June 27, 2025 • 40 mins
Pelvic organ prolapse can feel scary, overwhelming, and isolating — but it doesn’t have to be. In this episode of the Align & Elevate Podcast, Dr. Allison Feld (pelvic floor physical therapist, mom of 3, and lifelong athlete) shares her deeply personal journey with pelvic organ prolapse — and the tools she’s used to manage and truly heal it without surgery. 💡 What You’ll Learn in This Video:
- What pelvic organ prolapse really is (and why it’s so common after childbirth)
- Signs and symptoms to watch for — even years later
- Why kegels aren’t always the solution
- What can make prolapse worse (lifting, breath-holding, tight pelvic floors)
- The truth about prolapse surgery and why it often fails
- Non-surgical tools that actually help (manual therapy, hypopressives, glute + core training, and more)
- Struggle with pressure, leaking, or queefing during workouts or intimacy
- Feel like something is “falling out” down there
- Were told surgery is your only option
- Want to lift, run, jump, and play with your kids — without fear
- Are ready to take your body back and feel empowered again
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of the aligne and Elevated podcast.
I'm your host, doctor Alison Felt, owner of Body Motion
Physical Therapy, pelthic expert Physical Therapist, and I'm here with
my doggie today, Bucky. He is joining us if you
are watching on YouTube. He came to the office to
get some EMTT. It's a magnetic high frequency pulse. If
(00:21):
you've heard of pimph or like a pimph MATT, it
is similar to that, except for this is a high
frequency magnet and it's similar to that of an MRI,
but used in therapeutic doses to help decrease inflammation, help
stimulate bone healing, help stimulate healing in general, and it's
just it's been absolutely amazing. So I had Bucky come
(00:42):
into the clinic so I could do it on his
back and his hips because he is having days where
he is struggling walking and all that stuff. But this
episode is not about EMTT. This episode is all about
considerations for managing and healing pelvic organ prolass.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
So if you've heard of pelvic organ.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Program, there are multiple kinds of pelvic organ prolaps. I
want to take you through my own journey with pelvic
organ prolabs, and a little bit about other patients that
I've treated, about how they heal and how they've managed
their symptoms through the years.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
And then I want to.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Give you some insights into what I've seen with surgical
management as well from a clinical perspective. Now, I think
these are all important considerations because I wanted.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
To empower you.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
When you find out that you have a pelvic organ prolaps,
it can be really defeating.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
It can make you feel like crap. It can make
you feel like.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Your world is ending, that you can never lift a
weight again, you can never do the activities you love,
and it's pretty awful. People will describe it as feeling
like their vagina's coming out of their body, their rectums
coming out of their body, or they just feel like
things are dropping and they feel a ton of pressure.
So the definition of pelvic organ prollabs is typically when
(01:50):
there's multiple kinds of pelvic organ prolops.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I guess I'll go through that first. First.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
You can imagine that you have your vaginal canal leads
to the vaginal opening. When you have your vaginal canal,
you have the front side of it and you have
the backside of it, and then you have the top
and on the very top you have the cervix.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
And when the cervix comes down, that.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Means that the uterus is descending and that is called
a uterine prolapse. So like the uterine prolapse is when
the cervix is coming down into the vaginal canal and
sometimes comes.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Outside of the body. Then we have a.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Recticeal, which is where the posterior wall, the back wall
of the rectum, of the vaginal canal side, the back
wall of the.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Vaginal canal comes into the vaginal canal.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Then we have assist to seal where the front wall
of the vaginal canal comes into the vaginal canal, and
that is where the bladder is coming in. And it
can also be where the urethroat will start to come
in as well. So you can have a urethraus seal,
which is where the bladder and the urethrid descend into
the vaginal canal, or you can have it where just
(02:53):
the urethroat starts to come down a little bit. And
now all of this can lead to urinaryan continence, It
can lead to a lot of urgency, It can lead
to constipation or bloating it can lead to back pain
or pelvit pain all because of this pelvit organ prelapse.
So I want to take you through my journey of
(03:13):
pelvic organ prolapse, so you just have an idea of
how common this is. So some of the research will say,
you know, two out of three women after they have
childbirth will have pelvic organ prolapse. We honestly see a
higher rate of that. We believe you know. It's really
like everyone has some descent of their pelvic organs after
they have a baby, whether they feel it or not.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
And the whole goal is to heal.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
The body and heal the core so that the organs
can go back to their homes and find the places
where they live, and then you can do all the
activities that you love without feeling heaviness, without feeling like
something's falling out, without feeling uncomfortable in your vagina or
between your legs.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I'm going to go back, and I'm sorry this is
a little out of sync.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
But there's also you can also have a rectal prolapse,
so that is the rectum starts to come out of
the anus, and that's a little more.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Uncommon, at least for women.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And then you can also have a perinea seal, which
is where the area between the vagina and the anus
start to descend. Okay, so it might feel like there's
just this bulge between your anus and your vagina, and
that tends to be what's called a paranea seal, and
so it just means that the central tendon that holds
that area up has ruptured or become a lengthened and
(04:32):
now you're not getting that area held up anymore by
that tendon, by that central tendon, and so you're just
relying on the muscles themselves. So that's a perinea seal again,
a lot less common. Okay, let's backtrack.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
It to what do we do.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
A lot of people are so freaked out when they
find out that they have some descent of their pelvic
organs that had so many people tell me, if they
would have known that this could have happened, they would
have never had kids in the first place. And that
is super disheartening because we just haven't educated people to
feel powerful even if they have a pelic organ prolapse
like this should not form your identity.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
It's just a part of me.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I have a pelvic organ prolapse, and it has zero
effect on how I identify my life, how I set my
fitness goals. It has zero effect on my self worth.
And I want that for everybody because because if you
go down the online rabbit hole, even like support groups
for pelvic organ prolapse, they're super negative.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
They're back like, they're not helpful. A lot of them.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
You know, they might be like, oh, go try this program,
these exercises, those exercises, but at the end of the day,
like it's not necessarily empowering, and you have a lot
of fear based knowledge and kind of like fear based
mindset that are preventing these women from going and pursuing
(05:56):
what they want to do. And they're basing their limitation
and on their diagnosis of a pelvic gorgon prolapse.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
And that is just not okay. We want to be empowering.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
If you have a pelvic gorgan prolops, you should be
able to do everything that your kid can do, okay,
or everything that your friend without a pelvic organ probubs
can do. That's the reality that we need to make
true for you. And how we get there might look
a little different. But I'll tell you my story. I'll
tell you how I've gotten there. I'm a pelvic floor
physical therapist. I have been that since before I even
(06:27):
had children. And so when I graduated pta school and
I was getting my own pelvic floor training and exams,
one of the intructors came over and they're like, okay, this.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Is a CIST to seal.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
You have a grade too sist to seal, and it's
actually pretty significant. It was below my timend remnants, which
just means that it's a grade two that descends a
little bit lower. And I was like, oh, I wonder
if this is why I've had incontinence since I was
a kid. And you know, I made me question a
lot of things, but all I could think about and
I used to keep my pants in two things.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
When I would get hit in hockey.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I played boye hockey, and anytime I would take a
body check, I would pee my pants a little bit
and so and then I would also pee my pants
when I would do sprints during.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Softball in high school.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
And so those were kind of clues that something wasn't right,
but you know, I was too embarrassed to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And so until I became a pelvic floor Pete.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I didn't even realize that, like, oh this is kind
of common and there's actually help for this.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So those are my two real instances.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
I started weightlifting when I was fourteen, like doing some
more heavy weightlifting fourteen fifteen, and.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I was training for hockey.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I was like at a really intense hockey training facility
in bringer Minnesota, and.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I would train there.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I'd train at Minnesota hockey camps, and that's really where
I got into lifting, performance basedlifting for hockey.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And I would.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Lift four five days a week, probably five days a
week actually, and I would lift heavy. And when I
would train, I would you know, I trained with all
these men.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
There really weren't females there.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And at this point in time, you know, we're talking
in two thousand, right, nineteen ninety nine, two thousand and
there just wasn't a ton of research and stuff for
performance based female athletes with for weightlifting, and so we
didn't really have education that like, oh, maybe how you're
lifting weights as a female and how you're lifting weights
as a man, maybe you should be breathing differently, or
(08:33):
maybe you should have different considerations. The men have their
penises and balls hanging out of their body, they don't
have to keep those inside of their body, whereas women
have to keep their bladder inside their body, their uterus
inside their body, right, And so there are different considerations
when it comes.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
To how we should brace and use our inter abdominal
pressure as females.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And now I know that this can be controversial and
there's like a lot of different information about that, but
and everyone is different and everyone's goals are different. But
for me, I you know, I would pr I would
try to hit max repetition or max weight for my
like one repetition max. But really I was performance training
for hockey to be you know, excellent and strong on
(09:15):
the ice, and so I didn't necessarily need to max.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Out all the time.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
But I had to be able to have good breath patterns,
and that just wasn't on my radar.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
That wasn't a thing.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
So I probably created a little bit of my own
pelvic organ prolapse by using poor breath patterns and lifting
heavy heavy weights without the information of knowing how to
control my introbdominal pressure as a teenager. And then I
would get like I would took heavy hits as a teenager,
and that's probably didn't help my situation. So you know,
(09:47):
I can't pinpoint exactly when I got a pelvic organ
prolapse as you know as a kid, but it happened.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
The other reality is that my pelvic floor was really tight.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
So I had a completely tight pelvic floor, and I
didn't know how to control my pelvic floor.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
But I had a lot of tension.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And so as a female athlete, a lot of female
athletes have a lot of tension in their hips and
in their public floor, and they don't find that their
hips are flexible, and they just have a hard time
getting deep stretches in their hips, and or they.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Just have no connection. No one ever really.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Trains us to connect to our pelvic floor. So in turn,
I developed a really tight in probably fibronic pelvic floor.
