Rectocele is bothing me and I know that I need to have a bowel movement (((HELP)))

Give yourself an enema! Just get a little Fleet squirty thing from the pharmacy and go for it. If you are this concerned, that will do the job. I can't remember why I used one one time, but it did the job amazingly well. (Oh yea, I remember, a friend said she did it for headaches and I have suffered regular migraines for years--much better now, thank goodness. Oh, and it didn't work for me for the headache. :P) Anyway, if you want it out now, this is not such a terrible intervention.

For the future, cascara sagrada is an herb some people use that is very effective (though it can become a crutch if used long-term), eating a whole orange including the white--all but the outer citrus oil peel, a handful of acidophilis capsules (oh, say, 5) always gets my kids going--usually on accident if they found the bottle in the fridge--I know what is coming next..., and the standard pulps and bulks of whole foods.

Good luck. ;)

Hi Shiloh

Oh yeah, there's nothing like constipation to put a damper on your day/week. Many women who have rectocele get constipated, or just cannot empty the bowel. It is as if the nerves that tell your rectum to empty have gone on holidays. Then you worry about being constipated and the worry constipates you even more. When you start WW posture the dynamics of the body change. The bladder is moved forwards which allows a rectocele more room to move into the vagina. It is a stage that women often go through. I think it might be a part of this difficult stage you are in a couple of months postpartum, that Granolamom mentions all the time. This is one of the reasons why diet is so important.

There are some wriggling around on the toilet tricks you can do. I think twisting to the right while sitting there is one of them. MeMyselfandI invented that one.

Massaging the belly (anticlockwise?) can also help the gut contents to move along.

There is a yoga pose where you lie on the mat, lift one knee at a time onto your chest, hold it with the opposite(?) hand and compress that side of your intestines and other organs, then repeat on the other side.

I find that splinting, then rocking backwards and forwards and around helps to shift things along. Sometimes I might produce a bit, then repeat for a bit more after a couple of minutes.

Sometimes it takes a couple of minutes for the brain to respond and get the gut moving after these manoeuvres, so be patient. If you get sick of sitting there unproductively, pull up ya pants and go do something else for a while, even if you still feel like there is a stool there, until you get the feeling of wanting to empty again. This might happen 8 or ten times during the day, but that is OK if you do a little bit each time, even if you do seem to be spending lots of time sitting on the jon.

Try going to the toilet 20 minutes after eating. It evidently takes that long for the food to finish its stomach digestion time and move to the small intestine. That's when peristalsis will move everything along and you are most likely to be able to empty.

As Babygotback says, an enema will empty your bowel, then at least you don't have to worry about trying to empty it any more. I find that the week before a period is usually a time when I get stuck, then I bleed and the constipation is relieved. If I don't drink enough water (baby building up your milk supply?) my stool will dry out, which makes it harder to move along. Not enough fibre (eating too much junk, comfort food), or just not enough vegetable matter and whole cereals will slow it down. Adding poly or mono-unsaturated oil to your diet may help. Particular fruits like oranges, mandarins (satsumas), prunes, underripe apricots, green apples (An apple a day keeps the doctor away.). All these help on a daily basis. These all work partly by the pectin in them absorbing water and softening the stool, but if the bowel is not doing its peristalsis nothing will move along, no matter how soft the stool.

Psyllium husk, which produces a mucilage will absorb water and soften stool as well, and will probably stimulate the muscular intestines to move everything along. Drink lots of water though, and stick to the recommended dosage. Cascara is a possibility, but is pretty drastic and old fashioned. There are milder herbs and treatments which will probably work as well, even if not quite so suddenly.

Some medications will cause constipation too, especially narcotics like codeine (in Panadeine and Painstop and some cough mixtures as they stop the coughing reflex), prostiglandin inhibitors like Ponstan (used for painful periods to reduce muscle spasm), also some antidepressants and other drugs, as a side effect.

Wholegrain cereal or bread in the mornings often gets things moving. I find that the ground flax seed I put in my muesli is also helpful. It also produces mucilage.

When you have constipation, I think constipation will cause more constipation, as all the spaces in your abdomen get filled up, so there is less room for the intestines to move around, and more pressures to push out the rectocele pouch. I think that as the months pass, and your posture becomes more entrenched, and your vulval tissue shrink, there will not be so much intraabdominal pressure pushing downwards. It is usually a gradual improvement, that keeps improving for months, even years. Rectocele can be so annoying, as the bowel just gets fuller and worse. At least it is usually quite easy to empty the bladder!

However, worry is the worst factor for me. Sometimes worry just becomes so much a part of my life that I don't even realise how much worrying I am doing. Sometimes the source of the worry will pass, and suddenly my bowels will work again, sometimes having several poos a day for a couple of days until everything is back to normal again. Identifying the worries is a significant part of the solution, as I can decide whether they will pass by themselves, or whether I have to take some action to make the worries dissipate. This might be something as simple as putting away a mountain of clean washing or doing some long overdue paperwork, or both, to give me some sense that everything is no longer out of control. If it is just that I am in the fourth week of my menstrual cycle I know that it will go away in a few days, so I can stop worrying about turning into a big bag of poo and bursting in a week's time!. Worry is insidious. It will eat away at our health and wellbeing without us even noticing it.

You can search with the search box for keywords such as constipation, fibre, fiber, psyllium, enema, stool, fleet, rectocele, flax, etc. There are millions of hits. You are definitely not alone!!! Wholewomen are experts at this. ;-)

Hey Shiloh, we've got an answer for everything. Hopefully we're not just a mob of smart-arses.

Cheers

Louise

you may just be adjusting to the change in your diet. If you feel around in your vagina and you don't feel hard lumps but just the presence of soft stool behind the posterior wall then rest assured you are fine. When you eat very differently you will experience changes all over your body. Please be sure to increase your water intake as you increase your fiber intake. and avoid sugar as much as you can-unless it is from fruit.
and with that yoga pose start by pulling up the right knee first ;) it is the wind removing pose.

Hi Shiloh,

I am sorry to hear you are feeling so bad. I think you should take babygotback's advice and take an enema. The Fleet kind she described works well. You will feel much better. It sounds to me like you are so stressed out about "going" that you are keeping it from happening. Also, drink lots and lots of water. That always helps me.

Good luck and let us know how you're doing.

Warmest regards and (((Hugs))),

Mae

Just wanted to know if you feel better...I hope you are not stressing more and I hope you found something that works for you... ((Take care.))

Agree with the others, the little Fleet one time enemas are marvelous for instant relief. Well... not "instant"... give yourself a good 15 mins. If you don't want to do that you can buy the oral phospho-soda. I think that works pretty quickly.