Will it get worse?

and the long answer is maybe and no. Of course I can't predict what your body will do- but I can share with you what some of us have noticed. When I first discovered my rectocele it was the size of a large marble, a walnut, a muscadine grape....What I noticed in the beginning was that in the morning it would be much higher up than at the end of the day. I went on to develop a cystocele (after starting wholewoman techniques- which freaked me out but Christine explained to me in detail what was going on- the nature of the system etc) and my cervix got much lower. I redoubled my efforts- and starting the firebreathing which had a great lifting effect. But basically most of us here can feel our prolapses worsen with bad behavior and then improve.
Then I figured out how to Nauli-and the rest was history. If I felt my rectocele move down some I would simply nauli right then and there- eventually it didn't come down anymore- my anterior wall became firm and almost concave- and my cervix was nowhere to be found.
So yes. I did experience the worsening of my prolapse symptoms with activity- but most often by the next morning all was the same again- I figure if this is the case for you then you have no worries as far as making it worse-
but I will say that I did not see great improvement until I was able to maintain my morning baseline all day. I want you to know that I did spend a great deal of time on my knees and elbows- I read stories that way, nursed my baby like that, etc. I refused to do anything mildly strenuous- like laundry or unloading the dishwasher. I gave lots of rides to my bigger kids. they couldn't resist. While down there I would do heal presses to the ceiling and leg lifts to the side. If I had to be on my feet I used a tampon as support- I just felt like it couldn't heal unless it was restored to it's original shape as much as possible.
It was important to me to know how bad it could get- and the answer is the vagina can turn inside out- creating a ball of tissue the size of a softball outside the body (but this is never seen in a woman with a uterus- the worst I have heard of so far it the cervix coming a few inches outside the labia majora) and I made my peace with this outcome-
So don't worry- it won't all pop out! It may come down a bit more- or some other pelvic organs may join in the descent-
be prepared for the worst and hope for the best right?

Hi there WW ladies
I posted on Thur in a state of mild panic that i felt like I might have made my rectocele a bit worse with some (very mild) straining. Since then, it feels like things have definitely gone downhill, in every sense...

over past 2-3days, the rectocele has felt bigger and more pillowy on the back wall.

but much more noticeable has been a kind of pressure feeling not quite at the vagina but just in front of it, though the tissues aren't noticeably swollen. Also some occasional and mild jabbing pain around the rectum. worsened with walking around or sitting. Last night I was trying to sit in posture, cross legged etc, but couldn't get comfy at all and constantly felt like my pudendum was bulging forward.

Today, it's been worst yet. I feel like everything's about to slide out of me. the only vaguely comfortable position (and even then I still feel the bulging) is lying flat on my back. This is not a sustainable position with 2 small children!

Basically, today my pudendum feels just like it did in the two or three days after having my children - swollen, bulging and 'vulnerable', and my rectum feels like it's been given a really big kick.

I'm beside myself with worry that it's got worse. Up till now (10.5wks pp) the symptoms have been all about the rectocele. pretty unpleasant symptoms, but I haven't had the other dragging, bulging etc that many others have posted about. now i seem to have that too! Plus the larger feeling rectocele.

I know I need to be prepared for setbacks and maybe this is just one of those, but I'm not sure: it may also have just got worse, and if it has, my prolapse must be pretty vulnerable as the straining on Thursday was pretty mild.

I'm feeling very scared. I have an appt with my PT specialist on Tuesday but I have very little faith in her to a) know whether it's got worse and b) have many helpful suggestions, if my last appt with her is anything to go by.

(everything compounded by the fact that in the chaos of our new-baby-household, I cn't find the DVD I ordered a while back, and I really wanted to get started on the exercises).

Any thoughts or advice really appreciated. Sorry to be posting questions again - I wish I had more to 'give' on the site like so many of you do. But I'm scared, ladies!

Mumtogirls London

when standing (middle finger's length up). my cervix/uterus was previously totally undescended acc to urogyn.
Am now quite beside myself. PS am trying to not to keep checking/feeling for things but can't help myself today

Mumtogirls London

Hi Mum,

Although I can’t give you a precise anatomical explanation for why it is so, it’s a reality that women - particularly post-partum women - experience just what you are going through now. We hear it time and time again. First of all, prolapse doesn’t happen in only one ‘compartment’. It is a total vaginal vault thing and the entire pelvic interior is affected. When you shift your outer framework (posture) everything changes and initially symptoms often worsen. All we can tell you for sure is that the most common presentation for prolapse is cystocele/rectocele with the cervix above. This is how the pelvis settles out for a great majority of women. It is much more rare to have the cervical neck plugging the vagina so that the vaginal walls are held back. The most favorable outcome - and where I have no doubt you will get to - is small, asymptomatic bulges front and back with the cervix very high.

