Woman's Health Horror: 'My Vagina Fell Out'

[Christa]

A real horror story

About ten weeks into my pregnancy, I was doing prenatal yoga and it felt like someone had rammed a pitchfork up my butt, so I stopped. It was an intense, sharp pain, but it passed. As I was feeding my daughter lunch a short time later, it felt like I had peed my pants, and when I ran to the bathroom, I saw I was gushing blood everywhere. It was the biggest scare of my life.

I rushed to the OB/GYN, and they said I hadn't lost the baby, thank God. But they couldn't figure out what was wrong, and I kept bleeding for 15 weeks straight. When I was 25 weeks pregnant, they put me in the hospital for three-and-a-half weeks on bed rest. That was the first time I had stopped bleeding in four months, and I was so relieved. When they released me, they put me on hospital-level bed rest at home, but even walking from the couch to the bathroom made me start bleeding again, so they had to put me back in the hospital. My son was born six-and-a-half weeks early, at 33 weeks.

What they ultimately found out was that I developed a hematoma outside the placenta. The baby was fine, thank God, and after he was released from five weeks in the NICU, we thought the whole ordeal was behind us. Boy, were we wrong about that.

One day in the bathroom, I felt something kind of strange when I was wiping. There wasn't really a hole there -- it felt kind of flat. I thought it was a little weird, but I had a 19-month-old and a newborn to care for, so I brushed it off. I wasn't bleeding, I wasn't in pain, so I didn't address it.

Over the next year, I noticed this more and more and more. I would feel that something was poking out of my vagina when I was wiping.

In the meantime, I had a massive emergency appendectomy, I got gangrene, and I was hospitalized. It took me about eight months to heal from that whole thing, so I didn't really address what was going on with my vagina.

One night, I took a look down there, and it was like my insides were on the outside and they were coming out. I knew I couldn't put this off any longer. I went to my doctor and said, "My vagina is falling out of my body!"

I was referred to a pelvic floor specialist. She took a look and said, "Holy crap -- your vagina is falling out of your body, and it's dragging your bladder and your rectum along with it!"

Read more: http://www.momlogic.com/2009/11/my_bits_fell_out_vaginal_prolapse.php#ixzz0WN97i4Pm








there is no god and I am his prophet

[hlthe2b]

1. I'm sure the specialist didn't say that...classic uterine prolapse

This happens sometimes--in dogs, not uncommonly as well. This lady went through hell, I'm sure, but I wish they'd had an editor provide a little professional medical context to the story. It comes off as sensationalized and unnecessarily bizarre.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Yep--not that uncommon, or to need rectocele/cystocele repair as well.

Still, the sheer amount of surgeries and complications she went through is stunning--hope she had good insurance.

[trotsky]

4. "sensationalized and unnecessarily bizarre"

Welcome to today's medical/science reporting, sadly.

[juno jones]

3. I'm just surprised that with all the other medical stuff

she had going on, no doctor even noticed it.

Then again I finally got treatment for something that my docs had told me was 'nothing' for over 15 years (lichen sclerosis). Thank gods for the internet and finally having doc who had actually seen it before. I managed to catch it before it became disfiguring.

I guess the lesson for us ladies is to be aware of what is going on and if you know something isn't right, don't put it off and be persistent. The docs aren't always right,concerned, or observant.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

5. Waiting 31 months to see a physician about an obvious problem is pretty dumb.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

6. To be fair

She could have been overweight and unable to examine herself down there. It felt funny to her, but she could easily have passed that off as a small change in anatomy from the baby and the problems during the pregnancy.

I'm surprised that a doctor didn't notice it when she was in the hospital with the other problems.

[Orrex]

8. "I'm surprised that a doctor didn't notice it when she was in the hospital with the other problems."

Yeah. I would think that such a catastrophic disruption could be easily caught by a routine post-partem ObGyn visit (assuming that the woman had access to such care, of course!)

[Orrex]

7. Holy moley! That's about the worst thing I've ever read!

I'll take twenty solid kicks in the balls over that horror, thank you very much.

I echo hlthe2b's wish that the article had shown more restraint in characterizing the reaction of the pelvic floor specialist, but otherwise... Yikes!

[Dorian Gray]

9. Why the heck did I open this post?

It's the most disturbing thing I've read in ages.

[Name removed]

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[grasswire]

11. I'm guessing she was not in a sexual relationship..

...after the birth of the child?

[Name removed]

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