Heavy/dragging feeling in rectum

Hi Mishek. Use the Search box and look for "LoPo". It's to do with the way animals use their bodies for pooing. A search for 'animal kingdom' will find it too. It was an attempt to learn from animals, and has turned out to be quite useful for finishing the poo you started before. It might take a few hours to get the other half of the poo happening, but it is better than sitting around wringing your hands, and whispering, "Oh dear", and getting very worried, and more bound up. It is a part of learning to trust your body again. Good luck.

Louise

Hi Mishek

If your daily poo feels complete at the time, then maybe LoPo won't help. LoPo came about in response to that feeling when you have a poo, but you can only empty so far and the urge stops, leaving you with a half full rectum. The half squats seem to activate the muscles around the rectum and squash the remaining contents of the rectum to make them longer and thinner, so they are the right shape to pass easily when the urge next comes. It sometimes takes a couple of hours, but usually results in a very normal motion. If you feel half full again after a while, then perhaps you are half full again.

I think it is worthwhile visiting the toilet every time you feel any bowel fullness, and just see what happens. You might pass a bit more. You might pass wind only. Doing small poos several times in a day will add up to something like a lot of poo over 24 hours, which will help to clean you out, and will allow your intestines to take up less room in your abdomen and pelvis.

Visiting the toilet when you feel fullness is a very logical action to take, because it is a logical response, and may help to reset your responses to bowel sensations, if they have become a bit mixed up.

My personal rule is to find a toilet for a poo as soon as I feel the urge to empty. This is now serving me well. I rarely go and only have half a poo. It might not be full size, but I don't feel half full again soon afterwards. My body knows what to do.

I try to not urinate frequently. I am not worried about stress incontinence, so there is little point. A bladder with a quantity of urine in it makes a great pessary. When I have a wee it is usually quite a big one. I sometimes lose a couple of drops as soon as I get inside the bathroom door and realise that my DH has put the lid down (Grrrr!) and that I will have to bend over to lift it up, but it is never enough for me to need clean knickers. This only happens every few days, and usually follows sitting down for a long time.

In your position I think I would visit the toilet whenever my bowel gives me any fullness signals.

Louise

I was going to say in my last post that if you feel that you are finished, then feel heavy/half-full again in a few hours, that tells me you have more further up that is moving down (but I thought it would be presumptuous of me to say it. Now you have mentioned it ...).

There are a lot of different feedback mechanisms that happen in the large intestine and rectum. It may be that the stuff higher up comes down, but finds that the rectum is full and kind of gets sent back up again, and out of the way. I am not sure, but I do remember reading something about stool going back up again if the person doesn't empty their bowel.

On the other hand, I think sometimes that passing wind or feeling full of wind is caused by the stool compacting further up, and pushing the air pockets down, past the lumpy bits, to the rectum and out as a fart. Either way, I think there is more in there than you realise. Is it possible that you are having such a lot of fibre that it is bulking your stool up to the point where it cannot all fit in the rectum when it ready to be evacuated? The fullness you are feeling might just be the leftovers that don't fit in the first batch. I cannot think of any other possible causes for your fullness.

I would still endeavour to allow your body to pass whatever it wants to every time you feel that bowel fullness feeling. If it means that you have three or four poos in a row over a few hours, then so be it. I am sure that your bowel will appreciate this opportunity to re-learn old skills! It isn't going to do any harm whatsoever, as long as you don't strain. If you feel you have to strain, then up with the knickers and go do something else until the urge returns. It will return, I am sure. Just trust your body. I may be wrong, but I hope I am right, for your sake.

Just had another thought. Is it possible that a full bladder is lying in between your rectum and the bits higher up? Do you usually empty your bladder in the same visit as emptying your bowel?

Louise

Hi Mishek

Yes, I think that drawing down sensation is a part of rectocele, but it is not a sensation that I get very often at all these days. Yes, I have significant rectocele that comes down to the vaginal opening occasionally, when I am out of my routine and not able to find a toilet when I need one. Once I get my bowel back to normal I am fine. It usually only takes a day. I used to have a lot of the half full feeling, but no longer. I have to pinch myself on a regular basis and assure myself that I do indeed have rectocele, because I have symptoms so seldom. That was a weird sentence!

I can only put it down to doing the right things for so long that I wouldn't dream of going back to the old ways.

Louise