I have a rectal prolapse and they won't give me an operation in case I have more children.

[scareditsgettingworse]

I feel like bloody crying, it has taken me a year to screw up the courage to go to the doctor and be examined about this bulge in my vagina, and now I am told they won't do anything because I am under thirty.

So forgive me my bitterness that Goerge bloody Best got a new liver to pickle, but nobody will sew my fanny up in case I irresponsably have another baby.

Not that I will ever dare let a man look at my fanny again, so that's a moot point really.

In fact, scratch the feel like, I am fucking crying.

second opinion is necessary

a referral to a gynae

you deserve something more than being sent away

She (the gp) looked really unhappy about what she was saying. But she kept having to go and talk to another GP because she had never seen one before.

It's not even very bad, she says it all looked ok to her, but I know it is there when I sit on the loo, and I am really unhappy about it.

I don't want to go and argue about my fanny, for god's sake it's easier to just live with it, it took me too long to go the first time.

Definitely get a second opinion, that's a disgraceful attitude from your consultant - or was this a GP?
So sorry to hear this.

This is due to cost then.
You know what I'd do?
Ask for a referral to a gynae and a specialist physio. Lie if you have to about continence and wellbeing issues.
If you can face it that is
Totally agree with you that arguing about the state of your undercarriage is humiliating. But my physio told me that the medical establishment in many cases rely on that reticence to keep caseloads down

Firstly, you poor thing, I can understand why you are so pissed off. I really feel for you that you screw up the courage to go to a Dr and then have someone who needs assistance as she has 'never seen one before'. Of course that is going to make you feel 1000 times worse.

I know you must be feeling bollocks to this, sod it, just live with it. But please, you have every right to have this sorted, and not to be fobbed off with the nonsense they have fed you with. I assume it was a GP you have just seen, please you need to ask for a referral to a consultant PDQ and/or a second opinion with a GP. If you have no satisfaction with this at the GP level you need to make a complaint to the practice manager.

I knowthis is probably the last thing you want to deal with, but you are entitled to have this sorted, you do not need to put up with it.

But I have had feacal incontinence, just not for about 10 months. I am doing pelvic floors every time I get a chance, I just can't, I can't go back there and be told that it's all part of having babies. I can't. I am only in my 20s and have two kids, and they obviously think I look like a breeder

Have you a friend you can take back with you for moral support? Presumably if you went onto to have another child you would see a consultant anyway to discuss c-section vs natural delivery?

Try to brave and "demand" a referral.

as others have said you need to ask for a referral to a gynae and to a physio

it is possible to be doing your pelvic floors wrong - sounds mad but true - a physio will help you improve things

Even the father of my children doesn't know about it, I can;'t tell anyone. I have namechanged here so nobody here knows either.

I just can't see the point in going back. The person the gp kept popping out to see was a Gyn i think, or a gp with special interest. How can i argue that? The gp couldn't see anything when she looked/

Could I go around the gps somehow? Like a FP clinic or something?

Speak to your HV and ask her to intercede on your behalf.

your only other option is to go private! Just ask for a referral to physio and explain that you are worried that you are doing the exercises incorrectly and you want to avoid future surgery as it seems to be getting worse.

Write it down in a letter - hand it over to the gp and refuse to leave until they refer???

Ok. I will write a letter, I think I might be able to do tha.

thank you all for your input.

was it you that posted about tampax turning around inside you?

hope you pluck up courage to go back and speak to someone else about this

I had a rectal and a bladder prolapse. It is part of having children unfortunately, but it can be dealt with (note - not cured) Did your GP actually ask you if you had finished having children or did they just assume? I had the surgery, but I have to essentially promise that I wouldn't have any more. It was first mentioned after I had DS1 in 1998, and I finally had it done in 2005. After I had DD in 2003 it got bad enough that I would have promised anything to get it fixed tbh. The problem from their POV is if you get it fixed and then get pg and reprolapse, the chances of the surgery working the next time are hugely reduced, and having gone through it myself it's so not something you want to have done over and over again.

Go back and ask to see a gynae at the hospital, they can lay it all out for you plus they can refer you to a physio.

FWIW if I did ever get pg again, I'd probably go for a CS but tbh the consulatant and physio both said it's the pg rather than the actual birth that causes the bulk of the damage.