And when you have a tight fibronic pelvic floor, you
end up having.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
You end up having less dynamic movement from your core.
So the pelvic floor is at the bottom of your core.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And in order for your public floor to be strong,
you actually have to have really good opening and really
good closure, and you have to be able to overstretch
as well. And so when you have that full range
of motion, that means that you're gonna have more shock absorption.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
That means you're gonna have a.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Really strong dynamic core that can absorb forces when you're.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Taking a hit in hockey. But you see, my pelvic
floor was tightened. My palt floor was shortened.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
And when you have a shortened, tightened pelvic floor there
that puts a lot more pressure in your abdominal region,
increasing the pressure down on the bladder, down on the uterus,
down on the postier wall the vagina, which would be
your rectum, and so there er you know, a rec
the the postier wall, which is where the rectum is.
I should say that's more anatomically correct, but regardless, that's
(11:28):
neither here nor there. The deal is that that when
the pelvic floor is tighter, there is just more intra
abdominal pressure.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
And I had a ton of bloating and constipation.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
As a kid, as like a teenager, and especially through college.
Like you gave me a bagel and cream cheese before
I played, I could guarantee you that I would have
like intestinal discomfort on the ice, and I would, you know,
sometimes have a couple of bagels and cream cheese. And
I loaded up that cream cheese because I was quote
unquote car bloating for the game, right, And so that
(11:58):
wasn't good and that and you know, so was it
diet or was it that my pelic floor was super
tight and I already had a high intra abdominal pressure.
So if you imagine, like I have a balloon here
and I squeeze the bottom of the balloon, that's the
tightness of the pelvic floor. That puts a lot more
pressure up in the abdomen. When you're putting a lot
more pressure up in the abdomen, that's gonna put a
(12:19):
lot of downward pressure down on the pelvic organs. And
if your pelvic floor is already tight, there's not gonna
be a lot of room to hold.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Those organs up. And in so one of the analogies I.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Really love is if you imagine that your pelvic floor
is a bowl and that bowl is nice and open,
and you have a grape in that bowl, the grape
can just like roll around and move in the bowl,
and imagine that grape is your bladder. That's what should
be happening. But if your bowl is super super tight,
it's gonna squeeze that grape, it's gonna push that grape
(12:51):
down further creating a descent of the bladder, creating that
pelvic organ prolops. And so in order to help take
the pressure off that bladder, we have to work on
opening up the pelvic floor and allowing the pelvic floor
to open and have space, and allowing that pelvic floor
to open and have space. And so once we get
(13:12):
that space, then we can really have a dynamic pelvic
floor and to have less pressure on the pelvic organ
than themselves. And so as a teenager having a super
tight pelvic floor, you can imagine that I had tight
or I had high intra adominal pressure. Fast forward, I
go and play college hockey, and I continue to be
an athlete even after I'm hockey.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I do hockey.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I run some marathons when I'm done with hockey because
I don't know what else to do. And I was
super bulky and I wanted to lose some of my
muscle mass, and so I started running marathons and tried
to run the fat the muscle off my body and
just kind of deep Do I wish I did that now?
Probably not, because now my goal is one hundred percent
all muscle. But that's a story for another day.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
But so fast forward to.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Then I go and I am pregnant with my first baby,
and I know I have a sisticia, so and I'm
already public floor physical theorists. So I'm doing everything I
know how to do in order to open up my pelvic.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Floor, in order to work on breathing and coordinating my
pelvic floor.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
But the reality was is that my pelvic floor was
still really tight. So if you've read my book Pregnancy Era,
you know that you know I ended up pushing for
over three hours.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I blew every blood vessel.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
In my eyes and my face. I looked like I
had a tan, even though I didn't. I and it
was pretty rough. It was not just pretty rough, it
was very rough, right. I pushed for hours, breath holding,
which is everything that we teach everyone not to do now,
And all of that was generated from my own experience,
because when I was pushing for that long and breath
holding and using the inter abdominal pressure to help.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
To send the baby out of my body, I was.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Not just pushing the baby out. I was pushing my
uterus down. I was pushing my bladder down, and I
was pushing for out and hours to do that to
get them out of my body. Then I go and
have a pretty significant grade to tear. And so then
once you have a grade to tear, or you have
any tearing at all, you get scar tissue that buckles
(15:14):
down right. And scar tissue is there to heal the
body and to create tensions, so you.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Don't open up that tissue again.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
But what it also does is it creates a ton
of tightness again, making the bowl even even tighter and
therefore exacerbating the amount of pressure that there is on
those pelvic organs. Okay, so then fast forward after By
this time I had my second even though the delivery
was a little bit better, and I still had such
(15:43):
a tight pelvic floor that my bladder was significantly worse
after baby number two, didn't you know, symptom wise, it
recoiled pretty well after baby number one. I didn't really
do a lot of internal manual therapy. I didn't what
I know how to do myself, but I couldn't do
a lot of my own internal work, and I didn't
(16:04):
have access to it at that time. There wasn't a
lot of people in my area. I was working a ton,
so just didn't get the work that I needed in
order to heal my body. And so fast forward, I
decide I'm going to run another half marathon in order
to get myself back, get my fitness back, and start running.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And I start training and start running.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
My bladder is just in a bad spot, and so
I go and I get a pessory, and I get
a pessory to really support the bladder, support my training.
And then when I also did was start to get
my own internal work done and start training other physical
therapists as they joined the Body Motion team, because I
knew I needed this manual work.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
So maybe expanding the business was all for personal gain
and not the mission. I don't know, but I am
part of the mission. So because I'm a woman.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
And we strive to empower to heal women, make them
strong in their bodies, give them all the fulfillment in
the world which unlaunched creativity so they can go make
really good impacts on the world.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
That's the deal.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And so regardless, started hiring people, started training them and
getting my own internal work done.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
And once I got my own start tissue worked done, and.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Then really started opening up all the chronic years of
tightness and tension in my Peltic floor, improving my range
of motion. That's when my Parolott symptoms completely dissolveten went away.
Now when my bladder still descends some, yes, absolutely, but
it's a non issue because I don't feel it and
(17:33):
I don't become symptomatic. The only time I run into
issues now is if I have a sickness, like if
I get a chronic cough or chronic vomiting. It's some
vomiting their stomach bug. I will get a little bit
of incontinence if I train really really hard and my
legs are sore, or I play it like more than
probably three hockey games in about a forty eight.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Hour window, then I will get a little bit of leakage.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
But those are my only symptoms and it's amazing, Like
I just don't even realize I have a prolapse now
because my prolapse has recoiled. But even when I get checked,
like it still comes down to a grade two below
the himend remnants like that.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
The position of that has not changed, but the.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Symptoms are completely gone and it's not getting worse as
I get older. And then I had a third baby,
and it was a non issue. Did not get worse
at all. Was actually even better because I had pelvic
floor work done my entire pregnancy, So we managed the tension,
the tightness of my bowl the whole entire pregnancy, really
working on giving me range of motion. And when I
(18:37):
had that range of motion, then my bladder could just
go back up to where it needed to go. And
even with a baby growing on my bladder, my bladder
didn't descend. So that just shows you the power of
pelvic floor work. And so I had had a bunch
of pelvic floor work done and then healing postpartum, I
just really didn't feel my bladder this going around, which
(18:58):
was such a gift. And you know, occasionally, like I said,
I'll get some symptoms, but I really manage that. I
use EMTT, which is amazing to help improve bladder control,
amazing to in control to change pain. It's amazing ilah blah.
