Why Does It Hurt When I Poop? 8 Causes of Painful Bowel Movements

Written by Stephanie Booth

• Constipation
• Hemorrhoids
• Anal Fissures
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease
• Skin Conditions
• Infections
• Endometriosis
• Anal Cancer
• More

Pain when you poop isn’t something you “just have to live with.” It’s a symptom of another health issue, and you can treat most of them easily.

If you have trouble on the toilet, it helps to learn the causes so you and your doctor can figure out the best way to take care of the problem.

If food doesn’t move through your digestive tract fast enough, your colon absorbs too much water. This leaves your stool hard and dry, so it hurts to push it out. Many things can make you constipated, including some medicines, too little fluid or fiber in your diet, lack of exercise, and big changes in your habits or lifestyle, such as travel or pregnancy.

Besides pain when you poop, constipation can make you feel sluggish and bloated and cause belly pain. Most of the time, eating a healthy diet, drinking more water, and exercising more can help.

Call your doctor if fiber, exercise, and more water don’t help. If you think a drug is making you constipated, ask your doctor if you can switch to a different one that doesn’t have this side effect.

Nearly 3 out of 4 people get these swollen veins around their anus. They can happen if you sit too long on the toilet or strain too much during a bowel movement. Pregnancy and obesity can raise your chances of getting them, too.

If your hemorrhoid forms a blood clot, you can have pain when you poop, sit, or walk.

If a hemorrhoid is causing your painful bowel movements, you might also have:

• Bleeding during bowel movements or small amounts of bright red blood on your toilet tissue or in the toilet
• Itching or irritation around your anus
• Pain or discomfort
• Swelling around your anus
• A lump near your anus, which may be sensitive or painful

Warm baths, stool softener, and an over-the-counter hemorrhoid cream can help.

Call your doctor if your pain doesn’t clear up within a few days. The clot may need to be removed. This is a quick procedure that some doctors do in their office.

It’s common to get small tears inside or around your anus, the opening where your poop comes out. These anal fissures are often caused by a large or very hard stool. They cause the muscles around your anus to spasm, so bowel movements hurt.

If these tears are the source of your pain, you can try to drink more fluids and add extra fiber to your diet. This will make your stools softer, so they don’t hurt as much.

Anal fissures often heal within a few weeks. If not, your doctor could prescribe a drug that helps stop the spasms and allows the area to heal faster. In rare cases, people may have surgery for anal fissures.

Ulcerative colitis is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes swelling, soreness, and ulcers in your large intestine (colon) and rectum, which make pooping painful.

Another type of IBD, called Crohn’s disease, has similar symptoms to ulcerative colitis.

You may also have stomach cramping or diarrhea that’s bloody or contains pus. Some people with ulcerative colitis have an urgent need to poop or feel like not all their poop comes out.

Although ulcerative colitis is a lifelong condition, many different drugs can help. Some calm down an overactive immune system — your body’s defense against germs — which doctors believe may be a cause. Others manage your symptoms. While surgery can get rid of your ulcerative colitis for good, that often means taking out your colon and rectum.

Long-term skin problems like eczema, psoriasis, and warts can affect the area around your anus. Besides pain before, after, and while you poop, you could notice itching and bleeding around the area where your bowel movement comes out.

If you think one of these might be causing your painful poops, you should see a doctor sooner rather than later. Your doctor may need to take a small sample from your skin down there to send to a lab. This will confirm the cause of your discomfort and how to best treat it.

Some infections can cause anal pain before, during, or after bowel movements. These include:

• Anal abscess (a pocket of pus near your anus or rectum), which may also come with pain, redness, or swelling around the anus
• Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) like chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes, and syphilis, which may come with anal pain, bleeding, discharge, or itching
• Fungal infections, which can include mild to severe rectal pain

You should see a doctor if you think you have an infection. You’ll likely get medicine in the form of a cream or a pill. In some cases, if you have a deep abscess, you might also need surgery. Once your infection clears up, your bowel movements shouldn’t hurt anymore.

Although the reasons why aren’t clear, the type of tissue that grows inside a woman’s uterus sometimes spreads to other organs in the pelvis. It then builds up and bleeds just like the lining of your uterus during a monthly period. Known as endometriosis, this condition causes swelling, inflammation, and chronic pain. It can also cause you to feel a shooting pain when you poop.

Your doctor can look for signs of endometriosis with imaging tests. Hormone therapy can offer some relief. In severe cases, surgery to remove the misplaced tissue will also help.