Hi
I have been and still am sort of in the same situation as you.
About 10 years ago (aged 26 ) and with your symptoms i had major surgery to repair this.I was incontinent of faeces and my perineum needed refashioning also .
Afterwards i felt so much better.Pretty much 100%.
6 years on i decided to have another baby.
I am a midwife so i did know all the ins and outs iykwim !
I had lengthy chats with my medical colleques about c section versus vag delivery.
Decided to go for a natural birth as it was the pregnancy more than the labour which may cause a further rectocele.
I ended up getting stuck in second stage big time.
My sons head was visible for 3 hours before they transferred me to another hosp and then i pushed for another 2 hours as the doctors were busy in theatre.
I felt all my inside stiches give and out he came !
I now have a bl**dy rectocele now worse than ever.
I am occassionaly incontinent of faeces.
My perineum hurts as the prolapse rubs on it when i`ve been on my feet a lot or my bowel is full.

I saw a consultant who said he wanted to do an anterior and posterior repair with total hysterectomy within 6 months.
I was devasted.
I asked for a second opinion.
The cons i was suppossed to see was on hol but saw a nice registrar.
She agreed to do the repair without a hysterectomy-hooray !
I booked 3 months off work and arrived.
I was all gowned up-even had my pre op.
Because i was staff the consultant came to say good morning out of courtesy more than anything.
As she was leaving she said " and your absolutley sure you dont want any more children !!!!!!!!!!!! "

I asked her to check my notes.
I explained that i had been up front all along and did NOT want to rule it out.
Basically i was in tears,the registrar got a boll***g for not discussing my case, and i got dressed and came home.
I still have all my symptoms.
They have agreed to go ahead with surgery when i agree to a hysterectomy also.
I now know that leaving it wont make it any worse and that there is no rush.
I would rather have this prolapse than not have my uterus at the mo-but thats my way of looking at it.
Sorry its such a long one-but i really do know how you feel.
If you have surgery and get pregnant it will probably undo all the good work.
The more surgery you have the less chance of success and all surgery carries risk.
In the meantime i truly believe if yours is as bad as mine physio will do absolutley zilch.
I find swimming and losing weight has helped.
Along with a good pair of knickers.x

agree you need specialist and help and there are things that can be done short of surgery! fhs! "just part of having children" - the sheer misogyny of it. please go back to your gp and ask to be referred to a women's health physio for assessment. on your behalf.

Ok, I have scribbled a letter.

"dear Gp

I have recently been told by dr x I have a rectocele, and I wish to be referred to a specialist about it.

I do not feel that the pel;vic flor exercises are improving it at all./

Also I could be 20 years away from the menopause, and I do not feel it is reasonable to make me wait 20 years for treatment fot a humiliating and uncomfortable condition just on the off chance that I have another baby. I have no sex life because I can never show another man my genitals. I cannot just live with it.

Yours sincerely
Me"

To the OP - my mother had a prolapse, as did her mother before her, and since I have an identical body type to both my mother and grandmother I have read up a lot about prolapses, how to avoid them and how to treat them.

Basically, my understanding is that any operation to repair your prolapse will either render you infertile (if you have a hysterectomy) or be rendered useless by any further pregnancies, which can actually be harder on operated/repaired tissue than on the initial prolapse. It is not on cost grounds that women who have not finished their families are not operated on for prolapse, but on medical grounds.

Try going back to your GP to see whether she can explain this better, or try researching on the internet.

In the UK GPs will unashamedly admit to not referring women for specialist physio on cost grounds

Marina - I believe you.

But I have for much of my life lived in countries where cost is not really an object if you have decent medical insurance, and in both those countries prolapse would not be treated unless a woman had completed her family on medical grounds.

I ought to have written - prolapses would not be operated on...

I can see the medical rationale for not operating in some circumstances, esp after fakeblonde's post but I think the OP has the right to discuss it with an expert at consultant level, if only to have the inadvisability of surgery and any other alternative courses of action, properly explained.
Incontinence post childbirth is routinely dismissed by many doctors as one of those things you have to live with, so there is a reluctance at GP level to even refer for discussion and dx confirmation.
It's a national scandal IMO

am horrified by the lack of sympathy and understanding with regard to this obviously neglected condition. do seek a 2nd opinion, good luck, xxxx

Marina - absolutely, I completely agree that the OP ought to get proper explanation of the rationale for refusal to operate.

Here in France "réeducation périnéale" is standard practice after childbirth. French obstetricians and midwives are also a lot fiercer with pregnant women about weight gain (basically 9 kg all told is the maximised authorised limit), and, as I read threads like this one and the other one at the moment about saggy skin and stretchmarks, I wonder whether there isn't something right about limiting weight gain as it does put a lot of additional strain on a woman's pregnant body.