protruding rectum ?!?

Your baby is nine months already, how time flies. Do you mean Christine’s kegels? Yes, they will help. If you just mean Kegels, we do not consider them helpful. You need to tighten all your pelvic muscles at the one time when you exercise not just your sphincters as happens with Kegels. Walking in WWposture, not straining on the toilet, not lifting heavy weights and when lifting baby, lift baby close to your body. All this means pulling prolapses up and preventing their being pulled down. This is the essence: protecting the prolapse from being forced down, and strengthening your muscles and skeleton so that the prolapsed organs can reclaim their rightful place. Nice to hear from you.

So sorry you are going through this...have you ever felt that feeling when you wiped before? How much is protruding? Could it just be swollen hemorrhoids?

Hi bonne maman,
I feel this has happened to me too. I'm really hoping its haemorrhoids and the bulge of rectocele. My first post on this website was about this. I've noticed it for about a month now. I'm thinking of seeing my doc in the hope she can tell me all is ok. But from looking on this forum, I'm just concentrating (although not as much as I should) on the posture etc as it seems to help everything. Please post again if you find anything else out that can help and I'll do the same. I think all this prolapse stuff also gives us more reason to take it easy and focus on the joys of life.

Yes I'm postpartum too. My lil one is 16months. Ive been working on changing my posture for about 3 months so still only early days. One night I woke up and went to the toilet and was so worried to feel the bulge there near my bottom area, especially as I'd been lying down for awhile so when I went back to bed, I laid on my side and did fire breathing and it really seemed to make a difference. I am positive on the outside but I do still sometimes freak out but of course worrying doesn't help anything. I'll let you know of anything else I find out, please let me know too.

I have a full thickness rectal prolapse about the size of my fist. It started out like what you were describing, but then was misdiagnosed for five years as a hemoroid without doctors ever doing a full exam. Sig and colonoscopies will not tell you that you have a prolapsed rectum, and neither will a routine office rectal exam where they have you lye on your side and poke a finger up there. I am a catastrophic thinker too and I am also severely codependent and feel violated by doctors, and so when they didn't look at me I didn't beg to have a physical experience. I switched to Kaiser and that doc did a brief rectal exam and sent me home with the pronouncement that I was normal. The thing was fist size by then. I changed doctors and had someone take a picture of it and was immediately referred to surgery. I am still debating about the surgery, but I am not normal. I tell you this so you know to insist, beg, plead, whatever you have to do to get the proper exam in which you squat on the ground like you are going to the bathroom so that the thing can come out of your body and they can confirm what it is. You can have a rectal prolapse without pain, cysts, or any abnormalities that would show up on a scope. Insist they do it right and hopefully they can rule out the prolapse. Either way it sounds like yours is at a stage where surgery doesn't even need to be discussed. I wish I had caught mine when it was small.

Oh I'm still not doing too much about it except ensuring I don't bear downwards & trying to keep up the posture. I saw on a different post of yours about the 1st aid DVD & breathing. You have inspired me to start doing the DVD - just have to prioritise it! So thank you for that! The bulge still there - kind of between perineum and anus. After using toilet, I sometimes use paper and hand to push up on perineum while bending forwards and jiggling legs in an attempt to push bulge up and forwards. Sounds like from tree woman and many other member's posts that a doctor's diagnosis could be misleading or inaccurate anyway do I still haven't got it checked. Going to do the exercises. Keep posting! It's very helpful.