(19:18):
I also use shockwave therapy to help with my abdominal
core tightening, and we use we use a technique to
help strengthen one of the ligaments that is that goes
from your belly button to your bladder and then that
is that's called the iracus ligament, and that has helped
tremendously improve the position of my bladder, so I I
(19:41):
feel like I have all the tools. I also use
pelic floor physical therapy typically about once a month for
just maintenance reasons to keep my pelic floor as dynamic
and open as possible. I also train really hard, so
I live four to five days a week. I do
two heavy leg days a week to upper body and
back days, and then the day is just a glute
trigger day, just to.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Turn my glutes on.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
And these are essential at helping me keep my peltic
organs in place, keep my peltic floor healthy. When you
have really strong glutes and a strong back and a
strong transverse of dominus muscle, you.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Have a really good core.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Now if you have and you need that pelvic floor
to stay dynamic. The minute that peltic floor starts to
tighten and overwork, it's gonna take over. It's gonna limit
your hip extension, which is gonna then limit how much.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Your glutes can help you.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
So your glute medius muscle is especially Andrew Blue minimis.
They help support your pelvis and they sling the pelvic
organs along with your lap muscles and your lower trap muscles.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
They create this sling.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Of fashion that's gonna help support the pelvic organs. And
you combine that with knowing how to use your breath
and knowing how to breathe.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
During your lists.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Consciously breathe and use your breath to end your pressure,
your intra abdominal pressure. That's gonna help you manage the
pressure that's down on your pelvic organs.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Also, it's gonna help you manage your palid floor attention.
So the other thing that.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Is a misnomer and one of the nitty gritty things
that we focus on when we're working with someone to
help them their organs recoil, is we really work on
getting their transverse of dominance, their lower transverse anamenos to
fire adequately, and for your transverse of dominance to drive
a lot of your movement, to drive your lifting, to
drive how you pick when you pick up your kids, to.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Drive when you bend over to pick up a laundry basket.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
If that muscle can drive your movement and it fires
first over the pelvic floor, then you're gonna have a
better chance at that transverse a Doomena's picking up your
pelvic organs and the ladder just coming along for the ride.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
But if your pelvic floor is tightening and you're doing
a keygel before you.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Do this movement, most of the time you're gonna have
you're still gonna have all that pressure push those organs down,
and a lot of times you're gonna contract your pelvic floor,
but your organs are going to be below the line
of your pelvic floor, so you're actually creating more pressure
and worsening up the position of those pelvic organs because
of the starting position of the organs. So it's really
(22:17):
important that if you can work with a pelvic floor
physical therapists or at least start to get to know
your own body and really figure out, Okay, how can
I learn how to open up my pelvic floor.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
How can I get more range of emotion on my
palvic floor? Can I massage my own pelvic floor.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Can I use a pelvic floor wand to help me
get more range emotion. I'll tell you what, if I
didn't have the resources that I do in my own
team of pelvic floor physical therapists that are complete experts
and have all the resources in the world that feel
the worse and worse prolapses, then I absolutely believe that
if I didn't have that, I would just I would
(22:52):
be working my wand a lot, and I would be
using a wand to help open up pelic floor and
give me that range emotion so that my peblic floor
could be dynamic, open really wide.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Had then can recoil nicely. You don't really need to
train the key goal. You don't need to train that
pald floor contraction.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
The reason being is most people are so contracted to
begin with. And when you can train the opening and
you have that opening, every squat you do, every walk
you go on, you're gonna get some ground reaction force
of that public floor muscle, so functionally it's working.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Do you need to stick weights up inside your vagina?
Speaker 1 (23:32):
No, you don't use weights on your diaphragm that you
breathe with right you inhale and exhale. You can put
the air in different parts of your belly and then
your ribcage and in your back and in your palvic floor.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, that's great in then exhale, but you don't wait that.
You don't put weights on that.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
You can, you know, breathe into restrictive things to make it,
you know, more forceful.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
And make your lungs stronger and make your diaphram stronger.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Sure, but it's like, you just don't need to put
weights on your pelic floor.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
If you're not putting weights on your diaphragm, you don't.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Need to put weights on your pelic floor. You know,
there's just not a lot of times that.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
That's called for. It's extremely rare.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Now, if you have a nerve injury and we're trying
to get the nerve to fire back to the muscle
where you have a complete muscle tear of your livator ani,
which is one of your pelvic floor muscles, then sure,
go ahead, and you know we can start to retrain it.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And if that requires retraining it and you get better
connection when you.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Stick a weight in there, sure, but that's the minority.
If you have a pelvic organ prolapse, most likely your
bowl is already tight because it's compensatory. Your body subconsciously
is like, let me keep these organs inside my body, right,
And so you're gonna be half this.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Like low grade tension of tightening your pelvic floor.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
You're gonna low grade tension of trying to keep everything
in And so you intentionally need to work on opening
that pelvic floor, which is gonna give you that range
of motion, which is going to give you that space
for your organs, which is going to help decrease the pressure,
decrease the incontinence, and make that pelvic organ prolapse, give
it a chance to heal, give it a chance to recoil,
(25:16):
to go up into its spot again. And so back
to my own personal story. So after number two I used,
I used a pessory probably for about eighteen months, and
then I really just.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Felt like I didn't need it anymore. I didn't think
that it was supporting me.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
I didn't feel any pelvic pressure, so I felt really
good to go after that. I would also use KT
tape to lift my bladder when I would go on
runs or when I.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Would do hit workouts that included biometrics.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
So I would lift my bladder up and then I
would stick the KT tape underneath it, just giving it
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Of support on my abdominal wall. Now it helped me mentally.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I also became certified in hypopressives, and the reason I
decided to do that was to help control my prolops.
That just give me a lot more core strengthening a
core tightening without driving the movement with kegels. So hyperpresses
and low pressure fitness are amazing because they help you,
(26:16):
like essentially you learn how to vacuum and create a
negative intra abdominal pressure which creates Actually the only exercise
that has ever created negative pressures in the vaginal canal
and in the rectal canal is using low pressure fitness
and hyperpressives. And so it's a form of exercise in
which you create this abdominal vacuum and it's a passive vacuum.
(26:39):
So if you like follow bodybuilders or you look at
a lot of instagrams, people are like actively contracting their
core when they do vacuums.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
So that is not a hypopressor. That is not low
pressure fitness. Low pressure fitness and hyperpresses are passive.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
You're not actively engaging the ta or the obliques or
the rectus abdominus. This is all passive and you're using
your breath and your diaphragm to control and create a
negative pressure which helps sucks and pull the organs back
up into their places.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Maybe we can link a.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Video if you're watching on YouTube or if you are
listening on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, if
you will link a video to this episode and we
will show you a hypoppressive and like how to do
a hypopressive, because I do think it's super great.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
It's good for the pelvic floor, it's good for learning diaphragm.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Control, it's good for learning intra abdominal pressure control.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
So we'll link that here. So I use that on
my journey.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
And you know, I was certified through level three, which
is the max level for low pressure fitness, and I
don't really use any of those poses per se, but
just the concepts are really really valuable, and I'll often
do it a lot of times after I've done lifting,
just to kind of reposition my organs and.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Make sure I take the pressure off my pelvic floor
for just a little bit.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
And then I will follow it with doing some breathing,
doing some opening, making sure I have that dynamic opening,
because you do get an elevation of the pelvic floor
when you do a hypopressive.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
So I use that as my training.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
And then I really started after maybe number three came
along and I was like, okay, I never ever want
to get a I never want to get a pelvic
organ prolap surgery.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
The reason being is I've.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Seen them and they fail, like there is such a
high failure rate, and I think a lot of it
is because people don't actually learn how to use their
pelvic floor, and then their bulls are super tight, so
then they are still creating all this intro abdominal pressure
and they just bust through the sling or they bust
through whatever they use to stitch up and make things
tighter and reposition their organs. So it's not ideal, like
(28:50):
the ideal way to do this, even if you end
up having to get a pelpic organ prolap surgery, and
I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna ever get one
like it could be on the table for me.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
I've had a prolaps for a long hour time. And
if it ever does get to a.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Point that I can't manage it with palaly floor, physical therapy,
keeping my muscles strong and whatnot, that I will absolutely
consider that because I don't want it to affect my function.
But I will exhaust every single natural resource before I
go that route, because I've seen these things fail like
so much, and then even once I see them fix
(29:24):
post off, a lot of times anatomically, when you visualize it,
that freaking prolapse is still there. They've maybe just tightened
a ligament and like pulled it up a little bit,
but you still see the descent and so it's not
like they're fixing it. So when people freak out that
like oh, my bladder's lower or you know whatever, and
they think that the surgery is gonna totally reposition it,
(29:48):
I hate to break it to you, but it's not.
