Any young1's out there??? 24 yr old woman with cystocele......

Submitted by young1 on January 10, 2010 - 8:25am
Body: 

Hi there,

Im new to this site, but god was it good to find some support. I had a mild cystocele since i was 19 after childbirth and since then i had a 2nd child and now have a moderate cystocele ( about the size of a lemon the consultant said) i found out just before xmas.

The consultant made me feel really down when he said to me he had only ever seen one this bad in women over 50 and not in a young lady like myself.Made me wonder why i have it so young?? My mother has always been told her womb was rectoverted him she was 16 and was never told why it was like that and nothing as far as she's aware happened to make it like that. She has neevr had a prolapse but im wondering if my body was just made the same as hers and so blabder prolapsed more easily after childbirth. As i always did the kegal exercises and still ended up with it. After a lil reading on here tho it seems..kegals are not worth doing and are actually harmful so why do the physio's i see still tell me to do them constantly to try and correct the prolapse???

Ive been told im 2 young for an op after researching i dont think i'd have one anyway as seem to do more harm than good and not keen on pessary thing.

I work in an office part time and my whole life from sleeping, sex, days out with my 2 beautiful kids are affected by hourly trips to the toilet and small leakage that i have to wear towels for.

I feel like this will be my life if i cant help myself as the consultants and phsyio just DONT help.

Im tall and have not always had the best posture but since finding this site am doing everything i can to keep good posture.

So any others young ladies who feel the same?? or am i really alone as the consultant suggested??

Can a moderate bladder prolapse ever go away and what are the best things to drink as tea/lemonade and similar irrate me so much i get more pain and have to pee more...should i just be drinking water that also seems to make me go alot??

whats best to do...any suggestions would be fantastic as i feel so alone in all this.

x young1 x

louiseds

January 11, 2010 - 1:16am

Hi Young1

Well, I'm not young (@56yo), but there are plenty of younger women among our membership. The fact that most prolapses happen to women who have had a baby or more means that there will be lots of younger women with POP, though many will not know it. I didn't have a serious feel in my vagina until I was in my forties! Many women have a degree of POP and do not notice it because it is not pronounced enough to impact on their continence or on what they can feel in their vulva. The other thing is that many, many of our members are still having their babies, so they are still young. We have had young women turn up here who have never been pregnant, but still have POP, maybe from long term constipation, or a series of reasons associated with being a young woman living an affluent western lifestyle. They will respond, eventually.

WW posture does work because of the way it repositions your pelvic organs onto bone. It may take a bit of time before you can straighten up and show off your height proudly. You were created tall, and tall you were meant to be. You can reach the high apples!

Hang in there.

Louise

clavicula

January 11, 2010 - 1:24am

Hey, Young1,

I am older than you (29), I was 28 when my bladder prolapsed (after my 3rd birth). My smallest is 15 months now, and I slowly start to feel normal again. Yeah, it is a new normal, I have few days in every month when I feel more symptoms/pressure, but overall I moved on with my life, and I have peace with my new situation.

Stay with us, read older posts (you can use the search engine, it is easy) or ask anything, we are here for you. Oh, and do not be discouraged, there are tons of young women out there with prolapse, it is just something nobody talks about! That is why this site is a lifesaver for all of us! :)

Liv

young1

January 11, 2010 - 12:38pm

Thankyou for replying it was SO SO nice to read your comments and not feel alone. Ive found just after a few days of not always trying to pull my stomach in and trying to keep my posture more to the 'standing proud' etc way, i have alot less pain/ uncomfortable feeling. Without finding this website and reading past posts i would of continued to pull my stomach in,and keep doing the kegal exercises that everyone tells me todo at the hospital and been still very very uncomfortsble. The quick clench ones seem to make me feel more sore near my uretha and none of them seem to improve the prolapse.

I had never even heard of a prolapsed bladder until i kept going to the toilet all the time and they thought i had a cyst on my ovary! Why are women never told that having a baby could cause this?? I think people should be more aware so that if it does happen its not so scary. People always notice that i go to the toilet alot (like once an hour). I just started a new job few weeks back and felt really nervous that people would notice and wonder why i kept going. In the end i told my boss and she said she had noticed i went alot which made me feel worse!! Is it bad to hold it as long as you can or should i say to hold it after you get the urge to try and make your self not go so frequently?? As people always say you shouldnt hold it as it can damage your bladder but my physio before wanted to try 'bladder retraining??' but then i fell pregant with my 2nd. So im thinking they might tell me to try it now and i wondered what people on here thought about it???

They have sent me back to physio middle of Feb and im dreading im going to be rigged up to a computer again to test my pelvic floor strength and do the bio feed back thing. It all just seems so pointless and digrading. Im not sure whether i should just not go back to the hospital about it every again and just try the methods i find on here, because the docs etc dont actually seem to have a clue and i find this website a lot better help than them!

My 2nd child is 18months so im hoping as im only 18months post birth and young things will improve for me over time. Can your body repair the weakness in the pelvic walls cells?? My consultant told me as im young and my mucsles strong if i do intense pelvic floor work i could improve my prolapse. Its so confusing, the people you go to so called medical PROFESSIONALS and you cant seem to trust them to know whats best for you...

