Chronic constipation

[Liv12b]

hi so I have been suffering with severe chronic constipation soft stools for almost 3 years, they have done testings and ruled out nothing. I always feel it in my rectum and they did a defecography on me last week and found an intra-anal intussusception and a 2.5 cm Rectocele. I am confused on this. Do you think this is causing my issue and what really is this. I’m 22 so it’s confusing on how I have this

[edwangy]

I've been diagnosed with exactly the same, rectocele and intussusception. Saw colorectal surgeon last week who is referring me to pelvic floor clinic. I've suffered with constipation and continual pain for over 2 years and have just been passed around the system with no treatment as yet

[Liv12b in reply to edwangy]

I know it’s the worst , did they tell you when you’ll start pt ?

[edwangy in reply to Liv12b]

No, he's jus t referring me, I'll probably have to wait months on the NHS

[Gold22]

Hi I have a rectocele and yes it does make it difficult to open your bowels even when soft because the poo gets stuck in the bulge that the rectocele creates just inside your anus. The intussusception will also cause problems because the bowel folds in on itself. You are very young to have these problems bless you. Hope they can sort it out for you soon.

[Liv12b in reply to Gold22]

Have they fixed your issue? And I just gave birth 8 weeks ago, but I’ve been having those issues with cosntipation for almost 3 years in pain. Do you think I been had the intusception or did it come from giving birth ? Because I don’t want them to misdiagnose me you know

[Gold22 in reply to Liv12b]

hi I haven’t had treatment for the rectocele. I saw a pelvic physio recently and have been doing the exercises. She also taught me how to assist my bowel to empty by support the area between my vagina and rectum when opening my bowel it has helped a lot. Because you are so soon after giving birth them will need to wait for your pelvic muscles to strengthen before they decide if you need surgical treatment for the rectocele. The intusception May need treatment but not sure what they would do for it. Your problems could have been there before your pregnancy and made worse by giving birth.

[Liv12b in reply to Gold22]

Do you think pregnancy caused the intussusception or no? I have been suffering for so long I just want it to be over. All I feel is poop in my rectum and I can’t pass gas or stools , it just stays there and I feel it all day long. Can intussusception cause this as well?

[Gold22 in reply to Liv12b]

I really don’t know it can happen anytime and is rare. You need to keep on at your gp and whoever did the scans because you must have treatment for it because it can stop the bowel movement. I often feel poo in my rectum and occasionally use suppositories to help it past but your diagnosis is complicated. Do keep on the specialists and get more help. It takes time for the bowel and pelvic floor to get back to normal after child birth but not being able to go with no wind is concerning, go back to your gp, to demand a treatment plan. I wish you all the best.

[Liv12b in reply to Gold22]

Yeah I have almost 3 years and no laxatives work whatsoever , I go once to twice a month and I feel it in my rectum all the time so it’s affecting me . I stay in bed all day due to it sitting there cuz it’s so painful and I am in discomfort.

[Gold22 in reply to Liv12b]

My gosh you must get help for this, this is a crazy way to live… did you what the programme on tv channel 4 Know your s***t it was very good and had a women who could not go like you. I hope you get the help you need, urgently. 🙏

[Liv12b in reply to Gold22]

Thankyou ! I hope these are the answers I’ve been looking for because these whole past 2 and a half years they’ve been diagnosing me with ibs c

[EOLHPC]

Sorry you’re having to manage this miserable stuff. have you ever been examined for hypermobility? Because my teen onset version of this has been attributed to my hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. I also had teen onset bleeding prolapsing piles. I’m 70 and had a lifetime of figuring out how to make these sort of things more bearable…they did become my ‘normal’ which has made it all the important bit more bearable. Whishing you every best wish 💞 Coco

This link explains about hEDS gastroenterological issues:

ehlers-danlos.org/informati...

[SteveR12 in reply to EOLHPC]

hello Hi Barnclown, can I just draw on your lifetimes experience just in the area of prolapsing haemorrhoids. I was just wondering if I can ask how you have made these more bearable as I suffer these after every BM or 30 minutes of walking or standing, sitting down though is no problem at all. I have found no solution or work around to make them stay in once I have pushed them back in. Thanks very much indeed.

[EOLHPC in reply to SteveR12]

Hello Steve: sorry you’re contending with this. It’s very hard! Way back in 1985 when my case became acute/critical the NHS moved very fast to operate. But onset was much earlier in the early 1970s. At first mine just bled due to BMs. But gradually they began to hurt more. I was very young & the GP who Dx mine offered no practical advice or treatment except not to ‘strain’. I was too shy to discuss the subject with anyone, so just toughed mine out until they began prolapsing & hurting a lot more in the 1970s.

Back then I couldn’t find any self help advice in books or libraries, but I did find Anusol ointment & suppositories which helped a lot at first, but as time passed I had to use them more & more frequently 24/7/12…I also think my healthy relatively high fibre helped. Also I just did what you are: kept: pushing them back in. But soon the pain & protrusion got worse worse: & eventually bleeding began again. it was all agonisingly painful .- so bad at times the Anusol products just didn’t help enough so I used to have to lie flat on the floor or ground for a few minutes wherever I was, which somehow helped, whereas cushions etc didn’t.

