I have a 2nd degree uterine prolapse at 24, after my 2nd 10lb+ baby. I am not petite, but no one expected me to have such large babies.
I was extremely athletic before and during my pregnancies, even biking several miles the day before I gave birth. I felt beautiful while pregnant, and strong.
I pushed for over an hour and a half with both my baby’s completely natural births and then…BOOM…I feel my uterus nearly coming out! I felt broken, nonsexual, and depressed after being on such a high. I couldn’t believe my body that could do such awesome work, failed.
I LOVE being a mother, and my husband and I would desperately like to have more children without further damage to my body. So…I have been doing the DVD three times a week, for 3 weeks and I have already seen improvement!! This has given me great hope. I also saw a physical therapist early on, just once, as I could not afford to continue, even with insurance. I now recommend to clients, family, and friends that EVERY woman make that visit at least once. Well, I just wanted to say Thank you!
My only question is this…Do the workouts build on each other or should I vary them? How do I know when to move on to the next work out? Also, should I plan on always doing these workouts 3 times a week for the rest of my life because of my weakness? Or will there be a point that I can stop?
Thank you for your story and for your questions. It is good for all of us to know that there are healthy, strong, women out there who experience prolapse at various stages of their life. It is not a life sentence – as many of us have proved that we can develop better muscular control and adopt a posture that gets us out of the comfortable, “buns tucked under” position, and go on to have more children and return to the activities we love, all with control of our prolapse symptoms.
That being said, we will always have this structural change of our bodies that we will ALWAYS have to work to control. The work may be very conscious now, but it will eventually become routine or habit. So the answer is YES, you will always have to exercise to maintain control of your prolapse, but if I was your physical therapist, I would stress to you that we all HAVE TO exercise daily in order to maintain our posture, in order to maintain our level of fitness, and in order to maintain our overall health. So this is just another benefit of consistent exercise. Continue to follow my blogs since I plan on adding more advanced exercise instruction in the months to come.
Keep up the good work 3 times per week – eventually you won’t have to follow the DVD as you will have the exercises in your head. As for the workouts 1-4, each does build upon the previous workout, but I do like to go back to work out 1 and 2 from time to time since they make me slow down and go “back to the basics” of my pelvic basket control.
Hope I provided clear explanation on this. I am so happy that your body is responding – you will continue to see improvement and increased body awareness for years to come!
I have urge incontinence that has been helped tremendously by following your dvd. I found I could follow a 3 hour interval during the day most of the time. (At night I still get up once or twice to go to the bathroom.)
I have two questions:
1. I noticed that on the few days that I missed my workout and did no kegels, I was able to go for 5 hours without the urge to go to the bathroom. Do some of your patients find they’re over working their pelvic floor and should back off a bit? (I’ve recently reduced my workouts to twice a week and 4 kegles on off days.)
2. Trying to go less frequently at night, I had one night time bed wetting episode. How can I address this problem?
You can definitely fatigue your pelvic floor. Listen to your own body and you will find the correct number of reps and frequency of exercise for the best results! Thank you for sharing your experience.
As far as training your body for night time continence. Be aware of what you are eating and drinking at night and then begin by scheduling one bathroom break at night. You may have to set an alarm for this so that you stay consistent. Gradually lengthen the amount of time you go at night without a bathroom break, setting your alarm later each week that you have success. Eventually you can work your way up to a full night sleep without the “urge” to go.
-Tasha
It is not clear for me how to build up my exercise routine from DVD. Do I start with workouts 1 – 4 all together, 3 times a week? or do I first start with only workouts 1 for 2 weeks? What do I do next?
Thanks!
The ideal way to build your workouts would be to complete workout 1 atleast 3x the first week. As long as you feel good with the exercises – meaning that you don’t experience significant difficulty completing the workout – then go on to workout 2 for the second week. Again, work through the second work out atleast 3x this week before moving on to workout #3 the next week.
