What were your first symptoms of a rectocele?

Submitted by clareb2014 on July 27, 2014 - 10:52am
Body: 

Hi everyone,

I wanted to start what will hopefully be an interesting and helpful topic - what were the first symptoms that you had that made you start to think that you had a rectocele?

For example:

- Did you find yourself suffering a lot more with constipation?
- Did it start taking you a lot longer to go the toilet?
- Was a need to strain becoming more frequent, but straining was completely ineffective?
- Could you start a bowel movement, but not finish it?
- Or struggle to start a bowel movement, but once it was started it was okay?
- Were you bowel movements very small?
- Or very wide and difficult to push through your anus?

What was your experience?

Clare

Forum:

Surviving60

July 27, 2014 - 2:02pm

I'd say that my first symptom was the heaviness and bulge itself. It seemed to appear suddenly and I had to go on-line to figure out what it was (thank goodness landing here fairly early on). It was only in hindsight with an understanding of the anatomy, that some of my bowel issues of the previous decade or so started to make sense. - Surviving

clareb2014

July 27, 2014 - 2:45pm

Thanks Surviving for your helpful insight as usual.

In my other post, you mentioned about the incomplete emptying and frequent trips to the toilet when you are at work. Hope you don't mind me asking but - when you are sitting on the toilet and you have managed to go a little, can you tell that you are not finished, but have to make a decision to give up trying?

If so, it must get so frustrating for you sometimes!

Do you ever go in, sit on the toilet, and find that you can pass nothing at all during that toilet visit?

Surviving60

July 27, 2014 - 2:53pm

Usually I don't go to the bathroom unless I'm reasonably sure of doing something. Incomplete emptying happens all the time. If I have time, I'll sit there for awhile, but I won't strain. If I don't have time I just leave the bathroom, knowing that eventually I will have success. - Surviving

kiki

July 27, 2014 - 4:36pm

mine were pretty obvious--big bulge. but i then started getting constipation for the first time ever. in addition, i can just feel it there especially before needing to go to the loo… incomplete emptying happens as well, but as surviving60 says it all passes eventually. i don't splint to push it out, but sometimes do just very gently to straighten it out to either get things going if the signals aren't working, or to stop it from getting stuck in the bulge. but again, only very gently--i don't physically push anything out through splinting.

clareb2014

July 27, 2014 - 4:49pm

Thanks Kiki and Surviving

Do distraction techniques ever help (e.g. reading on the loo?)

I suffer from terrible constipation, and keep a stack of magazines by the loo! I find that if I think about the problem, it makes it more difficult to coordinate the muscles - so a distraction can help.

(I also keep a jar of vaseline in the bathroom cabinet... sorry if that's tmi!)

Surviving60

July 27, 2014 - 6:00pm

Forget the magazines and distractions and take yourself back to that other discussion thread:
https://wholewoman.com/forum/node/6225
......where we gave you lots of things to try for seriously dealing with your constipation. - Surviving