What is successful POP management?
You’ve been having a great few weeks: your symptoms are few and far between, your thoughts are elsewhere than the state of your vagina at any given moment, and you’re finding yourself laughing a little harder and Googling a little less.
High five, girlfriend! 🙌
...and then, your symptoms hit. 🤬 Did I do something wrong? Did I lift too much weight? Is my prolapse worse? Did I pick up my kid too fast? Did I not rest enough? Is my period coming? Am I ovulating? Is it because I missed my last PT appointment? Is my prolapse worse? Should I get surgery now? I think my prolapse is worse.
:::Googles::::
We go to PT, we do our exercises, we make modifications in our life, we read every article on PubMed, months pass, we expect a linear progression. And, sometimes, we forget that our body isn’t a machine. We forget that “healing” isn’t a series of linear, predetermined steps. Bodies are constantly in flux. Life isn’t linear.
There will be people who will get to a point where they no longer think about their POP at all, where they never experience symptoms. ....And there will be people who feel like they’re taking two steps forward, one back. Many of us will have great days, and not as awesome days. Many of us will experience symptoms periodically. Some of us will experience symptoms more frequently than others. It can be tempting to feel that this is evidence that we haven’t made any progress, that we are “back where we started”.
We don’t think this is true.
You can still be improving even if you experience symptoms of POP. You can still be managing your POP well even if you aren’t experiencing a reduction in grade or a change in your symptom profile. You can do everything “right” and still have days where everything just feels wrong. It’s not necessarily our pelvic floors or our treatment plans that are failing us. Often, it’s our expectations and our perspectives that need shifting. We want to change the way we manage POP. Part of that means broadening how we define “successful” management of it.
Need help managing POP? We can help!