Anyway enough of a rant, i do apologise! Once again thankyou for your support ladies and i will take your good advice and do must searching and reading on here!!

x x

cararosesmum

January 11, 2010 - 10:26pm

Hi Young1,

Well, I'm not as young as you, but at 33 I also feel like I'm too young to have this prolapse, and I'm p***ed off that no one told me having a baby could do this to me! I'm 16 months pp with my first child, and like you I hope it may improve with time. But, I'd like to have more kids, so who knows where my insides will end up? Hopefully not in a petri dish in an operating theatre!

My physio also told me I need to wear a pessary, but when i went to my doctor she said I don't need one, which made me feel heaps better. She was also really supportive of the ww posture. I'm doing my best to maintain the posture, but I often catch myself slouching and I have really hard time keeping my shoulders down and my chest up and out. I started the firebreathing and the nauli yesterday, so I'm really hopeful things will eventually go back up. In the mean time I'm trying to not let this control, or ruin, my life!

Anyway, you're not alone, I'm here and sharing this journey with you, so good luck sister.
Emma

louiseds

January 13, 2010 - 12:39am

Hi young1

My rule is to hold on to urine for as long as I can before going, and respond immediately to the urge for a bowel movement.

I did hold on too long on one occasion when I was scheduled for a pelvic ultrasound prior to my second pregnancy, for which I needed a full bladder. The appointments were running late and I over-estimated the volume I had to drink. I was getting pain right up to my kidneys. After the exam my bladder was so distended that I could not go, till I realised I had a kink in my urethra which could not straighten, but I could get the flow going by shifting my weight forwards, which I now realise, 25 years later, is Wholewoman stuff. I was none the worse for wear, but I think I peed about 2 litres over about 120 seconds that day. I was so relieved! I think the drama about holding on might be to do with not completely emptying. You really need to completely empty once a day to flush out any bugs. You can do this on all fours under the shower, or semi-squatting with lumbar curve intact and no compression of your belly, so your bladder is well forward and supported by the braced musculature inside your pelvis. Finish, stand up, then semi-squat again and try again to see if there are a few more drops you cana get out. Repeat until no more comes out.

I think the aim of bladder training is not to go as far as my ultrasound, but just to slowly increase the time between voids, so your brain can get used to putting up with the signal to empty without your acting on it. It is actually brain training as much as bladder training. It could be very useful for you, and your physio would be the ideal person to supervise you. Yeah, it sounds yukky, but it is better to face up to it than run away from it. You never know, you may be able to get on top of your whingeing bladder yourself before the physio appointment. Drinking plenty (of water) and keeping a diary of void times and approximate volumes might be helpful so you can measure your progress, even if you just do it for 24 hours, three or four times before your appt in February. Wholewoman posture does wonders! You might even get them scratching their heads!

Cheers

Louise

saddleup

January 13, 2010 - 9:54am

Hi, Young1:

I'm glad you found us. We're all different ages but share the same spectrum of pelvic issues. Here are some things that helped me.

The PT's that conducted my pelvic floor/incontinence therapy taught me a lot about managing my bladder. I had been using the toilet every hour or so, because I had leakage with no warning once or twice per day. One gets a bit paranoid about that sort of thing. They had me keep a diary of fluid intake and toilet habits. They counseled me to drink MORE water, not less. Dehydration irritates the bladder due to concentrated urine. It also triggers spasms of the detrusor muscle. I learned to space my trips to the toilet to at least every two hours and usually more.

The pelvic floor strength testing proved beneficial in some ways. They hooked up electrodes to measure how strongly I could contract and hold certain muscles. When I practiced Kegel exercises, either of the "endurance" or rapid-fire variety, I did them in the WW approved position and not flat on my back. I learned that a series of ten quick Kegels actually sends a signal to the detrusor muscle to not empty the bladder. At that point, I was to relax, walk away and occupy myself with something else for a while. In contrast, just holding a prolonged contraction does not usually give you the satisfactory result of blocking urine leakage.

I found out that our fast-twitch muscle fibers get lazy as we age. This includes those in the detrusor muscle. So practicing those contractions routinely can be of some benefit, particularly for those of us in the post-menopausal stage.

Also, practice using the toilet in the recommended half-squat posture. This is useful when you have a cystocele. I often finish standing up. The increased kink in my urethra makes it a challenge to empty the bladder fully. But it probably has also made incontinence nearly a non-issue for me now. Motto: We do what works.

I hope this helps and I wish you steady improvement.

Saddleup

young1

January 13, 2010 - 1:28pm

Thanks that has made me feel better about attending my appointment for physio and a hope i will be able to decrease my toilet trips as it can be very anoying, especially when at work and busy!

Yes it pi**ed me off too when i found out and i think there should be much more warning of these conditions so many of us ladies have to suffer with, i wish there was a special exercise class of something here in uk i could go to, i prob would of liked a third child at some point in my life, but after my last very difficult birth which was very traumatic and this cystocele i dont think i want put my body through anymore.

Young1