Surgical Alternatives to Rectocele?

Hi C.,
I am a Women's Health Physical Therapist. Rectoceles are just one of the many conditions that I deal with. Below you will find a few solutions to help with the pressure that you are feeling when lifting your daughter and exercising. If these suggestions don't help you can check out my website at www.legacytherapystl.com and contact me if you would like to seek physical therapy treatment.

1. You may find using a tampon when you are going to be exercising may help support things. If your rectocele is advanced this probably won't work. Running is going to be a tough exercise to continue with the rectocele. It is alot fof downward pressure on the pelvic organs. You may be better off with walking, eliptical, biking, or swimming.

2. Work on finding and strengthening your pelvic floor muscles. These are Kegels exercises. You know the muscles are working if you can stop your flow of urine when you go to the bathroom (Only try this once, it can cause UTIs). If you can do that, attempt to squeeze those same muscles and hold for 3-5 seconds. Try repeating 5-10 times about 5 times a day.

3. When you are lifting your daughter, attempt to pull in your tummy muscles to give you some more support.

4. Avoid bearing down when you have a bowel movement. It will only increase the pressure on your pelvic organs and can worsen the rectocele.

I am a PT who had a minor rectocele after baby #2. Fortunately, I knew what exercises to perform and was able to correct the issue myself. I continue to do these exercise now (16months post partum) to keep my pelvic floor in shape as I hope to have more children. Please try the exercises the Women's health PT mentioned. If you have any questions, contact her as she mentioned. I don't even know who she is, but I know that when these exercises are done correctly, the improvement can be astonishing. The pelvic floor is an amazing stucture, but unless you understand how those muscles function to support your bladder, uterus, rectum, etc, it is difficult to correct the problems MANY women silently endure.

Best of luck to you! So sorry your beloved baby inadvertantly created this lovely problem for you. The joys of motherhood...

A little about me: Part-time PT, Full-time Mommy, 2 beautiful girls and one hot hubby!!!

I fear this as well it seems that Hysterectomy rectal and bladder are an issue in my family all from having kiddos and being overweight.I wish you the best of Luck my mom actually had a mesh screen put in to hold up her bladder that did cause issues for her since she is allergic to plastics and metal it's taken alot of time for her to heal 100% and still not there its been over a yr now and she has to keep going back into the Gyno to get checked.

Please be careful with your decision. I have the same condition but my research proved to me that I don't want the surgery. I found a site that gave people a chance to give their opinions(these were people who had the surgery). All of them regretted it, it created all sorts of new problems.

Good luck,
D.

I am all for second opinions (and even 3rds!) when it comes to possibly surgery! See if there is a "teaching hospital" in the area where they'll have the latest and greatest info on any less invasive options. You might have to put up with a student or 2 hanging around, but you'll likely get some new options.
Wish I had more info for you.
I'll try to look into it further.

Good luck!