New to this site

Hi Scarlatti and welcome to Whole Woman. If you are looking to manage this naturally, holistically, without damaging surgeries, you have certainly come to the right place. There is knowledge here that you will not get from your gyn, who is after all, a surgeon. My favorite advice for new members is to watch the first video on the Resources tab, under Videos, for an excellent overview of what we are all about here, and the real story of prolapse.

I think it’s safe to say that your 2-hour-daily workouts are including lots of things that are working against pelvic organ support. Most core workout programs being taught are designed for male bodies, and incorporate many things that are harmful for women. If you have been trained to suck in your belly and tuck your butt under, there’s one big problem there. It’s a problem that most of us had, and are working very hard to overcome. Female pelvic support comes from the natural female spinal shape, which is characterized by a pronounced lower lumbar curvature which is not found in men. In many of us, this curvature has been flattened out, causing our organs to fall back and into the vagina space.

So the first order of the day is to learn posture. Relax your belly, pull your chest up strongly, keep your shoulders down but not back. It will probably feel strange to you at first, but with time it will become natural (it took me into my second year to reach this stage; it can happen sooner if you work at it).

As Christine explains in her book, many common body angles for exercise and daily activities are bad for pelvic organ support. An obtuse angle, such as you might have when riding a recumbent bike, creates the wrong kind of intraabdominal pressure on the organs. Acute angles, less than 90 degrees, support the organs. For anyone working out in a gym 2 hours a day, your opportunities for bad stuff are everywhere. So I’d really suggest you take some time off to learn about this condition, and then see what needs to be modified. Lots of walking in excellent, conscious WW posture is one of the best things you can do. Christine has a workout and a whole series of prolapse-safe yoga.

It’s all about the posture. Start learning and doing, ask your questions here. It’s a great community. - Surviving

Welcome, I think you'll thrive here. Let us know how the appt goes.

Welcome and I am glad that you found us. Love your name! I understand that you are posture and meditation aware with your work....and to many extremes I am sure. I am a cellist and posture aware as well but discovered there was much more to learn. This posture is a bit different. I hope that you have had a chance to study it here. I discovered that even with my previous dedication to posture, there were things that I was doing that were not optimum. Holding tension in the belly for instance is one of those things that we might not even be aware of. I did not realize the extent to which there was tension in the belly area. The lengthening of our abs in this posture, and the relaxing of them is not something we are raised to do, even in great musical training. The seated position that we spend so many hours in each day should be readdressed. If you play with the legs apart, are you turning out at the hips with toes and knees aligned? Is the height of your piano stool correct for you, being a woman? Are your shoulders down and your chest up? Is the crown of your head reaching upward which slightly tucks the chin. When you bend forward in playing position, are you bending from the hips and not the back or shoulders? All of these postural things that Whole Woman is based in will ultimately affect the whole picture. I was greatly helped here by Christine, Louise and Surviving and all the other enormously generous and candid women. I wish you the best tomorrow for your appointment and look forward to hear back from you when you know more. Best wishes to you!

I don't want to alarm you but thought I should share my experience with you. First off, I've never had any children so my prolapse isn't due to that and was most likely propelled by menopause. In hindsight, I believe that my prolapse was well under way before my mid thirties but I didn't notice and neither did any of my doctors apparently. Even last year during my exam, no one noticed despite my complaints about urinary incontinence feeling of something in my vagina during showers. My incontinence began when I was in my late thirties and only one of my doctors was concerned about that even though he failed to tell me that it was beginning of a more serious problem or prolapse. I kept telling him that I felt I was entering peri-menopause and he said, ' Oh you're too young" and another doctor even told me my hormone levels were normal which was not true at all as I found out a few months later by my current doctor. My incontinence began with sneezing, coughing and then progressed to laughing and frequent urges to urinate then to leakage during the night over a 12 year period. Then this past March, everything just fell south and here I am. I'm 52 and I've been menopausal for three years this month. So, I'm only sharing this with you because it's so important to pay attention to the subtle symptoms and how they progress by keeping a journal. I don't believe that most doctors will concern themselves with a ' possible' prolapse simply because they are trained to treat an existing problem and not prevent one.

Scarlatti, Gillian is absolutely right and I know there are many of us on here who have a similar story to tell. The majority of women end up with some degree of prolapse. Statistics are not in your favor. Please take this as a wakeup call. Learn the posture now. Who knows, you might avoid what so many of us live with daily. And your hip and spine health is at stake. - Surviving

... if doctors deny a woman's observations of prolapse in their 20's and thirties, or even observations of perimenopause onset because they know that if they admit it they might be asked to treat it. To treat prolapse medically is unnecessary and to 'treat' perimenopause medically at that age is probably inappropriate. It would be much better to tell the woman that medical treatment for her degree of prolapse or slowly encroaching perimenopause is inappropriate and that the women needs to look at her diet, lifestyle and wellbeing as ways to make herself feel better about herself. In my wildest dreams the doctor then adds, "There is a great little Web community at www.wholewoman.com. Many women have taken on their philosophy and practices, and have never mentioned either condition to me again. In fact they are my happiest patients!"

A few questions with regard to rectocele....
1) Why doesn't the bulge go away if there is nothing in it? Is the back wall of my vagina always going to be soft and squishy...ugh.
2) Lo-po and WW half squat, is anybody using this able to get complete evacuation? Even with normal poop constistency it seems impossible (no gravity in your favour). Good for protecting the organs, but I don't get how to finish. Splinting does not work at all.
3) If poop remains in recto, and just has to come out next time does it make the recto worse sitting there all day (even if you can't feel it, pressure or anything) but know it is there.
Any/all advice would be appreciated!

Lopo is not only about how to half squat. It is also about taking the pressure off your rectum, and allowing it to take a more normal configuration, by lining itself up again so it can normalise the flow *for next time* A few hours after doing it I get the next urge, and it just seems to come out normally If it doesn't, then do LoPo again.

It is really about having faith that your body will eliminate if you let it normalise itself the way animals do. There is nothing in any of the holy books about having to have a full poo every time, or about having one poo a day. I doubt that anyone with a relatively balanced diet has ever died by the exploding guts method. It does come out in the end.

However, there is an enormous industry designed around selling products that will ostensibly cause people to have one poo a day, no more and no less, and it must be curled three times around the bowl and pointed at both ends, and the right colour. Bull***t!

Your guts know what they are doing. Don't bother them by trying to boss them around. Allow them ...

;-)

Oh my gosh, Gillian52, I was startled to read your experience. I just joined this site yesterday and am waiting for Christine's book and First Aid DVD to arrive. I'm 50 and have never given birth. I've been in peri-menopause for a couple of years now. I was shocked to learn a month ago that I have a 3rd degree prolapse, only four months after a yearly exam that showed everything to be 'perfect'. I couldn't understand how it could happen that quickly. However, after reading your story, I'm now recognizing that I've had signs for several years - small leaks when I've sneezed, coughed, or laughed; more frequent urges to urinate; and significant (mortifying) leakage during the night two different times. I had so fallen into the notion that this is nothing more than part of aging and while inconvenient etc, was nothing to be concerned about.