You should see your doctor about endometriosis if any of these things happen to you:

• Pain for several days during your menstrual cycle
• Menstrual pain that causes you to miss work
• Pain that causes you to avoid sexual intercourse
• You change your lifestyle because of pain

While not as likely as other reasons, anal cancer can cause painful pooping. Besides soreness and pressure when you have a bowel movement, bleeding is often an early sign. You could also have anal itching, discharge, or notice that your stool looks more narrow than normal.

If your pain or bleeding doesn’t go away, or if it gets worse after a few days, see your doctor. They’ll do a physical exam to check for signs of cancer. If you do have an anal tumor, doctors will treat it with surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation.

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Why Does It Hurt When I Poop? 8 Causes of Painful Bowel Movements

Written by Stephanie Booth

• Constipation
• Hemorrhoids
• Anal Fissures
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease
• Skin Conditions
• Infections
• Endometriosis
• Anal Cancer
• More

Pain when you poop isn’t something you “just have to live with. ” It’s a symptom of another health issue, and you can treat most of them easily.

If you have trouble on the toilet, it helps to learn the causes so you and your doctor can figure out the best way to take care of the problem.

If food doesn’t move through your digestive tract fast enough, your colon absorbs too much water. This leaves your stool hard and dry, so it hurts to push it out. Many things can make you constipated, including some medicines, too little fluid or fiber in your diet, lack of exercise, and big changes in your habits or lifestyle, such as travel or pregnancy.

Besides pain when you poop, constipation can make you feel sluggish and bloated and cause belly pain.Most of the time, eating a healthy diet, drinking more water, and exercising more can help.

Call your doctor if fiber, exercise, and more water don’t help. If you think a drug is making you constipated, ask your doctor if you can switch to a different one that doesn’t have this side effect.

Nearly 3 out of 4 people get these swollen veins around their anus. They can happen if you sit too long on the toilet or strain too much during a bowel movement. Pregnancy and obesity can raise your chances of getting them, too.

If your hemorrhoid forms a blood clot, you can have pain when you poop, sit, or walk.

If a hemorrhoid is causing your painful bowel movements, you might also have:

• Bleeding during bowel movements or small amounts of bright red blood on your toilet tissue or in the toilet
• Itching or irritation around your anus
• Pain or discomfort
• Swelling around your anus
• A lump near your anus, which may be sensitive or painful

Warm baths, stool softener, and an over-the-counter hemorrhoid cream can help.

Call your doctor if your pain doesn’t clear up within a few days. The clot may need to be removed. This is a quick procedure that some doctors do in their office.

It’s common to get small tears inside or around your anus, the opening where your poop comes out. These anal fissures are often caused by a large or very hard stool. They cause the muscles around your anus to spasm, so bowel movements hurt.

If these tears are the source of your pain, you can try to drink more fluids and add extra fiber to your diet. This will make your stools softer, so they don’t hurt as much.

Anal fissures often heal within a few weeks. If not, your doctor could prescribe a drug that helps stop the spasms and allows the area to heal faster. In rare cases, people may have surgery for anal fissures.

Ulcerative colitis is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes swelling, soreness, and ulcers in your large intestine (colon) and rectum, which make pooping painful.

Another type of IBD, called Crohn’s disease, has similar symptoms to ulcerative colitis.

You may also have stomach cramping or diarrhea that’s bloody or contains pus. Some people with ulcerative colitis have an urgent need to poop or feel like not all their poop comes out.

Although ulcerative colitis is a lifelong condition, many different drugs can help. Some calm down an overactive immune system — your body’s defense against germs — which doctors believe may be a cause. Others manage your symptoms. While surgery can get rid of your ulcerative colitis for good, that often means taking out your colon and rectum.

Long-term skin problems like eczema, psoriasis, and warts can affect the area around your anus. Besides pain before, after, and while you poop, you could notice itching and bleeding around the area where your bowel movement comes out.

If you think one of these might be causing your painful poops, you should see a doctor sooner rather than later. Your doctor may need to take a small sample from your skin down there to send to a lab. This will confirm the cause of your discomfort and how to best treat it.

Some infections can cause anal pain before, during, or after bowel movements. These include:

• Anal abscess (a pocket of pus near your anus or rectum), which may also come with pain, redness, or swelling around the anus
• Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) like chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes, and syphilis, which may come with anal pain, bleeding, discharge, or itching
• Fungal infections, which can include mild to severe rectal pain

You should see a doctor if you think you have an infection. You’ll likely get medicine in the form of a cream or a pill. In some cases, if you have a deep abscess, you might also need surgery. Once your infection clears up, your bowel movements shouldn’t hurt anymore.