So if you're freaking out because your prolapse looks low
or like it just visually your rulva doesn't look good,
getting the prolapse surgery is actually not the answer because
I've seen it where I'm like, wait, they fixed your bladder,
Like why the fuck is your bladder on the same spot,
Like I don't know, I don't have the answer, but
(30:10):
they fixed it. Like I don't know, it's wild, but
that is the deal. Like, insurgeons stand by their work, right,
They're like, yeah, we did the postop this person. Now
you know they had the sister seal, we did the surgery,
and I'm.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Like, there's still a sister seal? What did you do
the surgery on? But whatever, Like Okay, it's a little tighter.
But anyways, so.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Like that's where I just want to like make it
super clear that like surgery is like not the answer
and unless like the only time I've really seen like
these surgeries be effective, at least for a little while
is when people have a un room prolops and then
they get there, they they either get a hysterectomy and
then they.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Have like this bolt.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
But then a lot of times I will see what
happens is that bolt then lapses and because it doesn't
have that ligamentous structure to hold it up. So I
don't feel like there's a good surgical answer at the moment.
I should get a surgeon on here so they could
talk us through some better options. And so maybe that
will be my next move is to find a surgeon
that will come on the podcast and kind of talk
to us about this. So I don't want to speak
(31:19):
for good social outcomes, because I'm sure there are some,
but I do really want to bring attention to like
getting everything you can control you can control, getting internal
palvic floor work done, really opening up the pelic floor,
improving the health of that pelvic.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Floor, creating a dynamic pelvic floor to give the.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Organs a chance to breathe and go back into their
places and not be so strangulated that they get strangled
out of the body, squeezed out of the body.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
So you can control that.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
You can control getting your scar tissue released to help
release some of that strangulation and some of that squeeze
on those pelvic organs. You can control your bowel movements,
So having good bowl movements is super.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Important to me.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I use magnesium sit tray every single night. I keep
a high fiber diet. If I've noticed that my fiber
intake is low, I will take some fiber or I'll
use rawhus celium in order to help beef up my
stool and just get it a little bit more consistent
if I'm struggling with that at at you know, at
any particular time. I also am a big believer in
(32:23):
having adequate protein intake, so I used to say collagen,
and sure collagen can play a role in it. I
definitely was on the collagen train between baby number two
and baby number three and about my first you know
year post partum of baby number three, I was definitely
on the collagen train. But then I really switched to
like collagen is an autocomplete protein, and you if you
(32:45):
have adequate protein and like you're actually eating your body
weight in protein in grams, then you know of your
lean muscle mass, and you've heard me talk about that
on other episodes, then you're gonna have the protein available
for your muscles to turn over and for your collagen
production to increase and improve, which is going to help
with the health of all the tissues, which is going
(33:07):
to help with your ability of your pelvic organs to
recoil and go back to their places. And so I
think that's a really important keynote is if you are
struggling with public organ prolaps, then you absolutely need to
consider getting you know, making sure you have adequate protein
and take and adequate fiber intake. You don't want to
increase constipation by having protein. But the reality is, if
(33:29):
you're eating a balanced diet and you're not restricting carbohydrates
and you're eating adequate protein, you should have really good
bowel movements that are well formed, soft and easy to pass,
and you shouldn't have to strain.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
If you're having to strain and you can't.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Breathe your poop out, then that is going to put
more pressure on the pelvic organs themselves, which can worsen
the pel you know, your pelvic organ prolaps or at
least worsen your symptoms of pelvic organ prolapse. And so
it is important for you to learn how to manage
your bowels even if you have a sist to seal.
If you have assist to seal, then you know, one
(34:03):
of the main things to do when you have assist
to seal or you know you have a bladder prolapse
is to really make sure that you are getting really
good bowel movements and you have really good digestion. Because
if you have a lot of stool collecting and you're
getting constipation.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
On your bladder, like that's going to be really heavy
for your bladder and that is going to put more
downward force on the bladder.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
So getting in a good consistent vowel routine where you
have a good bowel movement every single day, that's going
to be really important for managing your.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Publvic work and prolapse. And so that was my story.
That's what I've done. If for some reason, like vowels
are really.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Really tough, I will high dose vitamin C to increase
my motility. Now, do not do that if you are pregnant,
because that stimulation of parasolsis from vitamin C can't increase
eating contractions, and we don't want to do that. So definitely,
you know, work with your provider on that. But that's
just what I do personally in order to help manage.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
My prolapses or MA manage my my prolapse.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
I do secretly think that my uterus is you know,
has fallen a little bit too, cause my cervix does
descend quite.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Low during menstruation. But that's very common.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Then, you know, a lot of people are gonna be
heavier during menstruation because you're you know, you have a
lot of lining to love, So it's not it's really
common that you get descent. Your cervix is gonna be
at different places during the phase of the metro cycle,
typically L a little lower during ovulation, a L and
a lot lower during menstruation, and that is normal.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
It's only an.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Issue if that is symptomatically bothering you. So whether you
k you have a lot of pelvic pressure when you
when that happens.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Or you get a lot of pain or you feel
like you can't wear.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
A tampon because your tampon is hitting something or getting
crushed whatever that is.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
So I hope that normalizes that for you and doesn't
freak you out.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Also really great to get pelvic floor work done during
your menstruation and during your ovulation, because then you can
figure out, like, oh, can I.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Keep my palvid floor relapse? Can things stay open during
those phases.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
So we always encourage people when they're on their force
of plant care to actually get their work done at
all the phases of their cycle, so we can see
where their cervix is, and then can their palic floor
stay dynamic and open during all the phases of the
menstrual cycle? And then can they train during all the
phases of their menstrual cycles?
Speaker 2 (36:29):
So can they get their glut strong? Can they do
their exercises they want to do. That's all really important in.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Keeping the pelvic floor and keeping the pelvic organ in
their places, keeping the pelic organs in their places, so
that movements become an important conversation.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
And then you know, we talked about lifting, We.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Talked about exercise, and we talked about poor control, and
we talked about intra abdominal pressure. These are all important
conversations and considerations when.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Talking about healing the prolapse, making sure that.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
The prolaps can start to heal and go back to
its home, and then also decreasing the symptoms. So, are
some people gonna never Are some people always gonna have
the position of the prolapse, Yes, but like I said,
even if you get the surgery, you might still have
that position.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Not everybody, but a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
And so the symptoms don't usually always correlate with where
the position of your pelvic floor or sorry, where the
position of your pelvic organ prolapse is. And so that's
just something to keep in mind. So if you are
constantly chronically checking.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Your palvic floor and you're like, oh my god, my
blotter is.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Lower today, Oh my god, I see my cervix today,
or shoot, that rectoceeal is lower today than it was yesterday,
Like you just have to realize, like your body's going
to be changing and it's going to be dynamic. Other
considerations are are you breastfeeding things are gonna you know, hormonally,
estrogen and progesterone are still gonna be and hifted when
(37:55):
you're breastfeeding.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
That prolapedin needs to be expressed, and so things, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
The quality and health of the tissue, the firmness of
the tissue isn't gonna come back to full fruition until.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
That breastfeeding is terminated. And then that takes time too.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
That takes months and months and months after that termination
of breastfeeding. Now, is that a reason to stop breastfeeding?
Absolutely No. You can control those symptoms regardless of your
hormone status, and so I think that's a really important consideration.
And I hope you have found a little bit of
comfort in this episode just knowing that, like, oh, this
(38:31):
girl plays hockey still and she has absist to seal
a grade too below the hymen remnants.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Yeah, and maybe a little bit of a uterine prolops.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
And it does not affect, you know, my identity, It
doesn't affect my self worth, and it.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Doesn't affect my sex life either.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
The other thing I should talk about, the other symptom
that I do actually experience some that I have to
be cautious of, is vagital noise.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
So you can get queaping when you.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Have a pelvic orian prolaps and so particularly people will
explain that they get quefing during intercourse or after intercourse,
or they get it after or during yoga class, And
so that can be helped and controlled by using hypopressives
and also by using your breath because you can kind
(39:19):
of suck up the organs so that air doesn't get
trapped if you know how to do it hyperpressive.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
So if you are having some of that and you're
struggling with some.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Vaginal noise with quefing, then I highly recommend training yourself
with diaphragmatic breathing and intercostal breathing and then also using hypopressives.