LLL, not only can doctors' diagnoses be misleading or inaccurate, but worse, their recommendations can be useless at best and damaging at worst. I have never had a formal diagnosis of my prolapse. I'm not necessarily recommending this path for anyone else......some women feel better having something looked at in order to rule out other problems, and I'm all for this. I certainly know what I need to know, in the event I ever find myself in a doctor's office discussing my organs! - Surviving

Hi Bonne Maman,

Yes for me the fist sized tissue mass comes straight out of my bum whenever I have a bowel movement. It has gotten bigger over time. BTW, suppositories and hemoroid cream never helped me, I used both religiously for a while. I might have a rectocele too, but that is a whole different problem than the rectal prolapse. As far as I am aware, a rectal prolapse occurs when all or part of the rectum (either the mucosel lining or the whole bit) protrudes from the anus. Rectocele by contrast is when the rectum bulges into the back wall of the vagina. That's why you can have a rectocele without rectal prolapse-- it doesn't have to come out of your body in order to bulge into your vagina. For me, it comes out of my body and hangs outside of it.

Interestingly and excitingly I have been dilligently keeping ww posture only five days now, from when I came across the site, and the mass has decreased a fraction of an inch. That has given me hope that I could shrink this thing to a more manageable size without any surgery. I strongly believe that if you do the posture and exercises, it won't get any bigger and might go away.

It took me years to finally realize what was wrong with me, and months of scouring the internet before finding this site. I wish I'd known sooner!

Thanks tree woman for the info. Wishing you all the best. And thank you bonne maman, my 1st priority is now to lean nauli and start a routine with the 1st aid DVD. Love this forum!

Thanks for this explanation - what do you guys know about the "success" rate for rectal prolapse surgeries? Is it as dismal as for rectocele? - Surviving

Hi guys,

Can someone explain what nauli is? Or just paste in the link to where it's already described? Thanks!

I would love to know what the outcomes are/situation is for rectal prolapse surgery too, survivor. I hope someone can write in on that. Whenever I have said I am still debating about surgery, I am exclusively thinking of the rectal prolapse. I'm definitive on no surgery for the rectocele or uterine prolapse I also have. Not unless I'm dying from them, which is very improbable. Just thought I'd clarify that. And as it is, I'm already seeing some results just with ww posture alone, which is really giving me pause about saying yes to any surgery. However what I heard from my best dear friend who is also a doctor, the laproscopic surgery for rectal prolapse has the lowest recurrance rate, least scar tissue, and highest recovery times/minimal complications. It is only the hugeness of my prolapse that makes me consider that surgery as I feel unsafe with that much, fist sized, mass always protruding from my body, and into the toilet which is probably the must unsanitary environment for it. Any thoughts I would really appreciate them too!

There is a demonstration of nauli and explanation in the definition of terms section on the first aid for prolapse DVD. However I'm sure there's more references around the WW forum or website. Hope that helps Tree Woman and I'm glad you are really researching all options for yourself. Wishing you the best.

So glad for everyone's comments. It has helped me to understand more what my body is going through.

Hi Tree Woman & everyone,
Just in response to the question whether to have surgery or not. The outcome of surgery is unknown, but once you've had surgery there's no turning back - & there is a possibility that you'll experience further problems in the future. However the WW approach is safe, natural - and you keep your options open. Personally I would advise trying the WW approach whole heartedly for up to a year; get the book and the dvd/s so that you have a thorough understanding of the basic principles and have a good idea of what generally helps to make things worse and what helps to make things better and also participate daily in the WW posture and exercises. Your options are still open and you'll be better informed to make this difficult decision.

Best of luckm xwholewomanuk

Hi Tree Woman,
Nauli is a stomach vacuum exercise (from yoga I think? Although I did not encounter it when I used to go to yoga classes). This is the way I do it (others might chime in with corrections or additions):

Stand, leaning forward with hands resting on your knees
Breath in and let your belly fully relax
Breath out and suck your belly in quickly, belly button towards backbone
Hold your breath
This creates a vacuum, which you can feel - your belly is very small at this point
Using the muscles of your abdomen, roll your belly around in the direction that your large intestine follows
Release the vacuum by breathing in again
Repeat a few times

I also do it in dog pose position, as this feels like gravity helps the organs to shift into the right location.

Hope this helps, as I know you are blind, and I'm guessing you need someone to "translate" youtube videos or the DVDs for you.