As you progress, you can keep a schedule like: Monday – workout 1, Wednesday – workout 2, Friday – workout 1, then progress the next week: Monday – workout 2, Wednesday – workout 3, Friday – workout 2, and so on.
The only mistake you can make on your progression is to skip to workout 3 or 4 before your body is ready. So much depends on your own body and how it responds. If you jump ahead, it will not hurt you, but you will note fatigue and difficulty with the exercises.
Also, feel free to workout everyday if that is your routine. However, keep your kegels to a maximum number of 8-10 two step kegels per day.
Good luck!
-Tasha
I realize most of my questions have been answered after looking further into your blogs.
Thanks, Deborah
No problem. Feel free to ask or discuss any time. Whatever may help you gain a better understanding is likely to help a lot of other women!
-Tasha
I have 1st/2nd degree cystocele after the birth of my first child. I have been doing the excercises on the DVD daily for 4 weeks. I can feel all my muscles working in the excercises except for my pelvic floor. I can do the kegels but still can’t hold the contraction very long, maybe 2 to 4 count in the begining of the work out. I wonder if I am doing them wrong and am getting discouraged. I’m really bummed that I can’t hike with my baby.
Also, I want to begin training for a tough mountain bike ride, should I not do this?
Thank you.
One more, while nursing it is challenging to be in the neutral spine position any suggestions?
The fact that you can feel the “other” muscles of your pelvic basket working is great. Since you are having a hard time achieving and holding your pelvic floor elevation, I want you to go with your strength, which at this point seems to be the contraction of the “other” muscles like your multifidi and transversus abdominus. One of my favorites to get that coordination going is the multifidi extension on your stomach. Slow this exercise down and feel how your pelvic floor tightens in coordination with the activation of your multifidi muscles. Also, work to feel the coordination of your TA lift on your hands and knees, with your pelvic floor elevation. Do both of these several times a day and see if it makes a difference in the activation of your pelvic floor.
If you try this for a week and note no difference then I would recommend either an appointment with a local women’s health PT to help get your pelvic floor firing again OR many of our users recommend the Kegel 8 electric stim unit. Often the communication between our nerves and muscles can be really slow to rebound following the trauma of delivery as our pelvic floor muscles have been stretched to their limit or maybe even torn. An electric stim unit can help prime these nerve-muscle connections and get them firing as a unit again.
I like the mtn. bike training, because you are in a great position on your bike to draw everything up, all while activating your core muscles as you work your bike…so go for it!
Lastly, you are right on the challenge of nursing your baby in neutral spine. To be honest with you, I threw the towel in on this one. I loved cuddling up with my little ones while nursing and I believe it should be a time of relaxation so that your baby feels that relaxation as well. So my recommendation would be for you to get to a position of extension AFTER breastfeeding. It won’t hurt your body to let go at times as long as you are conscious of coming back to an extended position when you get the opportunity. Even better, follow each breast feeding session with multifidi extensions and TA lifts!
Thanks for the great questions! Keep us updated on your progress as you move forward.
-Tasha
Thank you so much for your reply, it is really encouraging for me! I will be following your advice. Is it advisable to use a pessary while excercising to help things along? I prefer not to be dependant on anything other than my own muscles but if it would help, I would do it. Will I see less bludge the stronger the pelvic floor gets? I think I am now but wonder if I’m kidding myself.
I also have abdominal seperation. What is best to close the seperation without negativley affecting my pelvic floor? Is it true that I won’t be able to have a “6 pack” again?
Thank you for making a difference, if it wasn’t for your DVD and this website I would be going down the wrong path.
Senta
Senta,
Regarding the pessary device. That is definitely personal preference. I have never used one, but one of the young, active moms on http://www.prolapsehealth.com loves her pessary and has no symptoms with it in. I don’t think anyone knows if there are any long term side effects or if you do become dependent. So far, my recommendations have been – if you do choose to use a pessary device, get comfortable taking it out and putting it in so that your body has the opportunity to work without the brace as well.