Take it easy with the sitting postures. If all you feel like doing is lying down, then do so. But eventually you are going to have to get up. And when you do try to raise your tailbone a little bit each day. This is really the only thing that will combat the dragging sensation in your bum. It’s just like any other muscle training and takes a lot out of you at first. But the reality is that it becomes easier and easier with time. Relaxing your belly and lifting your tailbone shifts the organs forward. The rectocele is going to take longer, which we have already discussed.

Surgeons often write about how remarkably similar the surgical “map” of the pelvis is in all women. Have faith that many women here have seen remarkable success with this work. All we are doing is returning women to their natural pelvic organ support system. You can do this too.

Hugs,

Christine

mine got worse before it got better too
and then I stabilized the whole thing, reversed to some degree, got pg and had another baby. initially pp, I felt great, and slowly over the next 3 months things got worse. I was at my worst (about the same as when I found the prolapse) at around 12 weeks pp. and then things slowly began to improve again.
I won't lie to you, its scary. that's normal, to be afraid of the unknown. but know this, nothing is going to actually fall OUT. and if you've got a cystocele, rectocele and low uterus, they are all keeping each other in right now. remember also, that your hormones are still wacky. many of us report worsening of symptoms with hormonal fluctuations.

at my worst, I spent alot of time in the child's pose and downward dog. I've never done any yoga before but I intuitively found the childs pose on my own long ago, adn then someone here recommended a few helpful poses (alemama, maybe?)
and I know this is probably not terribly helpful at the moment, but when my perineum started to ache as though I was only 3 days pp, I knew I was doing too much. I know its hard with little ones, they really need their mama, but the dishes can pile up (and while I do my best to save the planet, now might be the time to rely on paper plates), the laundry doesn't need to be folded, dinner can be sandwiches. the big Lesson I've learned from prolapse was to slow down. I hated doing it at first but my kids have benefitted.

don't worry about asking a million questions, you know how it is. for every question you post, there's probably three women lurking who are wondering the same thing. so just by posting, you are contributing. and I'll bet that by your baby's first birthday you'll be guiding another new mother through the hard, early days. you'll be ok, you'll see.

so thanks so much GM & Christine for taking time to deal with my anxieties.

I hear what you're saying. I'm really trying to be patient and stick at it, and I hate how this is making me into an obsessive and pessimistic worrier. yet it's hard to keep faith that things will improve when they start to deteriorate suddely, despite trying to do the right things. Also feel really guilty about being so self-obsessed when my family need me.

i know you all know this because you've been through it - and helped others through it - so it's great to get your words of support. (Especially after my PT very unhelpfully told me she thought i was unlikely to see much improvement post partum because I was splinting every day and had experienced mild rectocele symptoms after my first child)

Right, I'm off to do some positive thinking and some tailbone lifting. I have a very flat back (always commented on by physios, osteopaths etc) so it will be interesting to see what happens with the latter.
i'll also try the downward dog/child's pose stuff though I am also spectacularly inflexible so the downward dog could be a challenge!!

many many thanks again ladies

Mumtogirls London

Interesting that you mention other organs joining the descent Alemama. If you read my posts from before, you know that I recently had my uterus join my cystocele in prolapse. I can only feel one or the other in my vagina at a time and I never know which one it will be. I wonder if that is how it happens for everyone??

An interesting thing happened also with this new prolapse. When it was just the cystocele, I had mild incontinence. Not too bad, but enough to use a few pantiliners throughout the day. That has completely stopped...I don't use liners anymore. Anyone have any thoughts about why?? Something to do with the second prolapse, or was that just a coincidence and it's something else..posture, the vitamin C??

Thanks in advance for your thoughts..

Oh, and did I mention how nice it is not to have to use those pads anymore???

~Mae

it has to do with the angle of the urethra-
there was a very extensive post by Christine about this very thing.....

I'll look for that post.

~Mae

I DO think it's a blessing, Mae, that stress urinary incontinence is traded for a bit more significant prolapse in most women. I would certainly prefer the latter if I had to choose. Yes, it's just that your bladder/uterus have fallen back enough to kink your urethra in the opposite direction. Now see if you can work to move your uterus forward while at the same time preserving continence. :) Christine

Hi Mumtogirlslondon

A couple of thoughts.