And these are just a combination of exercises that hopefully
maybe I'll go do a separate video on that. There
are a combination of exercises that are gonna help you
(39:48):
gain control and position better of your pelvic organs without
getting air tramped inside.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
It's going to be a little different for everyone. Working
with a.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Pelvic expert physical therapist is probably the best way to
determine to determine this. But those are just some considerations.
So I hope you found this episode helpful. I'm sure
there's a million things that I missed and didn't say
that I'm gonna go to sleep tonight and be.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Like, oh, I should have said this, or I should
have mentioned this, But for in the meantime, for right now,
I'm gonna leave it at that.
Welcome to another episode of the aligne and Elevated podcast.
I'm your host, doctor Alison Felt, owner of Body Motion
Physical Therapy, pelthic expert Physical Therapist, and I'm here with
my doggie today, Bucky. He is joining us if you
are watching on YouTube. He came to the office to
get some EMTT. It's a magnetic high frequency pulse. If
(00:21):
you've heard of pimph or like a pimph MATT, it
is similar to that, except for this is a high
frequency magnet and it's similar to that of an MRI,
but used in therapeutic doses to help decrease inflammation, help
stimulate bone healing, help stimulate healing in general, and it's
just it's been absolutely amazing. So I had Bucky come
(00:42):
into the clinic so I could do it on his
back and his hips because he is having days where
he is struggling walking and all that stuff. But this
episode is not about EMTT. This episode is all about
considerations for managing and healing pelvic organ prolass.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
So if you've heard of pelvic organ.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Program, there are multiple kinds of pelvic organ prolaps. I
want to take you through my own journey with pelvic
organ prolabs, and a little bit about other patients that
I've treated, about how they heal and how they've managed
their symptoms through the years.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
And then I want to.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Give you some insights into what I've seen with surgical
management as well from a clinical perspective. Now, I think
these are all important considerations because I wanted.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
To empower you.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
When you find out that you have a pelvic organ prolaps,
it can be really defeating.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
It can make you feel like crap. It can make
you feel like.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Your world is ending, that you can never lift a
weight again, you can never do the activities you love,
and it's pretty awful. People will describe it as feeling
like their vagina's coming out of their body, their rectums
coming out of their body, or they just feel like
things are dropping and they feel a ton of pressure.
So the definition of pelvic organ prollabs is typically when
(01:50):
there's multiple kinds of pelvic organ prolops.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I guess I'll go through that first. First.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
You can imagine that you have your vaginal canal leads
to the vaginal opening. When you have your vaginal canal,
you have the front side of it and you have
the backside of it, and then you have the top
and on the very top you have the cervix.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
And when the cervix comes down, that.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Means that the uterus is descending and that is called
a uterine prolapse. So like the uterine prolapse is when
the cervix is coming down into the vaginal canal and
sometimes comes.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Outside of the body. Then we have a.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Recticeal, which is where the posterior wall, the back wall
of the rectum, of the vaginal canal side, the back
wall of the.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Vaginal canal comes into the vaginal canal.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Then we have assist to seal where the front wall
of the vaginal canal comes into the vaginal canal, and
that is where the bladder is coming in. And it
can also be where the urethroat will start to come
in as well. So you can have a urethraus seal,
which is where the bladder and the urethrid descend into
the vaginal canal, or you can have it where just
(02:53):
the urethroat starts to come down a little bit. And
now all of this can lead to urinaryan continence, It
can lead to a lot of urgency, It can lead
to constipation or bloating it can lead to back pain
or pelvit pain all because of this pelvit organ prelapse.
So I want to take you through my journey of
(03:13):
pelvic organ prolapse, so you just have an idea of
how common this is. So some of the research will say,
you know, two out of three women after they have
childbirth will have pelvic organ prolapse. We honestly see a
higher rate of that. We believe you know. It's really
like everyone has some descent of their pelvic organs after
they have a baby, whether they feel it or not.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
And the whole goal is to heal.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
The body and heal the core so that the organs
can go back to their homes and find the places
where they live, and then you can do all the
activities that you love without feeling heaviness, without feeling like
something's falling out, without feeling uncomfortable in your vagina or
between your legs.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I'm going to go back, and I'm sorry this is
a little out of sync.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
But there's also you can also have a rectal prolapse,
so that is the rectum starts to come out of
the anus, and that's a little more.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Uncommon, at least for women.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And then you can also have a perinea seal, which
is where the area between the vagina and the anus
start to descend. Okay, so it might feel like there's
just this bulge between your anus and your vagina, and
that tends to be what's called a paranea seal, and
so it just means that the central tendon that holds
that area up has ruptured or become a lengthened and
(04:32):
now you're not getting that area held up anymore by
that tendon, by that central tendon, and so you're just
relying on the muscles themselves. So that's a perinea seal again,
a lot less common. Okay, let's backtrack.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
It to what do we do.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
A lot of people are so freaked out when they
find out that they have some descent of their pelvic
organs that had so many people tell me, if they
would have known that this could have happened, they would
have never had kids in the first place. And that
is super disheartening because we just haven't educated people to
feel powerful even if they have a pelic organ prolapse
like this should not form your identity.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
It's just a part of me.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I have a pelvic organ prolapse, and it has zero
effect on how I identify my life, how I set my
fitness goals. It has zero effect on my self worth.
And I want that for everybody because because if you
go down the online rabbit hole, even like support groups
for pelvic organ prolapse, they're super negative.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
They're back like, they're not helpful. A lot of them.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
You know, they might be like, oh, go try this program,
these exercises, those exercises, but at the end of the day,
like it's not necessarily empowering, and you have a lot
of fear based knowledge and kind of like fear based
mindset that are preventing these women from going and pursuing
(05:56):
what they want to do. And they're basing their limitation
and on their diagnosis of a pelvic gorgon prolapse.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
And that is just not okay. We want to be empowering.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
If you have a pelvic gorgan prolops, you should be
able to do everything that your kid can do, okay,
or everything that your friend without a pelvic organ probubs
can do. That's the reality that we need to make
true for you. And how we get there might look
a little different. But I'll tell you my story. I'll
tell you how I've gotten there. I'm a pelvic floor
physical therapist. I have been that since before I even
(06:27):
had children. And so when I graduated pta school and
I was getting my own pelvic floor training and exams,
one of the intructors came over and they're like, okay, this.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Is a CIST to seal.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
You have a grade too sist to seal, and it's
actually pretty significant. It was below my timend remnants, which
just means that it's a grade two that descends a
little bit lower. And I was like, oh, I wonder
if this is why I've had incontinence since I was
a kid. And you know, I made me question a
lot of things, but all I could think about and
I used to keep my pants in two things.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
When I would get hit in hockey.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I played boye hockey, and anytime I would take a
body check, I would pee my pants a little bit
and so and then I would also pee my pants
when I would do sprints during.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Softball in high school.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
And so those were kind of clues that something wasn't right,
but you know, I was too embarrassed to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And so until I became a pelvic floor Pete.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I didn't even realize that, like, oh this is kind
of common and there's actually help for this.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So those are my two real instances.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
I started weightlifting when I was fourteen, like doing some
more heavy weightlifting fourteen fifteen, and.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I was training for hockey.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I was like at a really intense hockey training facility
in bringer Minnesota, and.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I would train there.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I'd train at Minnesota hockey camps, and that's really where
I got into lifting, performance basedlifting for hockey.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And I would.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Lift four five days a week, probably five days a
week actually, and I would lift heavy. And when I
would train, I would you know, I trained with all
these men.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
There really weren't females there.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And at this point in time, you know, we're talking
in two thousand, right, nineteen ninety nine, two thousand and
there just wasn't a ton of research and stuff for
performance based female athletes with for weightlifting, and so we
didn't really have education that like, oh, maybe how you're
lifting weights as a female and how you're lifting weights
as a man, maybe you should be breathing differently, or
(08:33):
maybe you should have different considerations. The men have their
penises and balls hanging out of their body, they don't
have to keep those inside of their body, whereas women
have to keep their bladder inside their body, their uterus
inside their body, right, And so there are different considerations
when it comes.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
To how we should brace and use our inter abdominal
pressure as females.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And now I know that this can be controversial and
there's like a lot of different information about that, but
and everyone is different and everyone's goals are different. But
for me, I you know, I would pr I would
try to hit max repetition or max weight for my
like one repetition max. But really I was performance training
for hockey to be you know, excellent and strong on
(09:15):
the ice, and so I didn't necessarily need to max.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Out all the time.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
But I had to be able to have good breath patterns,
and that just wasn't on my radar.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
That wasn't a thing.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
So I probably created a little bit of my own
pelvic organ prolapse by using poor breath patterns and lifting
heavy heavy weights without the information of knowing how to
control my introbdominal pressure as a teenager. And then I
would get like I would took heavy hits as a teenager,
and that's probably didn't help my situation. So you know,
(09:47):
I can't pinpoint exactly when I got a pelvic organ
prolapse as you know as a kid, but it happened.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
The other reality is that my pelvic floor was really tight.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
So I had a completely tight pelvic floor, and I
didn't know how to control my pelvic floor.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
But I had a lot of tension.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And so as a female athlete, a lot of female
athletes have a lot of tension in their hips and
in their public floor, and they don't find that their
hips are flexible, and they just have a hard time
getting deep stretches in their hips, and or they.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Just have no connection. No one ever really.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Trains us to connect to our pelvic floor. So in turn,
I developed a really tight in probably fibronic pelvic floor.
