More about BMs

Hi Ikam - I believe that stool that's not completely formed is perfectly healthy and in fact preferable to the harder formed stuff that results from excess fiber in the diet. If you are managing your rectocele with posture (on the toilet too!) then the stool should have a fairly clear path to exit. If not this time, then maybe the next. I have similar......eventually I get it all out. In between times, I'm used to the feeling of incomplete evacuation. - Surviving

I have the same thing! If it's loose (not watery, just pasty), it just doesn't come out. It just sits in there and as the day goes by, you aren't sure if you will have an accident because it starts to come out in small bits. Am I right? I know what you mean. Ridiculous right? Ugh. However, lately I've been trying two things that I believe are helping with this. Holy Basil tea and pistachios. There is a lot of interesting research on the two and I'm not sure which is actually helping, so I'm just doing both. I do watch everything I eat, but I'm sure you do too. Because if I don't, the problem comes back with a vengeance.

I have always considered this to be something that just goes hand in hand with rectocele, at least for me. I do watch my diet but I also find that posture helps. I used to have way more bowel woes than I do these days. I also drink holy basil tea! Love it. - Surviving

I am also starting to wonder if this could be hormonal related too. It seems to be the worst about 10 days or so before my period begins. Just wondering. I can't get used to it. I also have very painful ovulation that lasts for days. Hormonal? Who knows? Maybe ;)

I am sure it is hormonal related for me. I have exactly the same pattern. And some months I get the super painful ovulation (attempts by ovaries to squeeze out those last few eggs?) and then some months I get nothing (failure to fire at all?). Perimenopause has made things quite unpredictable!

I try to do the "just get used to how it feels" thing, but it is hard. I am not that zen ...

Must try that holy basil tea. Learn something new everyday here :-)

You would possibly have noticed that I have been an advocate of the perfect poo and the delightfully simple formula that it involves. And I see that that is not working for you. I have also suggested that there may be certain food intolerances causing your woes. Again you have discounted this.

This is a wild card. I do not have rectocele and I do not wish to undermine anything each of you who have are saying. But I do have a bit of a success story as regards to sticky pooh and so feel I should share even though I truly believe that each prolapse has its own particular circumstances and should be accorded its own unique characteristics.

Last year I gave up chocolate, and cups of caffeinated tea. I love spinach and parsley but have reduced the amount I eat to a maximum twice a week. I never eat rhubarb, but get huge cravings for nuts every now and again, like monthly which I happily indulge. I take a magnesium supplement daily and a probiotic (multi strains). Have done every day for one year now (marked it on my calendar). I no longer have sticky pooh.

It is possible that this is due to my purely intuitive limitation of oxalates. Please google oxalates and see what you think. The wiki article is rather good. Yes, I was a heavy smoker up until my late 30s and, as I see now, I fortunately could not drink much beer. It made me fall asleep. But the damage would have been done evenso. With your innocence it is terribly unfair that you are suffering so, but those are the dice. I have been mostly genetically blessed which has counter balanced my sins, but I have also had the fall of the dice unfairly dropped very early in life and then at my peak which I would not have earned or deserved so don’t feel deprived.

Best wishes, Fab

Dear fab,
Thanks for the link & info on oxalates. I do know about them just needed reminding & what it is in...
I had unexplained pain in my side a few yrs back. Had xray & found small kidney stones in one kidney, though not related to the pain.
Was feeling uncomfortable in my back this week & guess what I've been eating ...
Recently, Rhubarb, 'twas a childhood memory & to boast that I could eat it without sugar!!!
Parsley is so good as a naturally assimilated source of calcium & iron - though was hooked on tabbouleh, too much of a good thing - boo hoo!! So now a little bit only!!
Good reason to give up nuts & sweet potato...
gave up sugar recently - loved lashings of home /made marmalade - another childhood memory...
I have read that coconut oil does help in this area, though I expect it depends on how many oxalate one has consumed in the past...
saved from eating the next batch of Rhubarb - I've done my boasting....
Thanks fab
Your fab
(((hugs))) to you
Best wishes
Aussie Soul Sister

