Rectocele?

Hi momma 5!
Welcome to WW, and I am kinda new at this whole thing too. However, rectocele is nothing new for me. By the way, no worries about TMI, that line becomes very vague once you've had children ;) The pressure applied on your perineum (also known as splinting) to be able to poop completely sounds like a rectocele to me, because I have to do the same thing. A 'drooping' feeling also sounds like a pelvic organ prolapse issue. I'm not sure about the intestines dropping, though. However, I would say follow the Whole Woman program and you'll most likely discover that a lot of things can be "fixed" or improved, not just prolapse :) Good luck and keep going!

The way you describe it, it does sound like rectocele, but you do need the diagnosis. Enterocele develops when the small intestine and the lining of the abdominal cavity (peritoneum) bulge downward between the uterus and the rectum. It often can cause no symptoms, but then again it can cause a sense of fullness or pressure or pain in the pelvis and/or lower back. It can also cause a residue of urine left in the bladder, but then so can uterine prolapse and cystocele.

Christine’s book “Saving the wholewoman” talks more about it and as oceangirl says WWposture is your first healing step.

Best wishes, Fab

Classic rectocele to me. Actual enterocele is very rare in a woman with a uterus. Ifa strong lumbar curve is present your pelvis can stay anteverted, with the pelvic brim almost or actually vertical so there is no way that intestines can get pushed into your pelvic cavity.

If your pelvis is more retroverted your pelvic brim will be diagonal, but with a pouch called the Pouch of Douglas pushing back into the pelvic cavity where the large intestine passes through the peritoneum, in front of the large intestine. so small intestine can get pushed by intraabdominal pressure down into this pouch between the rectum and back vaginal wall. This might be what the gyn is talking about.

All you need to do (!!!) is to use WW and breathing to rotate your pelvic organs up and forward, so the bladder is over the pubic bones, the uterus hangs forward over the bladder, and being joined together, loosely, and to the rectum as well, they will drag the rectum up into the body and make it longer and less likely to distend. The big lump will not form if the right angle is maintained at the top of the rectum, held up by the levator ani muscles, particularly the puborectalis muscle that holds the top of the rectum forwards towards the pubic bones. It runs from the pubis down both sides of the vagina to the back of the rectum, where the two halves join together, like a loop around the back of the rectum. It is the muscle that we can feel giving way just as the poo is about to come out of the anus. When it relaxes the rectum straightens out for smooth passage of stool. If the rectum gets squashed down into the pelvic cavity, and maybe some ascewnding colon gets squashed down on top of it, sometimes the puborectalis cannot contract properly again, and stop stool from entering the rectum. Then we have a poo, but feel like there is still some in there, but we cannot allow it out because our muscles get 'uncoordinated' when they can work normally. It gets complicated. The puborectalis pulls in the wrong place.

That's the best description I can give you. You can also put your thumb in your vagina and press gently against the lump. This may help to straighten the rectum. Sometimes this is enough to reposition everything.

BTW, there is no TMI here. We have discussed it all. :-)