Empowering women with accurate knowledge allows them to make informed decisions regarding their healthcare. For those women who are contemplating urogynecological surgery and for those healthcare practitioners who are advising these women, this new edition of Christine Kent’s Saving the Whole Woman is an essential read. The evidence is substantial; restoring optimal posture and muscle function can prevent and reduce most pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence. Surgery should not be your first treatment choice.
Successfully Manage Pelvic Organ Prolapse Without Surgery
For Women with Cystocele (bladder prolapse), Rectocele, (rectum prolapse), or Uterine Prolapse Who Don’t Want Surgery
by Christine Kent, RN
Founder of Whole Woman Inc.
If you have been diagnosed with pelvic organ prolapse (cystocele, rectocele or uterine prolapse), you have probably been told one of three things:
- You need surgery - mesh, hysterectomy or “repair” such as bladder or uterine suspension
- You should wear a pessary, a silicone rubber plug in various shapes to hold your prolapse in
- Do nothing and see if it gets worse.
If you have spoken to more than one doctor, it is likely you have gotten different advice from them.
The hardest part of prolapse is that you probably never heard of the condition until you became symptomatic. It is a horrifying thing to discover. You feel as though your body has failed you, you’ll never be young again, that your sex life may be over. The emotional turmoil is, in many respects, the worst part of prolapse.
But there is hope.
You, like thousands of other women around the world, can successfully manage your prolapse for a lifetime without dangerous and unnecessary surgery.
I know because I suffered a severe uterine prolapse as a result of a bladder suspension surgery my trusted surgeon sold me on, while never telling me that his “state-of-the-art” procedure virtually always results in a profound uterine prolapse.
I struggled with my cervix hanging out for almost ten years before I had one of those definitive moments in life when I suddenly saw that I had to solve this problem. I spent the next two years in the University of medical school library digging for all the research information I could find. I continued working with my own prolapse experimenting with dance and exercise.
Little by little the pieces of the puzzle came together and I started seeing results.
I put everything I had learned into my book, Saving the Whole Woman, Natural alternatives to surgery for pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence. I put up my website, www.wholewoman.com in early 2003 when the book was first published and set up an online forum to see if I could teach others what I had learned.
Back then, I had no way of knowing if I could teach my methods to others online. Much to my amazement, within a few weeks, women started writing in that their symptoms were better. They had lots of questions that kept me going back to the library for more in-depth answers. Within a few years it was clear that the book needed a revision and in 2007 I published the 2nd edition, fully re-written and expanded.
Why does my method work?
The answer is simple and it based on one of the greatest scientific blunders of all time.
Back in the 16th century, a surgeon and anatomist named Andreas Vesalius drew what became the most influential medical illustrations of his time. Only he made a huge mistake. He drew the pelvis like a basin with the opening at the bottom. It’s understandable that he would do this since his drawings were made from cadavers lying flat on stone slabs with their spines flattened and their pelvis tilted up.
But that’s not how the pelvis is oriented in living, breathing women. No, the pelvis is oriented like a ring on its edge with the opening at the back. Any woman can validate this true orientation for herself.
This misunderstanding of the pelvic orientation has persisted in the medical literature and teaching curriculum for almost 500 years.
It has given rise to the myth of the pelvic floor. The true pelvic floor are the pubic bones that come together underneath us like straps of a saddle. It is given rise to the notion that pelvic organ prolapse is about the organs falling down and that way to hold them up is through Kegel exercises or surgery.
The reality is that prolapse is caused by the organs falling back, not down. In proper female anatomy, the bladder rests securely atop the pubic bones and the uterus falls forward on top of the bladder. In proper orientation, both gravity and every breath we take securely pins the organs where they belong, up against the lower front abdominal wall.
The breakthrough I discovered in both my research is that prolapse really isn’t a gynecological problem at all. It is a postural problem.
When we are in our natural female posture, chest lifted, with our natural lumbar (lower spine) curvature in place, our organs will migrate to where they belong. If they do misbehave, I’ve included a number of tricks and techniques for moving them back.
The surgeries (and there are over 150 of them) that have been developed to “fix” this problem are notoriously dangerous, unreliable and unlikely to work for more than a very few years. Each subsequent surgery gets worse until eventually, the doctors will suggest just sewing your vagina shut. As bizarre as it sounds, the technical term is “obliterating the vagina” and even that can fail, resulting in a life-threatening situation.
Jumping ahead to today, my book, Saving the Whole Woman remains the definitive book on the subject of non-surgical intervention for pelvic organ prolapse. Many thousands of women from around the world have successfully used my methods so manage their prolapse, cancel scheduled surgeries and live full, physically and sexually active lives.
The forum on www.wholewoman.com has about 7,000 members, I’ve produced six DVDs with more coming, and have trained four certified Whole Woman practitioners in the US, Australia and the UK with four more currently in training in .
My point is this...with my method, women get results.
If you are looking for an alternative to surgery for your prolapse, do click the link to the right. It will take you to www.wholewoman.com where you can learn more about my method of successful prolapse management, join the forum (www.wholewoman.com/forum) so you can talk with other women who are working with prolapse. My book and DVDs are available in the Whole Woman online store (www.wholewoman.com/store).
If you would like a free copy of my article "Why Kegels Don't Work" just click on the link and you'll be taken to a page where you can download the article.
Of course, my products are fully guaranteed. Try the Whole Woman approach. Call it an experiment. You have practically nothing to lose. And remember, surgery isn’t an experiment, it’s a lifetime commitment.
Sincerely,
Christine Kent, RN
Whole Woman Inc.