Are you full of crap?

Literally. Hi ladies! Have you ever wondered what your poo is telling you? Are you “normal”? Do you go regular enough? Keep reading to work out if you have issues with your back of house plumbing…

Did you know? As long as you poo anywhere from 1-3 times each day, to only pooing once every 3 days, you are “normal”! This is a big window and anything within this time frame is classified as regular bowel movements. 

Do you know anyone, or perhaps yourself, who sits on the toilet for what feels like ages trying to do a poo? The “normal” time frame to do a poo is within 1 minute of sitting on the toilet. If you take any longer than this, your poo might be telling you it needs some help. 

So what happens when your system isn’t quite working like this?

1 in 20 people suffer from poor bowel control. It might hurt to poo. They might feel like their poo is stuck. Or that they go multiple times because they don’t feel that they empty properly each time. Or that they need to change positions on the toilet or use pressure from their hands to help their poo come out. Does this sound like you? Have you ever felt a bulge into, or in more severe cases, coming out of your vagina as you are pooing? 

You are not alone. Constipation has many different causes. We are lucky enough to have a Level 1 Women’s Health Physiotherapist to help you sort out all your issues “down there” and find out what might be causing some of your symptoms. Like the saying goes, “shit doesn’t just happen”! We often need to change some of the things we do to help our body along. That is where we can help.

Straining on the toilet can cause permanent damage to the structures down within your pelvis and is one of the major causes of ‘prolapses’. If your bowel is prolapsing into your vagina (picture this like your bowel is a hernia protruding into your vagina), your poo will get stuck in that pocket and won’t be able to get out. The more you strain, the higher the chances you will worsen this. This is just one of the causes of the symptoms we have mentioned above.

Other people can’t poo easily because the muscles that make up their Pelvic Floor can’t let go, whether it’s due to pain, previous surgeries, abuse or many other factors. Your poo can’t leave if the gates don’t open!

So what can we do to help? Our Women’s Health Physio will be able to meet with you and assess what treatment is required. So many times, helping your bowels can be SO easy, and just require a few simple day to day changes. 

So if anything above is sounding like you, or if you simply just want to learn how to prevent constipation and reducing your risk of a prolapse, click the 'Book now' button and book yourself a Women’s Health Initial Consult, or call us on (08) 8682 6665 and our friendly admin team will happily book you in. 

In the meantime, check out the Continence Foundation of Australia website (https://www.continence.org.au/) for all issues Bladder, Bowel and Pelvic Floor to get you started.