And certainly, your bulge will lift (some days higher than others) once you understand and work the concept of your multifidi, your TA, and you pelvic floor working together throughout your daily activities. I have lots of blogs on this very important muscle coordination, so you can read more specifics from past blogs.
Finally, your diastasis recti can be improved by performing plank exercises – hear me now, NO MORE CRUNCHES, at all! Simply put, no more activities drawing your ribs closer to your pelvis. All abdominal work needs to be done in plank position. To help draw your abdominal muscles back together, you want to have a tight wrap around your midsection, starting the wrap around your hip bones and extending up to just under your ribs -this will help approximate the two sides of your rectus abdominus muscle as you work your strengthening. As you work your plank exercises, your Transversus abdominus will be activated, further cinching up your abdominals, redirecting most air and intra abdominal pressure up under your ribs and to your chest. This is the perfect workout for your pelvic floor and for correction of your diastasis recti.
As for the plank exercises – stay tuned to our website. I plan on uploading a written 7 day workout soon that has all the advanced abdominal training you could want to get that 6-pack and keep your pelvic floor firing in a healthy pattern. Eventually it will be upgraded to include video demonstration of the exercises so you will have a good visual of correct positioning and cadence, beyond just the written exercise description.
-Tasha
Luckily I enjoy the plank position! Are resistance rotations (standing, arms out front and twisting, using a life motion or similar equipment) safe to do?
Thanks again!
Senta
Senta, go ahead and work hip extensions in the plank position, knee drives, horizontal shoulder abduction, mountain climbers while working that plank position for a little variety. It is all fair game!
As for the resistance rotations – I actually just took these out of my workout plan because I couldn’t activate my obliques against that resistance without bearing down. So my advice would be to stay away from them and I will give you plenty of options to work rotation in plank and side plank positions.
-Tasha
Okay. I’m really looking forward to the 7 day workout plan and especially the video!! I’ve been doing the extra multifidi extensions and TA lifts. I’m not feeling the increase in my pelvic floor elevation yet (only a couple days) but overall my abdominals feels tighter. Thank you for doing what you do!
Senta
i went to drop in clinic as was feeling pains in my Abdm, the Nurse checked me and said it looks like i have NeutralProlapse, i am worried can this be cured? and can i have children without Damaging myslefy? so worried.
Vanessa,
I am not sure about the diagnosis of a “neutral prolapse”. Perhaps she said “uterine prolapse”. Either way, you can certainly go on to have more children, however, you should begin to study your own body now. Improve your postural awareness to put your body in optimal position to support your pelvic organs and to allow your muscles of your pelvic basket to work. The more strengthening and understanding you gain now, the better off you will be!
-Tasha
Dear Tasha,
I have continued performing the DVD and have been mountain biking 3 times a week. I feel terrific after I ride. I want to do the 7 day work out routine for my abdominals, is it on the site?
Also, I want to get back to the gym and do more resistance / functional training. I know to only perform abs in plank, what about other muscle groups. For instance, can I do biceps curls (while kneeling on a swiss ball) as I used to? Although I strive to become more aware of what muscles are being activated with each exercise, I am still learning. So I’m wondering what else to stay away from. Thank you!
Senta
I’m back! Hope everyone had a wonderful spring break 🙂
Senta, great question on progression of exercises as you get back to your normal activity level. We don’t have the 7 day advanced program on the site yet, but I have everything and would be glad to send it your way if you email me directly. You can find a link to me on the website. This will be the written version as we are still working on getting the video links up and running.
Beyond the 7 day program you can use this rule: Most acivities that curl your ribs closer to your pelvis will increase the pressure down on your pelvic floor and should be avoided. The exercise you described, being bicep curls while kneeling on a swiss ball should be just fine because your body will be extended and your TA will be on helping your stabilize.
Thanks for the question Senta.
Tasha