Glad it helps fill in some of the pieces, soul sister. It all made sense for me when my daughter in law told me her brother was suffering psoriasis and gout and I googled vulvadynia to check on mulchfairy and low and behold I got to oxalates. I could not fathom previously why chocolate was so important for me to drop from my diet and then the wiki article made the connection for me with tea. I had forgotten I had given up tea. I was a tea addict (post cigarettes). All small portions but add the smoking and so on and there it was. Magnesium and probiotics were exactly what was needed.

Fab

Bowel movements are the scariest thing for me right now. I had eaten some heavier food the day before, and had I hard one yesturday. I realize now that I can't self abuse anymore! Everything was so swollen afterwards, and my cervix, which I was so proud of staying up there a bit more was back down again. Arhhg! How depressing. I wanted to cry, but instead did jiggling(I have actually tried both methods Louise and fab, and they both work for me) and lots of fire breathing, and then lots of rest. This morning, after doing the exercise from the first aid prolapse DVD, I feel better again.
I never would have thought I would have to baby my bowels!
Ikam, I agree hormones probably do have a lot to do with many of our symptoms, including our bowels. I know I have seen changes since starting perimenopause a couple of years ago already.

I can't take any magnesium either (too loose). I avoid fruit as well. It seems like everything goes right through. I have been eating some grass fed beef lately too, and it does seem to help make firm poos. Also, my hair is very thin and flat and the palms of my hands and feet are so dry, that they are white. That was why I started with the beef, protein, iron, etc.. I am gluten free too, it helps but not completely. I've done probiotics for several years now, but in the last several months decided to give myself a break. I think I feel better without them. I felt like they made me have to go more often throughout the day. I would rather just go once or twice a day and be done with it. I've been dealing with this problem for years now, it started about 5 years ago but I would say that I am much better now than ever before. Except for those certain days.

No sense in taking magnesium or probiotics if they make you want to go all day. I can’t imagine much worse. It is a matter of balance.

Actually, pistachios contain a wide distribution of the basic elements for the perfect pooh.

Apart from that observation, it appears to be a common feeling that the problem is hormonal.

Bear with me. I am sure you all know more about this than I do.

So, if sticky poo occurs ten days before a period then you are in the luteal phase (about 14 days duration) where you are producing increased amounts of progesterone. In the second half, say seven days before the period, the estrogen level also increases.

So for Mom30, it appears to be connected to the rise in progesterone and the beginning of the increase in estrogen.

In perimenopause women there is fluctuation in the levels of estrogen and progesterone. Estrogen levels can be high.

This is about as far as I can go with you on this journey. Maybe, foods such as tofu, soy, tempeh and miso might be avoided. The rest you need to follow through.

Best wishes, Fab

Hi Aging gracefully (and all our worriers - isn't that all of us at some point?)

I am glad to hear that you have a rest after jiggling and firebreathing. I have just been reading about hypopressive exercise, an example of which is the exhalation part of firebreathing. Any hypopressive exercise will stimulate the sympathetic nerve system. That is the part of the nervous system that governs fight or flight / adrenaline type responses in the body. It is normally balanced by the parasympathetic nerve system, which is the rest and recover nervous system. I need to read more.

Hey, look what I just found. This explains it much better than I can. http://www.bemindful.org/chaosorcalm.htm .

It is important to be able to disengage ourselves from unnecessary and unproductive worrying, and just deal with the present, and ensure that we spend enough time in rest and recover mode.