When things are getting worse, our logical brain says "It is going to keep getting worse". This is planning for the worst, a way of shoring up our defences in times of uncertainty. This is the time to listen to Granolamom and others who have had pregnancies and births after discovering prolapsed organs. "Three months is the pits" is the message I get from postpartum women, before things start improving for real. My naturopath said to me just the other day, "It takes three months for new cells to replace the old". Maybe that is why 3 months is the pits.

Re your flat back. What exactly do you mean by flat back?

If you are not feeding baby whenever she wants to, or augmenting breastmilk, or she is sleeping through the night, your body may also be groaning its way back into reproductive state. Many women find that their prolapses will worsen and all sorts of weird things start happening. Then they have the first menstruation and it all clicks into place, getting better after menstruation. Some, of course, just get pregnant again. ;-)

Keep those knees together for a while, eh? All you need is some sort of reassurance that you are not going to be like this forever. We will try!

Cheers

Louise

Thanks Christine! I will definitely work on that. I can't tell you how excited I was when I realized I had been peeling off and throwing away perfectly dry pads for a couple of days. At first I just thought I was having some good days with that for whatever reason. It soon became clear that this was no longer an issue! I remember years ago, when the doctor said I needed surgery (hysterectomy and bladder repair), he said I would also need surgery for my slight incontinence, which, he said, was a totally different problem. Now, it has "fixed" itself!

You are so right. Managing a little more prolapse is a good trade for clearing up the incontinence! Definitely a silver lining here!

Thanks for your knowledge and encouragement Christine. If it weren't for you and this wonderful website, I don't know where I'd be today! I shutter to think about it.

~Mae

thanks Louise - so wise, as always.
My poor husband would be only too glad if I were to prise these knees apart but for now they're pretty much clamped shut. i really must try soon or they'll have to be jimmied open with a crowbar..!

I'm still breastfeeding exclusively and wee charlotte is not letting up on the demand side, so suspect I'm not getting reproductive yet. But my PT also said that prolapses can feel they're getting worse even if they're not when you've been breastfeeding for a while - the usual low oestrogen reasons. maybe that's another factor contributing to the 3 months thing.

I'm actually feeling a lot less crappy today. two days mostly on my back in bed seems to have helped psychologically and physiologically, as has the great advice here. Though the rectocele still feels baggier. hey ho, we'll have to wait and see what happens to it. I'm looking forward to a time when the emotional volatility diminishes a bit too.

Re: flat back
I gather I don't have much natural curvature in my back - vertically (lumbar curve) or indeed much horizontally. Several health practitioners i saw for my neck probs commented on it. so sticking my booty out for the posture may not achieve quite the beyonce silhouette I'd been hoping for...

thanks so much again for making time to help me get to grips with this
Mumtogirls London

my lumbar spine used to be pretty flat too. and I had chronic shoulder and neck pain, along with intermittent low back pain (the kind that has you crying like a baby unable to get up off the floor). and while I will never have beyonce's silhouette ::::chuckling just thinking about that::::: my lumbar spine now has a nice curve, my butt no longer is flat but is higher and dare I say rounder than its ever been, my shoulder and neck pain are GONE. the low back pain too, but that I got rid of years ago by reading lots of Dr Sarno. another fringe benefit of the posture for me is that while my breasts are not high and perky like they once were, they arent flat and saggy.

what makes me such an advocate of christines take on posture is that as a PT I was unable to correct my posture to the degree that it would decrease my neck and shoulder pain. but after a few months of adapting the wholewoman posture, everything fell into place naturally. so I'd hesitate to say you don't have much natural curvature in your back. I might be sooner to say that you have lost the natural curvature in your back and (unless you have something else going on health wise such as a neuro muscular disorder or major scar tissue from surgery or some other history of trauma)this should be relatively easy to regain.

and don't focus so much on sticking out the booty, but on tilting the pelvis.

You mentioned in a earlier post that you wore a tampon when you were going to be be on your feet alot. Do you think that wearing a tampon did help with healing of the prolapse by giving your vagina more support? I have tried and tried to wear one, even a sea sponge, but it is so uncomfortable. I am afraid my cystocele won't move forward and hopefully alittle higher without the support of a tampon or pessary. What's your thoughts? Thanks, Connie

Hi mom2boys (I feel like you're my american alterego!)
thanks for thinking of me. It's so encouraging to hear of your progress - well done you! by coincidence i'm off to my mum and dads tomorrow for some R & R, and am about to start doing some of the exercises, so maybe I'll feel some similar improvements. Have to say, the 2 days of enforced lying down (enforced by me, mainly - the kids were trying to get me up...) really helped me get over the horrible pressure feelings i had this weekend.

