sweeping the arms.
Go into WW posture, keeping chest comfortably lifted, abdomen and buttocks relaxed, feet parallel..

Hope this helps.
xwholewomanuk

Give thanks that you have a condition which has known remedies (and not some incurable disease).

Hi seriously and welcome to the forum. Since it’s Monday and you are calling (seeing?) the doctor today, I hope you’ll come back on and give us an update. Then we will all have more to go on.

Like many others here, I have a story about conventional exercise methods. I did the Jane Fonda Workout for 30 years. Jane barked at me constantly to suck in my abs and tuck my butt under. She had me down on the floor doing crunches and “the bicycle” and other obtuse-angle moves that I now know were killers for pelvic organ support. I don’t blame her, because that was (and is) the conventional “wisdom” imparted by most exercise systems. Great for the male body, but not for ours.

So I did a 180-degree turn in my approach to exercise and health. I’ve been here going on 3 years and I can tell you that Christine’s teachings have salvaged this perfectly good healthy body, and even while managing prolapse as an ongoing thing, I am better than ever.

This will challenge what you know and believe about the female body, and what’s good and not-so-good for it. It’s a great journey that I would not have missed for the world! - Surviving

Hi Surviving

Just a thought. I wonder how Jane Fonda's pelvic floor is holding up as she ages. Hey, she could even be one of our members, couldn't she?

[Hi Jane, if you are reading this. I know you, but you don't know me. ;-D ]

If so, I hope she benefits the way we have, and that ultimately she will 'come out', and become an ambassador for Whole Woman. I wouldn't want to wish POP on her, but I think it is highly likely that she has run into prolapse related problems at some point.

Louise

Yep, I have thought of her often, wondering the same thing. If she does have prolapse, wonder if she has "connected the dots"? - Surviving