Although the reasons why aren’t clear, the type of tissue that grows inside a woman’s uterus sometimes spreads to other organs in the pelvis. It then builds up and bleeds just like the lining of your uterus during a monthly period. Known as endometriosis, this condition causes swelling, inflammation, and chronic pain. It can also cause you to feel a shooting pain when you poop.

Your doctor can look for signs of endometriosis with imaging tests. Hormone therapy can offer some relief. In severe cases, surgery to remove the misplaced tissue will also help.

You should see your doctor about endometriosis if any of these things happen to you:

• Pain for several days during your menstrual cycle
• Menstrual pain that causes you to miss work
• Pain that causes you to avoid sexual intercourse
• You change your lifestyle because of pain

While not as likely as other reasons, anal cancer can cause painful pooping. Besides soreness and pressure when you have a bowel movement, bleeding is often an early sign. You could also have anal itching, discharge, or notice that your stool looks more narrow than normal.

If your pain or bleeding doesn’t go away, or if it gets worse after a few days, see your doctor. They’ll do a physical exam to check for signs of cancer. If you do have an anal tumor, doctors will treat it with surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation.

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Abdominal pain after defecation

Contents

1. Introduction 2. The nature and causes of pain

Defecation is the natural process of bowel movement. The excretion of feces comes from the rectum, which belongs to the large intestine. The accumulated waste products put pressure on the sphincters, a person has two of them, internal and external. Normally, defecation occurs painlessly and does not cause discomfort to a person. The frequency of this process depends on the individual characteristics of the body, diet and the function of the gastrointestinal tract. Ideally, the need to defecate occurs 1-2 times a day. If something in the digestive tract is disturbed, then the structure of the stool and its frequency change. Liquid feces or too hard – an alarming symptom that requires correction of its root cause. With constipation, trauma to the rectal mucosa can occur, which will be accompanied by pain and potentially threatening complications.

Defecation in the human body is controlled by reflexes. As soon as a sufficient amount of stool accumulates in the rectum, the brain receives the appropriate signal. Some neurological pathologies can cause malfunctions at this stage, which prevents normal bowel movements.

Pain during and after the act of defecation can be different. A person may experience discomfort in the area of ​​the anus, in the abdomen, lower back. Often there is a phenomenon of irradiation, when discomfort spreads to neighboring areas. People also describe the nature of pain in different ways. Someone feels a pulsation, others experience pain, pulling or aching pain. All these descriptive characteristics are important for the doctor in the process of taking an anamnesis and making a diagnosis.

One of the main causes of discomfort when going to the toilet is exacerbation of hemorrhoids. In some cases, the chronic course of this disease turns into an acute process, prolapse and pinching of the hemorrhoid can occur. The reason for this condition is the stagnant process in the veins located around the rectum. In turn, this condition occurs as a result of physical inactivity, due to inadequate or uncharacteristic physical activity, during pregnancy and childbirth. Both a sharp lifting of weights and a violation of the diet can provoke an exacerbation. The lack of regular physical activity has a depressing effect not only on the bloodstream, but also on the work of the muscle structures responsible for defecation.

Constipation or mechanical trauma to the rectum can cause an anal fissure. A fissure is a defect in the intestinal mucosa, during defecation it will cause acute discomfort, bleeding is possible. Potentially, a crack poses a danger of possible infection of tissues through it, the occurrence of suppuration and abscess. These conditions threaten deterioration of health, fever, weakness.

The lack of a normal diet and daily activity lead to another disease that can provoke pain after defecation – diverticulosis. This pathology appears with a deterioration in the contractility of the intestine and is the appearance of small protrusions of the wall. Diverticula usually do not cause discomfort, but in case of inflammation they become a source of pain that will be felt in the lower abdomen, lumbar region and groin.

If the tissues surrounding the anal passage become inflamed, forming a purulent focus, then this condition is called paraproctitis. Acute paraproctitis is painful, accompanied by fever, severe pain, and defecation can be difficult.

Among the pathologies of the large intestine that can cause pain during bowel movements, it is worth noting ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. These are inflammatory problems caused by autoimmune processes. During the period of symptomatic relief and in the absence of trigger factors, they may not bother, but in the acute period they cause pain. During defecation, blood may be released, among the symptoms are fever, chills, weight loss that is unreasonable for other reasons.

Among the possible sources of pain after defecation, there are oncological diseases. Typically, patients show symptoms such as loss of appetite, spotting, loss of strength, weight loss.

In women, pain in the lower abdomen and in the perineum may be associated with gynecological pathologies.

Treatment depends on the diagnosis, the tactics of therapy are determined by the doctor. Depending on the severity of the condition and the degree of neglect of the disease, conservative and operative methods can be used. Diagnosis includes questioning and examination of the patient, laboratory and instrumental studies. In addition to the help of a coloproctologist, the patient may need to consult a gastroenterologist, oncologist, or neurologist.