And when you have a tight fibronic pelvic floor, you
end up having.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
You end up having less dynamic movement from your core.
So the pelvic floor is at the bottom of your core.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And in order for your public floor to be strong,
you actually have to have really good opening and really
good closure, and you have to be able to overstretch
as well. And so when you have that full range
of motion, that means that you're gonna have more shock absorption.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
That means you're gonna have a.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Really strong dynamic core that can absorb forces when you're.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Taking a hit in hockey. But you see, my pelvic
floor was tightened. My palt floor was shortened.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
And when you have a shortened, tightened pelvic floor there
that puts a lot more pressure in your abdominal region,
increasing the pressure down on the bladder, down on the uterus,
down on the postier wall the vagina, which would be
your rectum, and so there er you know, a rec
the the postier wall, which is where the rectum is.
I should say that's more anatomically correct, but regardless, that's
(11:28):
neither here nor there. The deal is that that when
the pelvic floor is tighter, there is just more intra
abdominal pressure.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
And I had a ton of bloating and constipation.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
As a kid, as like a teenager, and especially through college.
Like you gave me a bagel and cream cheese before
I played, I could guarantee you that I would have
like intestinal discomfort on the ice, and I would, you know,
sometimes have a couple of bagels and cream cheese. And
I loaded up that cream cheese because I was quote
unquote car bloating for the game, right, And so that
(11:58):
wasn't good and that and you know, so was it
diet or was it that my pelic floor was super
tight and I already had a high intra abdominal pressure.
So if you imagine, like I have a balloon here
and I squeeze the bottom of the balloon, that's the
tightness of the pelvic floor. That puts a lot more
pressure up in the abdomen. When you're putting a lot
more pressure up in the abdomen, that's gonna put a
(12:19):
lot of downward pressure down on the pelvic organs. And
if your pelvic floor is already tight, there's not gonna
be a lot of room to hold.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Those organs up. And in so one of the analogies I.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Really love is if you imagine that your pelvic floor
is a bowl and that bowl is nice and open,
and you have a grape in that bowl, the grape
can just like roll around and move in the bowl,
and imagine that grape is your bladder. That's what should
be happening. But if your bowl is super super tight,
it's gonna squeeze that grape, it's gonna push that grape
(12:51):
down further creating a descent of the bladder, creating that
pelvic organ prolops. And so in order to help take
the pressure off that bladder, we have to work on
opening up the pelvic floor and allowing the pelvic floor
to open and have space, and allowing that pelvic floor
to open and have space. And so once we get
(13:12):
that space, then we can really have a dynamic pelvic
floor and to have less pressure on the pelvic organ
than themselves. And so as a teenager having a super
tight pelvic floor, you can imagine that I had tight
or I had high intra adominal pressure. Fast forward, I
go and play college hockey, and I continue to be
an athlete even after I'm hockey.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I do hockey.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I run some marathons when I'm done with hockey because
I don't know what else to do. And I was
super bulky and I wanted to lose some of my
muscle mass, and so I started running marathons and tried
to run the fat the muscle off my body and
just kind of deep Do I wish I did that now?
Probably not, because now my goal is one hundred percent
all muscle. But that's a story for another day.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
But so fast forward to.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Then I go and I am pregnant with my first baby,
and I know I have a sisticia, so and I'm
already public floor physical theorists. So I'm doing everything I
know how to do in order to open up my pelvic.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Floor, in order to work on breathing and coordinating my
pelvic floor.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
But the reality was is that my pelvic floor was
still really tight. So if you've read my book Pregnancy Era,
you know that you know I ended up pushing for
over three hours.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I blew every blood vessel.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
In my eyes and my face. I looked like I
had a tan, even though I didn't. I and it
was pretty rough. It was not just pretty rough, it
was very rough, right. I pushed for hours, breath holding,
which is everything that we teach everyone not to do now,
And all of that was generated from my own experience,
because when I was pushing for that long and breath
holding and using the inter abdominal pressure to help.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
To send the baby out of my body, I was.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Not just pushing the baby out. I was pushing my
uterus down. I was pushing my bladder down, and I
was pushing for out and hours to do that to
get them out of my body. Then I go and
have a pretty significant grade to tear. And so then
once you have a grade to tear, or you have
any tearing at all, you get scar tissue that buckles
(15:14):
down right. And scar tissue is there to heal the
body and to create tensions, so you.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Don't open up that tissue again.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
But what it also does is it creates a ton
of tightness again, making the bowl even even tighter and
therefore exacerbating the amount of pressure that there is on
those pelvic organs. Okay, so then fast forward after By
this time I had my second even though the delivery
was a little bit better, and I still had such
(15:43):
a tight pelvic floor that my bladder was significantly worse
after baby number two, didn't you know, symptom wise, it
recoiled pretty well after baby number one. I didn't really
do a lot of internal manual therapy. I didn't what
I know how to do myself, but I couldn't do
a lot of my own internal work, and I didn't
(16:04):
have access to it at that time. There wasn't a
lot of people in my area. I was working a ton,
so just didn't get the work that I needed in
order to heal my body. And so fast forward, I
decide I'm going to run another half marathon in order
to get myself back, get my fitness back, and start running.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
And I start training and start running.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
My bladder is just in a bad spot, and so
I go and I get a pessory, and I get
a pessory to really support the bladder, support my training.
And then when I also did was start to get
my own internal work done and start training other physical
therapists as they joined the Body Motion team, because I
knew I needed this manual work.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
So maybe expanding the business was all for personal gain
and not the mission. I don't know, but I am
part of the mission. So because I'm a woman.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
And we strive to empower to heal women, make them
strong in their bodies, give them all the fulfillment in
the world which unlaunched creativity so they can go make
really good impacts on the world.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
That's the deal.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And so regardless, started hiring people, started training them and
getting my own internal work done.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
And once I got my own start tissue worked done, and.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Then really started opening up all the chronic years of
tightness and tension in my Peltic floor, improving my range
of motion. That's when my Parolott symptoms completely dissolveten went away.
Now when my bladder still descends some, yes, absolutely, but
it's a non issue because I don't feel it and
(17:33):
I don't become symptomatic. The only time I run into
issues now is if I have a sickness, like if
I get a chronic cough or chronic vomiting. It's some
vomiting their stomach bug. I will get a little bit
of incontinence if I train really really hard and my
legs are sore, or I play it like more than
probably three hockey games in about a forty eight.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Hour window, then I will get a little bit of leakage.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
But those are my only symptoms and it's amazing, Like
I just don't even realize I have a prolapse now
because my prolapse has recoiled. But even when I get checked,
like it still comes down to a grade two below
the himend remnants like that.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
The position of that has not changed, but the.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Symptoms are completely gone and it's not getting worse as
I get older. And then I had a third baby,
and it was a non issue. Did not get worse
at all. Was actually even better because I had pelvic
floor work done my entire pregnancy, So we managed the tension,
the tightness of my bowl the whole entire pregnancy, really
working on giving me range of motion. And when I
(18:37):
had that range of motion, then my bladder could just
go back up to where it needed to go. And
even with a baby growing on my bladder, my bladder
didn't descend. So that just shows you the power of
pelvic floor work. And so I had had a bunch
of pelvic floor work done and then healing postpartum, I
just really didn't feel my bladder this going around, which
(18:58):
was such a gift. And you know, occasionally, like I said,
I'll get some symptoms, but I really manage that. I
use EMTT, which is amazing to help improve bladder control,
amazing to in control to change pain. It's amazing ilah blah.
