Pelvic Organ Prolapse

If you have pain and discomfort from pelvic organ prolapse that does not respond to nonsurgical treatment and lifestyle changes, you may want to consider surgery. The choice of surgery depends upon which organs are involved, how bad your symptoms are, and what other medical conditions are present. Also, your surgeon may have experience with and preference for a certain procedure. The goals of surgery are to relieve your symptoms and restore the normal functioning of your pelvic organs.

There are several types of surgery to correct Reference stress urinary incontinence Opens New Window. These can be done at the same time as surgery to repair prolapse. These surgeries lift the urethra and/or bladder into their normal position.

For help deciding about surgery, see:

Reference Urinary Incontinence in Women.

Opens New Window Pelvic Organ Prolapse: Should I Have Surgery? Opens New Window

Surgery choices

Surgical procedures used to correct different types of pelvic organ prolapse include:

• Reference Repair of the prolapsed bladder (cystocele) or urethra (urethrocele).
• Removal of the uterus (Reference hysterectomy).
• Reference Repair of the rectum (rectocele) and small bowel (enterocele).
• Repair of the vaginal wall (Reference vaginal vault suspension).
• Closure of the vagina (Reference vaginal obliteration).

What to think about

Surgeries are designed to treat specific symptoms, so you may still have other symptoms after surgery. An examination while you have a pessary in your vagina may help the doctor see if urinary incontinence would be a problem after surgery. If the exam shows that urinary incontinence will be a problem, another surgery can be done at the same time to fix the problem.

Surgery in one part of your pelvis can make a prolapse in another part worse, possibly requiring separate treatment in the future.

Pelvic organ prolapse is strongly linked to labor and vaginal delivery. So you may want to delay surgery if you plan to have children.

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