:-)

Thank you Louise for that link, and just went to it, so will read it all. It's the feeling though of discomfort in abdomen which feels like if I pushed something down it would go away, so I keep constantly thinking I need to empty my bowels, but have to strain thinking there's something there to come out, but if there is the feeling of discomfort goes away for a while (sometimes) and then comes back again and again all day everyday, so I find that really so stressful trying to "figure out" what to do for it to go away, so I have now tried to do a pull up to see if it helps and it seems to be working so it seems like all the time I thought I needed to empty my bowels it might be caused by sagging of my guts rather than a need to empty them, but it has taken me YEARS to come to that conclusion, and I also think diaphragm breathing would help. I have looked at some things about mindful mediation which i hope will help and maybe it's stress is causing the sagging feelings as that is the one thing I find so hard to cope with. Hope to work harder at getting the posture right now. Charlene.

It sounds like you are really trying to understand what is happening to you. Yes, it is really difficult to know exactly what is going on. If you can place some trust in the posture, I do think it will help you. Just keep at it, every moment of every day and you will begin to gain strength in it. Yes, you will need to keep thinking about all of those little parts of it.....feet facing forward when walking, knees soft, tummy relaxed, chest up, crown of the head reaching up to the sky, breath easy and deep into the belly.....constantly. When you notice that you have slouched down, do not be hard on yourself, just repeat the steps to good healthy WW posture. When you are exhausted then rest, maybe on knees and elbows or lay down in bed. When you get up....right away keep the posture work going. Before too long, it will become part of you and it will become you, both in how you feel and how you look. Best wishes to you!

Hello again. I have not been practicing wholewoman posture since I was on the website the last time as I have not been sure what my problem is i e. a prolapse or a bowel problem as I got so many different diagnoses that I didn't really know if wholewoman exercises would work for me or not as not sure if it was a pelvic floor disorder or prolapse I had. I got told it was pelvic floor dysnergia by one consultant, so then I recently saw a post on the resource site on this website in the village post under Enterocele/rectocele and it shows two drawings of the pelvic organs and how there is a cul de sac where intestine could fall down behind at the back. It says it usually happens if you have a hysterectomy but also even you don't, so I read everything Christine has written about it and that it can be diagnosed as pelvic floor dysnergia also. I am now convinced that is my whole problem as I thought from the start that I felt something was jammed in behind something and thought it was stool stuck but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't move it, so I must have done quite a bit of damage trying to move something that wasn't stool. Sorry if it sounds graphic. What I would like to know is what is the supportive wholewoman excercise that is mentioned in the post that would help this problem. Is it different special excercises or are they on one of the dvd's. I have read the "saving the wholewoman " book from cover to cover a few times, but I'm not sure which dvd I should get. I am trying the wholewoman posture for the past few days since reading this post about Enterocele/rectocele. Has anyone on these boards had Enterocele/rectocele as shown in those diagrams and what helps the most with the feeling of not knowing if you still need to empty your bowel.

P.s. I forgot to say I did not have a hysterectomy that would leave a space where the intestines could fall down the cul de sac, but I did have a fall on the stairs some years ago and fractured my coccyx bone and my "toilet problem" started after that.

Hi Charlene. Everyone should be practicing WW posture, whether you have prolapse or not, and regardless of the type of prolapse you have. It is not something exotic, it's just our natural posture that we all used to have when we were children. You've read enough on these pages to realize that is our message here! So get back into the posture and train yourself to use it all day long. A feeling of incomplete emptying often comes along with a rectocele. So please don't strain, observe Christine's suggestions for correct pooping posture, do lots of jiggling and firebreathing, eat a healthy diet and get plenty of exercise. Go back to that blog article on enterocele and especially notice that "the treatment for enterocele is exactly the same as for all other prolapses".....in other words, posture! Get to work now, Charlene. - Surviving
https://wholewoman.com/blog/?p=948

Thanks surviving 60 I have tried twice to reply but the screen froze, so will try again later. Not very good on typing messages.

Ok, hopefully you can give it another try later, and better explain why you aren't practicing WW. When we have a member who has been here for awhile, and she comes onto the forum and says "I have this prolapse problem and I'm not doing the posture", then we only have one answer for her! - Surviving