Eventually they began to strangulate & the agony was so severe I tried chillling my underside etc but nothing helped, so I saw my gp who was horrified & referred me for urgent surgery - this was in the mid 1980s so I was treated promptly. Since then I’ve had no probs, but I keep an eye on the science & treatments progressing…which is good, because now have had bleeding from back passage my gastroenterologist has ordered a flexible sigmoidoscopy - this may not be piles…we ‘ll see

Wishing you every best wish & good luck

[SteveR12 in reply to EOLHPC]

Thanks very much indeed Barnclown for all that information, that is really, really useful to know and hugely appreciated!! I, like you, try and keep up with the latest technology and medical progress, but, with stage 4 haemorrhoids it still appears there is shockingly only one, "treatment" - the now, 60 years old!! operation - hemorrhoidectomy, but what surprises me much more in this "Technological age", is there are not even any medical devices of any kind at all in existence. Surely there must be literally countless different types of really simple small, anatomically shaped pieces of ptfe/plastic that could be designed you could just "slip in" to stop the haemorrhoids "slipping out" as and when you required e.g. if you just wanted to go for a walk/stand up/whatever, for, say, an hour, or more, but there is literally nothing, which I just don't understand, and, since 2017, the NHS stopped recommending hemorrhoidectomy because of its high failure rate combined with the fact that it rates 9 out of 10 on their pain scale, as confirmed by two people I know who had it, one of them said even if it fails he's never going through that operation again. I am probably headed in the same direction you experienced but trying hard to avoid that and ideally trying to reverse the situation if I can think of or find a way. Thanks very much indeed again for sharing your experience and knowledge 😀.

[EOLHPC in reply to SteveR12]

Gosh Steve! That’s absolutely shocking! So I had this op relatively shortly after it was invented? (ie in 1985). Sorry, @ 70 my brain function with infant onset lupus etc, isn’t great. Have I got that right?

Inreally don’t know as much about this as you do…am very glad of the details you’re sharing, which have me feeling very lucky my 1985 haemorrhoidectomy has been as successful with relatively bearable neg side effects as it has 😬.

You’ve triggered a memory in 70 year old me: back a year or so after my op when I was something like 31, a friend of a friend had a nhs haemorrhoidectomy & told my friend it was more painful than her childbirths! Which mystified me cause the nhs sure gave me the impression I was fine being totally ignored re basic info & post op care. I suffered dreadful pain for several weeks & thought I was just a wimp! I had a horrible night nurse right after my op who was so mean to me …& in hospital the clinicians gave me next to no info or about any aspect of the op (my first surgery ever);…all in all it was an extremely traumatising experience. Good luck Steve & take care 🤝

[SteveR12 in reply to EOLHPC]

OMG Barnclown! So sorry to hear about what you went through!!, but glad you now know you were not in any way being a wimp, your description of horrendous pain for weeks after your haemorrhoidectomy is exactly what the NHS knows everyone will experience, hence their 9/10 pain classification. Your friend's description of her haemorrhoidectomy actually being much worse than the pain of childbirth, is actually, exactly the phrase many other women who have had haemorrhoidectomy, described their resultant level of pain as being (if you check on any of the many web pages where people describe their experience of a haemorrhoidectomy you will find that exact phrase used many times by women).

I have just checked how old that operation is and it was actually invented in 1937, so the NHS still use a 90 year old operation, they have failed to improve on - I wonder why it causes people such agony???

Anyways, thanks again for all your insights and I wish you the very best with your medical treatments 😀.

[EOLHPC in reply to SteveR12]

Thanks Steve. You’re one of the very few who know how to acknowledge this sorta thing without getting soppy: that’s what suits me best! When I was dispassionately responding to my father asking how I was after the op, his response was: I had same op when I was in my 20s. And that was it. He was in the army during WW2…they were toughies…back then young men had all their teeth pulled out so there was no need to spend your life caring for & maintaining them. they were toughies!

So Pop’s attitude encouraged my grin & bear it way of coping with a lifetime of health horrors due to having been born with a whole bunch of rare chronic infant onset immune dysfunction & connective tissue disorders….my Pop always helped me keep my agonies in perspective (he also had severe early onset cardiac illness…loads of major surgeries etc..yet never complained…just got on with it)…Frankly, I think his way has lots of disadvantages, & I’m very very glad of the info sharing & solidarity that’s become the norm now (eg I love that you’ve found these people online describing this subject) facilitated by the internet + our health system being forced into a less opaque, paternalistic pattern of dealing with patients, now called clients 😁

Anyway, to your question:

I have just checked how old that operation is and it was actually invented in 1937, so the NHS still use a 90 year old operation, they have failed to improve on - I wonder why it causes people such agony???

Over 70 years constantly of dealing with a lot of health professionals, I think things don’t change unless there’s enough funding & interest in research + enough profit motive ie enough clients paying enough + complaining effectively enough + enough industrial complex & health care professionals actually having to endure the op 😈…

I’m unable to bear children, so first learning in the mid 1980s that this op’s recovery pain is worse than childbirth added a lot more understanding/perspective re the 2 bodily experiences, for sure! I’ve been pottering along ever since suspecting the reason for this amazing disparity in pain levels could involve childbirth being an actual function the body is designed to perform (yes involving great pain, but so does stuff like getting your teeth through in babyhood: these are ‘just life’ pains) whereas we are not designed to evacuate through a disabled & wounded back passage…which is filled with a fantastic/miraculous coordinated system of nerves, veins, soft tissues doing a crucial job etc etc

My goodness you got me going! Thanks again for getting into all this with me 💞

[Krisbetty]

Have you tried what is called a squat toilet stool this raise your knees higher than your hips place your elbows on your knees. Bulge our your abdomen and straighten your spine. It takes a bit of practice but it helps me.