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Gathering similar blogs together under one banner helps when I am referring patients to particular topics for reference material. I did it a long time ago with the majority of my Pain Management blogs and recently did it with my Men’s Health blogs. 

So today I decided to group all my prolapse and pessary blogs together so they are quicker for patients to access.

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is common with up to 50% of women who have had a vaginal delivery having some form of prolapse, but only 15% are symptomatic 20 years later. If you become aware that you have prolapse there is so much you can do to increase your chances that the prolapse won’t progress to the point that you may be bothered by it and ultimately need surgery. Early intervention, such as is written about in the blogs below, can be helpful and allow you to continue to lead an active life with the types of exercise you want to do.

Learning how to correctly activate your pelvic floor muscles is the first step and seeing a Pelvic Health Physiotherapist can help de-mystify how to contract them. Many women have found out they have a levator avulsion injury and don’t really understand what are the implications of that. This blog describes what an avulsion injury is. 

However in recent times there has been increasing anxiety about the diagnosis of prolapse and I have written a blog about just this to try and help put things into perspective. When you are anxious, cortisol and adrenaline is coursing through your body all the time and this in fact may actually accentuate what you are feeling in your vagina – like with pain there can be a central sensitization effect with prolapse. So in your learning journey about your prolapse, reading this one about keeping your perspective about any diagnosis of prolapse is important.

This 2011 blog was the first one I posted highlighting research that showed that pelvic health physiotherapy should be the first line of treatment.

This next blog talks about not feeling that it’s essential to commit to surgery just because there is prolapse – that Grade 2 prolapse often doesn’t change much over the years and that it may be the new normal for a woman who has had a vaginal delivery.

This blog is the first in a series of five blogs designed to cover all possible facets of prolapse management. Step 1 Prolapse Management

This blog is Step 2 Find Yourself a Prolapse Mentor

This is Step 3 in the Prolapse series: Pelvic floor muscle training, bracing (the knack) and functional training

This is Step 4: Managing your bowels well 

And finally Step 5: Keep moving but keep your exercise friendly for the status of ‘your’ pelvic floor

This one is a good reminder about how to be mindful around the house with some of the chores we do if you have significant prolapse or especially are inn the early days post-op.

There are many blogs about pessaries in the over 300 blogs that I have written on pelvic floor dysfunction, but this one has a bit of the history of pessaries and how they can be a game-changer for a woman with prolapse.  

This blog has a wonderful story in it by Amy Dawes who has set up the Australasian Birth Trauma Association, a charity which is there to support women who have had a traumatic birth experience.

This pessary blog has more on the history of fitting pessaries in Australia.

Many women are keen to know if they can run with prolapse and many times you can, mostly if there is a pessary in to support the prolapse. But this needs to be assessed by a Pelvic Health Physio and recently some new guidelines have been released on the return to running post-partum which have been included in this blog.

An important one is one called The Forgotten Pessary which can happen because they are SO comfortable they can easily be forgotten! So if you have prolapse (or think you may have prolapse) and want to understand more about what prolapse means, how to activate your pelvic floor muscles correctly and how to embark on a pelvic floor muscle strengthening programme then ring our practice at Highgate Hill, Brisbane on (07) 38489601 or mobile 0407659357 or email to admin@suecroftphysiotherapist.com.au and our secretaries can book you in with one of our talented physios. You can also search the APA website for Find a Physio or the Continence Foundation of Australia register for the name of your nearest Pelvic Health Physiotherapist.

 

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