Need expert help? We look forward to seeing you at our multidisciplinary medical center. Call +7 (4842) 20-70-20! Call +7 (4842) 20-70-20!

FAQ

You don’t need to bring anything with you! The medical center will provide disposable comfortable underwear and other consumable items. Our task is to solve a delicate problem as comfortably as possible for you.

If there are no complaints and the next of kin did not have cancer of the rectum, it is recommended to visit a proctologist every 5 years.

If there are complaints and a genetic predisposition, consult a doctor immediately!

Proctological examination is performed with minimal discomfort for the patient. The diagnosis is made by the doctor, based on the testimony of sigmoidoscopy and anoscopy. These are absolutely painless procedures. Colonoscopy in some cases can be done with anesthesia. But it can not be carried out during pregnancy (with rare exceptions, with a direct threat to life and health).

You need to pay attention to the shade of blood in the stool. The darker it is, the higher the area of ​​​​the gastrointestinal tract is affected. Bright red blood indicates damage to the rectum or anus. Hidden blood in the stool may indicate the presence of cancer.

Usually this is exactly what happens. Provided that there are no absolute contraindications or special requirements for preparation. In the presence of relative contraindications, therapy is postponed until they are eliminated.

Pain in the lower abdomen after defecation: causes, diagnosis, treatment

Contents

1. Introduction
2. The nature and causes of pain

Many patients experience discomfort in the lower abdomen after going to the toilet. Pain in this area cannot be called a specific symptom, which will become the basis for an immediate diagnosis. The fact is that discomfort after defecation can appear under different conditions. In addition, often the pain radiates, that is, it spreads from the zone of occurrence to neighboring areas, which does not make it possible to determine exactly what exactly hurts.

Normally, the process of bowel movement is easy and fast, neither before, nor during or after a person should feel discomfort. If everything is in order with the gastrointestinal tract, then defecation occurs daily, and sometimes several times a day. But when something is wrong with the body, it is reflected in the frequency of the stool, its consistency and the very process of excretion of feces.

Pain after a bowel movement is different. Patients may describe their sensations as sharp, aching, throbbing. For pain, such characteristics as dull, sharp, pulling are also used. There can be many reasons for the occurrence of such an unpleasant symptom, but most often it turns out to be proctological problems: hemorrhoids and anal fissures.

Hemorrhoids can rightly be called a disease of modern man. A sedentary lifestyle, stagnant processes in the pelvis, inadequate physical activity, pregnancy and childbirth – these and other factors inhibit the normal blood circulation in the venous plexuses near the anus and in the rectum. Enlarged hemorrhoids are often injured during the passage of feces, for example, if they are very constipated. Prolapse of the internal node and its infringement by the sphincter may also occur – this condition is accompanied by acute pain. Both constipation and mechanical trauma to the rectum can cause a fissure to form in the anus. Due to the violation of the integrity of the tissues during defecation, a patient with such a problem will experience pain. The crack sometimes becomes a “gateway” for the penetration of infection, then there are serious complications.

Both hemorrhoids and anal fissures require treatment. That is why with pain in the lower abdomen after defecation and other alarming symptoms of proctological diseases, you should consult a doctor as soon as possible. In our multidisciplinary medical center, you can get advice from a qualified specialist in the field of coloproctology.

Questions and Answers

Provided that there are no complaints and your immediate family has not had rectal cancer, it is recommended to visit a proctologist every 5 years.

If you feel discomfort, you should immediately contact a specialist!

A proctologist always cares about your convenience, which means that all diagnostic manipulations will be carried out as accurately as possible and in comfortable conditions!

The procedure is necessary for most patients when diagnosing pathologies of the rectum. Many diseases can proceed secretly, for a long time without manifesting themselves. Thanks to rectoscopy, it became possible to diagnose them at an early stage.

Rectoscopy is painless. Severe pain during the procedure speaks of inflammatory processes, which is the basis for transferring the procedure.

Yes, there are a number of drugs that can affect the muscle contractions of the intestinal wall. However, in any case, do not prescribe medication yourself!

The use of laxatives, activated charcoal or other similar medications may have a positive effect. But their intake should not be systematic, since in many diseases, increased peristalsis causes serious bleeding.

Influencing peristalsis in a safe way is possible through increased physical activity and proper nutrition.

Unfortunately not. Visual examination and anoscopy do not always provide enough data to make a diagnosis or detect pathology at an early stage. Outwardly, the problem may not manifest itself in any way, developing inside.