Exclusive | I had to push my organs back up inside my body on a regular basis but doctors said nothing was wrong
Working as a deli manager, Rashan Williams needs to lift some heavy boxes.It was while bending over to do that when she would notice something “shift.”It wasn’t painful.
But she knew something was wrong, especially when she went to the bathroom.“I would wipe.I would feel a bulge, like something was hanging out [of my vagina],” the 42-year-old from St.
Petersburg, Florida, said.Years passed, and the bulge dropped lower and lower.“I could maneuver it,” she said.
“I can push it out.I can flip it to the side.
It was just crazy.”Williams would later learn she was suffering from a pelvic organ prolapse, a condition in which the pelvic floor muscles and tissue weaken, causing surrounding organs — like the bladder, uterus or bowels — to sag into the vaginal canal.Up to 50% of all women will experience some prolapse in their lifetime, with childbirth, heavier body weight and aging all increasing risk.Yet only 18-50% of them seek medical attention.
And 30% of women aren’t aware surgery can fix the problem.Williams was one of the women who tried to get answers — and it took 10 years to learn what was happening to her.Besides the bulge, Williams also experienced heavy periods and was constantly needing to pee, requiring frequent breaks at work.Yet she saw multiple obstetricians who didn’t see anything wrong.“I kept getting the door shut in my face, because everybody was telling me they didn’t see anything.Nothing was wrong,” she said.
“After going to so many doctors over the years, that caused me to get discouraged and I just kind of stopped.”The prolapse never affected her ability to walk and she was never in pain.But that “block” was still there.“I kept going to doctors and they weren’t seeing nothing wrong,” Williams said.
“I’m like, if I feel it, how can y’all not see it?”Rashan’s long journey to diagnosis is not typical, Dr.Nyarai Chinyani Mushonga, a urogynecologist at Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital, told...