(19:18):
I also use shockwave therapy to help with my abdominal
core tightening, and we use we use a technique to
help strengthen one of the ligaments that is that goes
from your belly button to your bladder and then that
is that's called the iracus ligament, and that has helped
tremendously improve the position of my bladder, so I I
(19:41):
feel like I have all the tools. I also use
pelic floor physical therapy typically about once a month for
just maintenance reasons to keep my pelic floor as dynamic
and open as possible. I also train really hard, so
I live four to five days a week. I do
two heavy leg days a week to upper body and
back days, and then the day is just a glute
trigger day, just to.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Turn my glutes on.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
And these are essential at helping me keep my peltic
organs in place, keep my peltic floor healthy. When you
have really strong glutes and a strong back and a
strong transverse of dominus muscle, you.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Have a really good core.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Now if you have and you need that pelvic floor
to stay dynamic. The minute that peltic floor starts to
tighten and overwork, it's gonna take over. It's gonna limit
your hip extension, which is gonna then limit how much.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Your glutes can help you.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
So your glute medius muscle is especially Andrew Blue minimis.
They help support your pelvis and they sling the pelvic
organs along with your lap muscles and your lower trap muscles.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
They create this sling.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Of fashion that's gonna help support the pelvic organs. And
you combine that with knowing how to use your breath
and knowing how to breathe.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
During your lists.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Consciously breathe and use your breath to end your pressure,
your intra abdominal pressure. That's gonna help you manage the
pressure that's down on your pelvic organs.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Also, it's gonna help you manage your palid floor attention.
So the other thing that.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Is a misnomer and one of the nitty gritty things
that we focus on when we're working with someone to
help them their organs recoil, is we really work on
getting their transverse of dominance, their lower transverse anamenos to
fire adequately, and for your transverse of dominance to drive
a lot of your movement, to drive your lifting, to
drive how you pick when you pick up your kids, to.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Drive when you bend over to pick up a laundry basket.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
If that muscle can drive your movement and it fires
first over the pelvic floor, then you're gonna have a
better chance at that transverse a Doomena's picking up your
pelvic organs and the ladder just coming along for the ride.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
But if your pelvic floor is tightening and you're doing
a keygel before you.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Do this movement, most of the time you're gonna have
you're still gonna have all that pressure push those organs down,
and a lot of times you're gonna contract your pelvic floor,
but your organs are going to be below the line
of your pelvic floor, so you're actually creating more pressure
and worsening up the position of those pelvic organs because
of the starting position of the organs. So it's really
(22:17):
important that if you can work with a pelvic floor
physical therapists or at least start to get to know
your own body and really figure out, Okay, how can
I learn how to open up my pelvic floor.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
How can I get more range of emotion on my
palvic floor? Can I massage my own pelvic floor.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Can I use a pelvic floor wand to help me
get more range emotion. I'll tell you what, if I
didn't have the resources that I do in my own
team of pelvic floor physical therapists that are complete experts
and have all the resources in the world that feel
the worse and worse prolapses, then I absolutely believe that
if I didn't have that, I would just I would
(22:52):
be working my wand a lot, and I would be
using a wand to help open up pelic floor and
give me that range emotion so that my peblic floor
could be dynamic, open really wide.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Had then can recoil nicely. You don't really need to
train the key goal. You don't need to train that
pald floor contraction.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
The reason being is most people are so contracted to
begin with. And when you can train the opening and
you have that opening, every squat you do, every walk
you go on, you're gonna get some ground reaction force
of that public floor muscle, so functionally it's working.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Do you need to stick weights up inside your vagina?
Speaker 1 (23:32):
No, you don't use weights on your diaphragm that you
breathe with right you inhale and exhale. You can put
the air in different parts of your belly and then
your ribcage and in your back and in your palvic floor.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, that's great in then exhale, but you don't wait that.
You don't put weights on that.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
You can, you know, breathe into restrictive things to make it,
you know, more forceful.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
And make your lungs stronger and make your diaphram stronger.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Sure, but it's like, you just don't need to put
weights on your pelic floor.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
If you're not putting weights on your diaphragm, you don't.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Need to put weights on your pelic floor. You know,
there's just not a lot of times that.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
That's called for. It's extremely rare.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Now, if you have a nerve injury and we're trying
to get the nerve to fire back to the muscle
where you have a complete muscle tear of your livator ani,
which is one of your pelvic floor muscles, then sure,
go ahead, and you know we can start to retrain it.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And if that requires retraining it and you get better
connection when you.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Stick a weight in there, sure, but that's the minority.
If you have a pelvic organ prolapse, most likely your
bowl is already tight because it's compensatory. Your body subconsciously
is like, let me keep these organs inside my body, right,
And so you're gonna be half this.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Like low grade tension of tightening your pelvic floor.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
You're gonna low grade tension of trying to keep everything
in And so you intentionally need to work on opening
that pelvic floor, which is gonna give you that range
of motion, which is going to give you that space
for your organs, which is going to help decrease the pressure,
decrease the incontinence, and make that pelvic organ prolapse, give
it a chance to heal, give it a chance to recoil,
(25:16):
to go up into its spot again. And so back
to my own personal story. So after number two I used,
I used a pessory probably for about eighteen months, and
then I really just.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Felt like I didn't need it anymore. I didn't think
that it was supporting me.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
I didn't feel any pelvic pressure, so I felt really
good to go after that. I would also use KT
tape to lift my bladder when I would go on
runs or when I.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Would do hit workouts that included biometrics.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
So I would lift my bladder up and then I
would stick the KT tape underneath it, just giving it
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Of support on my abdominal wall. Now it helped me mentally.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I also became certified in hypopressives, and the reason I
decided to do that was to help control my prolops.
That just give me a lot more core strengthening a
core tightening without driving the movement with kegels. So hyperpresses
and low pressure fitness are amazing because they help you,
(26:16):
like essentially you learn how to vacuum and create a
negative intra abdominal pressure which creates Actually the only exercise
that has ever created negative pressures in the vaginal canal
and in the rectal canal is using low pressure fitness
and hyperpressives. And so it's a form of exercise in
which you create this abdominal vacuum and it's a passive vacuum.
(26:39):
So if you like follow bodybuilders or you look at
a lot of instagrams, people are like actively contracting their
core when they do vacuums.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
So that is not a hypopressor. That is not low
pressure fitness. Low pressure fitness and hyperpresses are passive.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
You're not actively engaging the ta or the obliques or
the rectus abdominus. This is all passive and you're using
your breath and your diaphragm to control and create a
negative pressure which helps sucks and pull the organs back
up into their places.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Maybe we can link a.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Video if you're watching on YouTube or if you are
listening on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, if
you will link a video to this episode and we
will show you a hypoppressive and like how to do
a hypopressive, because I do think it's super great.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
It's good for the pelvic floor, it's good for learning diaphragm.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Control, it's good for learning intra abdominal pressure control.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
So we'll link that here. So I use that on
my journey.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
And you know, I was certified through level three, which
is the max level for low pressure fitness, and I
don't really use any of those poses per se, but
just the concepts are really really valuable, and I'll often
do it a lot of times after I've done lifting,
just to kind of reposition my organs and.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Make sure I take the pressure off my pelvic floor
for just a little bit.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
And then I will follow it with doing some breathing,
doing some opening, making sure I have that dynamic opening,
because you do get an elevation of the pelvic floor
when you do a hypopressive.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
So I use that as my training.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
And then I really started after maybe number three came
along and I was like, okay, I never ever want
to get a I never want to get a pelvic
organ prolap surgery.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
The reason being is I've.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Seen them and they fail, like there is such a
high failure rate, and I think a lot of it
is because people don't actually learn how to use their
pelvic floor, and then their bulls are super tight, so
then they are still creating all this intro abdominal pressure
and they just bust through the sling or they bust
through whatever they use to stitch up and make things
tighter and reposition their organs. So it's not ideal, like
(28:50):
the ideal way to do this, even if you end
up having to get a pelpic organ prolap surgery, and
I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna ever get one
like it could be on the table for me.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
I've had a prolaps for a long hour time. And
if it ever does get to a.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Point that I can't manage it with palaly floor, physical therapy,
keeping my muscles strong and whatnot, that I will absolutely
consider that because I don't want it to affect my function.
But I will exhaust every single natural resource before I
go that route, because I've seen these things fail like
so much, and then even once I see them fix
(29:24):
post off, a lot of times anatomically, when you visualize it,
that freaking prolapse is still there. They've maybe just tightened
a ligament and like pulled it up a little bit,
but you still see the descent and so it's not
like they're fixing it. So when people freak out that
like oh, my bladder's lower or you know whatever, and
they think that the surgery is gonna totally reposition it,
(29:48):
I hate to break it to you, but it's not.