I haven't tried tampons yet (the rectocele tends not to pop out as such) but if I have to do any major walking, like last week, when I clearly overdid things, I'm going to give them a go. (I guess my big learning this weekend was not to make the mistake of seizing on a mild improvement as a reason to go mad and overdo it.)

keep me posted on further improvements - all very motivating!

Yours across the pond

Mumtogirls London

G-mom, thanks v much for those tips. you really helped answer a concern that I'd had today:

I just had my follow-up with the specialist women's health PT and I broached the posture stuff with her. She said she'd look at the WW site before trying to give any definitive advice, but admitted that her training tended to go against tilting in that way - and that she'd be a bit concerned about me lifting my tailbone too much and incurring probs with the discs in my lower back. (in fact, she says she would usually, in the post-pregnant state, encourage women to tilt the other way to help them recover from the abdominal stretching of pregnancy. Tho I was tempted to comment that once you've had your rectum feeling like it's hanging out of your vagina, a slack belly is the least of your problems...)

But her comments highlighted the incompatibility between conventional PT and WW in relation to posture etc. And my concern was whether I could risk, given my history of upper back/neck problems, embracing the WW posture - in case it resulted in the kind of lower back pain you've described

So hearing your experience is really instructive - i feel more confident about really going for the WW approach. one final thing if you've got a mo - when you say you adapted the posture, was there anything you found particularly helpful or important in protecting your neck/shoulder?

PS I'm getting the hotpants ready for when I get this all new high round bootylicious rear I hear so much about, having lived for the past 36 years with a classic British wide flat backside...

thanks again for all your advice!
Mumtogirls London

Hey Mumto

Don't keep them together for too long. You might end up with webbed legs. ;-)

I agree with Granolamom, except for the last sentence. I find that carrying your breasts proudly (appropriately covered of course) works better than either butt out or pelvis tilted. I find that keeping the emphasis above the waist automatically gets both butt and pelvis tilt correct, without tensing any back muscles. It should be quite relaxed and balanced. If some muscle is tense you are trying too hard. Ease off a bit.

L

well, I'm going to keep my imaginary hotpants in the back of the closet, but feel free to break out in yours!

as far as the neck/shoulder part of the posture, it wasn't hard at all to protect the areas because aside from midback soreness it felt GREAT. at first a stretch along the sides of my neck, in the back, but no pain at all. real PAIN means to stop whatever you're doing and reassess.
this posture can be described in so many different ways which is great because different phrases ignite understanding in different people. so definitely pay attention to louise's tip of carrying the breasts proudly. I also try to separate the space between my breasts and my belly button. I try to imagine a smooth convex curve along the front surface of my body, if that makes any sense. shoulders, I try to keep down, not back. as a PT I spent years and years trying to keep my shoulders down and back and it was near impossible because the rest of my spine wasn't set up for that. but once I got my pelvis tilted forward, the rest kinda followed. and oh, chin pointed down, not forward.

I feel the curve in my low back throughout the lumbar spine, not just at L4-L5. the spine is supposed to curve, its how we keep our balance, flexibility and strength. when it straightens out we are more prone to injury.

just my thoughts

you won't need a tampon or pessary to move your bladder forward. Posture and breathing will do that for you!
But yes I think it helped me.....it stopped the end of the day droopy feeling that I would get if I was on my feet all day. And the one week I had a period my rectocele was smaller after and I decided it was from the constant support of the tampon.

PS I'm getting the hotpants ready for when I get this all new high round bootylicious rear I hear so much about, having lived for the past 36 years with a classic British wide flat backside...

oh my goodness- this made me laugh out loud....

Hi G-mom and Louise
thanks v much for those tips on getting posture right without straining lower back. (Carrying this vast lactating bosom of mine proudly will be a good challenge to get stuck into and provide appropriate distraction from my current prolapse anxieties. Maybe I could employ someone to walk just ahead of me holding it aloft; I'd pay a fair wage...)

thanks again to all the WW ladies for their advice and support lately - this community really is the business

Mumtogirls London

Hi Mumto

Wasn't there a Rococco sculptor who made fountains in the form of lactating women? Or was that urinating cherubs? But seriously, I think it is just a matter of balance and fine motor coordination. I am sure they would be a awesome sight. I can imagine your baby smacking her little pink lips just at the very thought of them! Yum-Yum!

L