To help & receive help

Submitted by laughLOVElive on May 27, 2013 - 7:23am
Body: 

Just wanted to introduce myself by telling you about my prolapse! Also thank you to everyone who posts on here - your information is comforting and helpful. So I'm hoping to get some help and maybe someone else has similar symptoms and can be helped by this too. I'm 32 and was diagnosed with a prolapse about 10 months ago which was about 5 months after having my first baby. I had no major symptoms, but discovered it when using a mirror to look at what it all looked like down there after having a baby and I saw all the fleshy stuff. Was referred to a physiotherapist who put me on to a regime of pelvic floor exercises and was assessed as being mid stage 2 with the front wall being most predominant. That's all I know about my condition so far. After discovering this wonderful site and Christine Kent's amazing research and work, I have pretty much ceased pelvic floor exercises and am working on the posture. However, I think I went too "gung-ho" at the start before watching the first aid DVD and was arching my lower back too much. Not sure if its coincidence or not but now my bulge is near my rectum. If I need to do a bowel movement, the urge comes quickly and it's hard to hold on (luckily it seems to happen every 2nd morning while I'm at home). The day before I go, I feel the lump every time I use paper to dry vagina after weeing. Sometimes wind can't seem to get out (and I avoid straining). My questions are: did I move everything back more while exaggerating my lower back arch? Do I have a rectal prolapse? Should I still try to gently strengthen my pelvic floor to avoid a possible accident if I can't get to toilet for bowel movement? Does anyone else feel wind moving around in their stomach especially in the morning after lying down for awhile? I also feel hollow under my rib cage - is that because of prolapse? My periods are heavier now and cycle is now less than 28 days and when wearing a tampon, blood still gets out but when I take out tampon, there are still white patches on tampon - prolapse? On the 2nd day of my period when it's heaviest, my vagina really hurts, as if its bruised- anyone else? Lastly, I'd love to be able to run again, I know some pop people do, any advice. If anyone read this, thankyou and sorry it was a bit of a saga but good to get it out!

Forum:

Surviving60

May 27, 2013 - 4:06pm

Hi LLL and welcome. There are lots of moms on here who could address all the post-partum aspects of prolapse. It does seem to come and go in the early months in ways that may not always make sense. The organs are moving all the time. I don’t think you would have worsened things by overdoing the lumbar curvature, but the fact is that you don’t really need to, it will take care of itself. Can you think of other ways that you may have been overdoing?

Work on all the things you can that will normalize the positions of the organs in the belly. I have rectocele and do a lot of firebreathing, not to mention jiggling in firebreathing position, sometimes both before and after going to the toilet.

It sounds like you have a lot of changes in your period happening right now, which might account for what you’re feeling. Wind in the stomach, a hollow under the rib cage, vaginal pain during your period. Need more anatomical gurus to answer. Good luck, keep searching for posts, hopefully someone can help. - Surviving

laughLOVElive

May 27, 2013 - 10:38pm

I'll start the jiggling! I think I read one of your posts or someone else's who bends down in downward dog pose and jiggles. I've done that and thought it was helpful. I just have to form a habit of it!

oceangirl08006

May 28, 2013 - 1:50pm

Hi laughLL, Surviving gave you some very good advice, I do a lot of the same things. It sounds like you began with a cystocele and later developed a rectocele. Same thing happened with me in the opisite order. It only makes sense that where one organ can prolapse another could also, so don't worry. You say you have been going through a lot of changes, and I would safely blame just about all of those changes on the prolapse. However, you just had your first baby, and quite frankly the body just changes a lot after having a baby. I have a one year old baby girl and I am still noticing constant change. I would advise continuing to do self research and experimentation-search the material and forums for Whole Woman and see what things personally work best for you. I would also search 'splinting' to help with rectocele, and focus on the posture.

A couple other things, if you aren't sure about running, (I still am wondering!) walking is always a great alternative. I was actually sticking my bum out a little bit when I would walk and now have learned to simply think 'tall' and the lumbar curve forms itself. With the exercises though you are supposed to exaggerate the lumbar curve :) Hope everything gets a little better soon!

alemama

May 28, 2013 - 4:24pm

Yes I get it and on day 2. I only bleed for 3 days and it's only heavy on day 2- the other 2 days are light, and no cramping at all. I've only had my fertility back for about 6 cycles, but all seems to be getting in a rhythm. I had a long cycle this time due to lots of breastfeeding our sick baby.
It's really hard to remember what it was like before pregnancy, this is the first time I've had a regular period since getting pregnant in 2002. But no short cycles- I'm guessing that's all got to do with having a baby and your 'new hormonal normal'. I think the white patches are from the prolapse, though if your flow is light it could just be that.
I run. Or jog anyway. 3 miles at a time a few days a week- some speed work other days- It doesn't seem to change my prolapse one way or the other at this point. In the early days I think it was a little aggravating (feeling like I needed to pee), but I stuck with it and that went away.
My new experiment is jumping rope. It's not going too bad, definitely feel like I need to pee ;) But I think I'll get stronger (maybe?).

Surviving60

May 28, 2013 - 5:14pm

A word of caution here. Alemama is a pro. She's been practicing WW posture for, oh, 6-7 years I guess. She has had multiple births since her diagnosis. She might be ready to run and jump rope in excellent WW posture, but that would not be so advisable for anyone still mastering posture. And certainly not while still within that 2-year pp recovery window. - Surviving

curiousity

May 28, 2013 - 6:28pm

I get the same thing with tampons and I have pretty much stopped using them. The way I think of it is with POP your vagina is a sort of concertina shape rather than a long airless space, which the tampon should slide into. So with prolapse the tampon isn't snug against your vagina on all sides, and there are spaces where blood can get through, and areas where blood doesn't touch the tampon at all. There have been some suggestions on here for tampon insertion along the lines of pushing your bulges in and leaning right over before you insert, but I haven't tried this yet as I am a bit scared that taking the tampon out will pull the bulge out too.

I don't get the bruised feeling though, and wow 3 day periods Alemama! Mine are at least 6, heavy for two of those. Probably why I am always anaemic :s

laughLOVElive

May 29, 2013 - 5:49am

All comments are extremely helpful! You are all inspirational to me and once I get the posture right and become a pro at prolapse management, I hope I too can help others - thanks!

louiseds

June 2, 2013 - 12:40am

Hey, congratulations, Curiosity. I think you just added another analogy to help us to understand the vagina. Of course, the vagina is not smooth from end to end. It is concertina'ed (rugae!!!), which is why when some of the fascia holding it in the concertina folds, let go, it gets 'baggy'. The pleats fall out.

If it were smooth from end to end there is no way it could stretch sideways to accommodate a baby's head. I visualises it as when the baby's head comes down into the pelvis at the end of pregnancy, all the cells of the vagina that were short and wide become wide and short. The overall surface area of the vagina remains the same but it changes from a long (concertina'd up to short) narrow bore tube of tissue, to a very short and wide bore tube, or rather ring of tissue.

Flattened concertina that is H s or I shaped at the cervix end, is exactly the way I see it. No wonder women who cannot retain a tampon in the normal orientation, can retain it horizontally. It must just wriggle into the wrinkles.