So if you're freaking out because your prolapse looks low
or like it just visually your rulva doesn't look good,
getting the prolapse surgery is actually not the answer because
I've seen it where I'm like, wait, they fixed your bladder,
Like why the fuck is your bladder on the same spot,
Like I don't know, I don't have the answer, but
(30:10):
they fixed it. Like I don't know, it's wild, but
that is the deal. Like, insurgeons stand by their work, right,
They're like, yeah, we did the postop this person. Now
you know they had the sister seal, we did the surgery,
and I'm.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Like, there's still a sister seal? What did you do
the surgery on? But whatever, Like Okay, it's a little tighter.
But anyways, so.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Like that's where I just want to like make it
super clear that like surgery is like not the answer
and unless like the only time I've really seen like
these surgeries be effective, at least for a little while
is when people have a un room prolops and then
they get there, they they either get a hysterectomy and
then they.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Have like this bolt.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
But then a lot of times I will see what
happens is that bolt then lapses and because it doesn't
have that ligamentous structure to hold it up. So I
don't feel like there's a good surgical answer at the moment.
I should get a surgeon on here so they could
talk us through some better options. And so maybe that
will be my next move is to find a surgeon
that will come on the podcast and kind of talk
to us about this. So I don't want to speak
(31:19):
for good social outcomes, because I'm sure there are some,
but I do really want to bring attention to like
getting everything you can control you can control, getting internal
palvic floor work done, really opening up the pelic floor,
improving the health of that pelvic.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Floor, creating a dynamic pelvic floor to give the.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Organs a chance to breathe and go back into their
places and not be so strangulated that they get strangled
out of the body, squeezed out of the body.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
So you can control that.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
You can control getting your scar tissue released to help
release some of that strangulation and some of that squeeze
on those pelvic organs. You can control your bowel movements,
So having good bowl movements is super.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Important to me.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I use magnesium sit tray every single night. I keep
a high fiber diet. If I've noticed that my fiber
intake is low, I will take some fiber or I'll
use rawhus celium in order to help beef up my
stool and just get it a little bit more consistent
if I'm struggling with that at at you know, at
any particular time. I also am a big believer in
(32:23):
having adequate protein intake, so I used to say collagen,
and sure collagen can play a role in it. I
definitely was on the collagen train between baby number two
and baby number three and about my first you know
year post partum of baby number three, I was definitely
on the collagen train. But then I really switched to
like collagen is an autocomplete protein, and you if you
(32:45):
have adequate protein and like you're actually eating your body
weight in protein in grams, then you know of your
lean muscle mass, and you've heard me talk about that
on other episodes, then you're gonna have the protein available
for your muscles to turn over and for your collagen
production to increase and improve, which is going to help
with the health of all the tissues, which is going
(33:07):
to help with your ability of your pelvic organs to
recoil and go back to their places. And so I
think that's a really important keynote is if you are
struggling with public organ prolaps, then you absolutely need to
consider getting you know, making sure you have adequate protein
and take and adequate fiber intake. You don't want to
increase constipation by having protein. But the reality is, if
(33:29):
you're eating a balanced diet and you're not restricting carbohydrates
and you're eating adequate protein, you should have really good
bowel movements that are well formed, soft and easy to pass,
and you shouldn't have to strain.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
If you're having to strain and you can't.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Breathe your poop out, then that is going to put
more pressure on the pelvic organs themselves, which can worsen
the pel you know, your pelvic organ prolaps or at
least worsen your symptoms of pelvic organ prolapse. And so
it is important for you to learn how to manage
your bowels even if you have a sist to seal.
If you have assist to seal, then you know, one
(34:03):
of the main things to do when you have assist
to seal or you know you have a bladder prolapse
is to really make sure that you are getting really
good bowel movements and you have really good digestion. Because
if you have a lot of stool collecting and you're
getting constipation.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
On your bladder, like that's going to be really heavy
for your bladder and that is going to put more
downward force on the bladder.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
So getting in a good consistent vowel routine where you
have a good bowel movement every single day, that's going
to be really important for managing your.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Publvic work and prolapse. And so that was my story.
That's what I've done. If for some reason, like vowels
are really.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Really tough, I will high dose vitamin C to increase
my motility. Now, do not do that if you are pregnant,
because that stimulation of parasolsis from vitamin C can't increase
eating contractions, and we don't want to do that. So definitely,
you know, work with your provider on that. But that's
just what I do personally in order to help manage.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
My prolapses or MA manage my my prolapse.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
I do secretly think that my uterus is you know,
has fallen a little bit too, cause my cervix does
descend quite.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Low during menstruation. But that's very common.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Then, you know, a lot of people are gonna be
heavier during menstruation because you're you know, you have a
lot of lining to love, So it's not it's really
common that you get descent. Your cervix is gonna be
at different places during the phase of the metro cycle,
typically L a little lower during ovulation, a L and
a lot lower during menstruation, and that is normal.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
It's only an.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Issue if that is symptomatically bothering you. So whether you
k you have a lot of pelvic pressure when you
when that happens.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Or you get a lot of pain or you feel
like you can't wear.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
A tampon because your tampon is hitting something or getting
crushed whatever that is.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
So I hope that normalizes that for you and doesn't
freak you out.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Also really great to get pelvic floor work done during
your menstruation and during your ovulation, because then you can
figure out, like, oh, can I.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Keep my palvid floor relapse? Can things stay open during
those phases.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
So we always encourage people when they're on their force
of plant care to actually get their work done at
all the phases of their cycle, so we can see
where their cervix is, and then can their palic floor
stay dynamic and open during all the phases of the
menstrual cycle? And then can they train during all the
phases of their menstrual cycles?
Speaker 2 (36:29):
So can they get their glut strong? Can they do
their exercises they want to do. That's all really important in.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Keeping the pelvic floor and keeping the pelvic organ in
their places, keeping the pelic organs in their places, so
that movements become an important conversation.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
And then you know, we talked about lifting, We.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Talked about exercise, and we talked about poor control, and
we talked about intra abdominal pressure. These are all important
conversations and considerations when.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Talking about healing the prolapse, making sure that.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
The prolaps can start to heal and go back to
its home, and then also decreasing the symptoms. So, are
some people gonna never Are some people always gonna have
the position of the prolapse, Yes, but like I said,
even if you get the surgery, you might still have
that position.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Not everybody, but a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
And so the symptoms don't usually always correlate with where
the position of your pelvic floor or sorry, where the
position of your pelvic organ prolapse is. And so that's
just something to keep in mind. So if you are
constantly chronically checking.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Your palvic floor and you're like, oh my god, my
blotter is.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Lower today, Oh my god, I see my cervix today,
or shoot, that rectoceeal is lower today than it was yesterday,
Like you just have to realize, like your body's going
to be changing and it's going to be dynamic. Other
considerations are are you breastfeeding things are gonna you know, hormonally,
estrogen and progesterone are still gonna be and hifted when
(37:55):
you're breastfeeding.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
That prolapedin needs to be expressed, and so things, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
The quality and health of the tissue, the firmness of
the tissue isn't gonna come back to full fruition until.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
That breastfeeding is terminated. And then that takes time too.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
That takes months and months and months after that termination
of breastfeeding. Now, is that a reason to stop breastfeeding?
Absolutely No. You can control those symptoms regardless of your
hormone status, and so I think that's a really important consideration.
And I hope you have found a little bit of
comfort in this episode just knowing that, like, oh, this
(38:31):
girl plays hockey still and she has absist to seal
a grade too below the hymen remnants.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Yeah, and maybe a little bit of a uterine prolops.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
And it does not affect, you know, my identity, It
doesn't affect my self worth, and it.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Doesn't affect my sex life either.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
The other thing I should talk about, the other symptom
that I do actually experience some that I have to
be cautious of, is vagital noise.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
So you can get queaping when you.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Have a pelvic orian prolaps and so particularly people will
explain that they get quefing during intercourse or after intercourse,
or they get it after or during yoga class, And
so that can be helped and controlled by using hypopressives
and also by using your breath because you can kind
(39:19):
of suck up the organs so that air doesn't get
trapped if you know how to do it hyperpressive.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
So if you are having some of that and you're
struggling with some.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Vaginal noise with quefing, then I highly recommend training yourself
with diaphragmatic breathing and intercostal breathing and then also using hypopressives.
And these are just a combination of exercises that hopefully
maybe I'll go do a separate video on that. There
are a combination of exercises that are gonna help you
(39:48):
gain control and position better of your pelvic organs without
getting air tramped inside.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
It's going to be a little different for everyone. Working
with a.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Pelvic expert physical therapist is probably the best way to
determine to determine this. But those are just some considerations.
So I hope you found this episode helpful. I'm sure
there's a million things that I missed and didn't say
that I'm gonna go to sleep tonight and be.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Like, oh, I should have said this, or I should
have mentioned this, But for in the meantime, for right now,
I'm gonna leave it at that.
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