# How to stop the burning and itching?



## dECIBEL7 (Sep 11, 2012)

Hi everyone,

I've been suffering from IBS-D for about 3 years now. Last year, I tried a few antidepressants (Zyprexa, Elavil, and Remeron). They all seemed to work well for a short time, then it's like my body adapted to them. I ended up just stopping because once they became ineffective, all that they did is make me tired all of the time. Except for Zyprexa. It seemed to continue to work to some extent (though mild). I had to quit taking it because I became pre-diabetic: one of the portential risks.

Anyway, my major complaint right now is burning/itching after bowel movements in the morning. Almost every morning, right when I get out of bed, my stomach churns and I rush to the bathroom. I don't really have full on D, but it's yellow and soft. I can usually see dinner from last night floating around in there too. Then the itching and burning starts. No matter how clean I wipe, there's always more to wipe away about two hours later. My current remedy is using Puro lotion (sanitary wiping lotion). Tucks, baby wipes, and preparation-h all make it worse.

A better question is: how do I delay my morning bowel movements/slow down motility like the antidepressants did? Immodium, Lotomil (Lomotil?), Calcium, Zofran, and Fiber don't work for me. I'm experimenting with L-Glutamine right now and not eating anything after 6 PM.

When I was on the antidepressants and they were working, I wouldn't have a bowel movement until 2 pm or later, and it was like my body took time to actually digest. Everything came out formed and brown, and nothing itched.


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## windemere (Sep 25, 2011)

The itching/burning could be from hemrhoids (sp?). I had them and they were VERY uncomfortable. Prep H helped with those. I take 2 imodium before bed. When i wake up i dont have urgency and normally have a solid, formed bm right before noon. Ive been doing this for about 2 weeks now and have yet to wake up with horrible cramps and diarrhea like i have in the past.


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## storyofmylife (Jan 26, 2013)

sitz baths ?


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## Bet Sobon (Jul 2, 2013)

For the itching and burning, I use A&D ointment. I also get rashy if I have a lot of bowel movements and the wiping makes it worse. It's a bit greasy, but it calms things down wonderfully.

Have you tried altering your diet to eliminate foods that can cause IBS flares? Foodmaps, gluten?


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## dECIBEL7 (Sep 11, 2012)

windemere said:


> The itching/burning could be from hemrhoids (sp?). I had them and they were VERY uncomfortable. Prep H helped with those. I take 2 imodium before bed. When i wake up i dont have urgency and normally have a solid, formed bm right before noon. Ive been doing this for about 2 weeks now and have yet to wake up with horrible cramps and diarrhea like i have in the past.


That's the first thing my GI checked for. Unfortunately, not my case.



Bet Sobon said:


> For the itching and burning, I use A&D ointment. I also get rashy if I have a lot of bowel movements and the wiping makes it worse. It's a bit greasy, but it calms things down wonderfully.
> 
> Have you tried altering your diet to eliminate foods that can cause IBS flares? Foodmaps, gluten?


As far as ointments, like I said, the Puro lotion is great. The downside is having to use it. Usually, I have to wait 2 hours after a BM to use it too. 2 hours seems to be about the time for some residual fluid to make their way out to where I can finish wiping. On really bad days, I just put some on a tissue and leave it between my cheeks for a couple of hours.

For diets: the best luck I've had is SCD. FODMAPS was good, but I had symptoms no matter what I ate. Eliminating carbs has been the biggest asset. Thought about GAPS, and still considering it.

This should (and probably will) be a new topic/thread, but I'm really interested in trying Ketotifen Oral. I was doing some research on the above mentioned drugs (Remeron, Elavil, and Zyprexa), trying to see some commonalities. I noticed two things. 1) They all have antihistamine properties, and 2) they all have Serotonin antagonists.

This brought me to try taking Benadryl. I started taking 50 mg Benadryl (H1 blocker) with each meal. Pros: less cramping, less bloating, less gas. Cons: still have yellow and itchy stools. Surprisingly-- the Benadryl hasn't made me drowsy at all. In fact, last Saturday I woke up early, grabbed items out of storage, had a 5 hour garage sale, donated leftovers, did laundry, did chores, practiced some music, and did some Bible study. My assumption is that previous use of the antidepressants with antihistamine properties built up a tolerance to them.

Today, I also threw in some Zantac (H2 blocker), but I have no expectation for it to have any positive effect.

My next step is adding in Feverfew. I've read that it's also a serotonin antagonist, but I'm not sure which receptors.

The goal is to see if a combination of antihistamine with a serotonin antagonist will yield the same results as Remeron. I know that my body will develop a tolerance to these meds too if I keep it up though, so this is a short-term experiment. If it works, this may be my "flare-up remedy"--not my permanent solution.

This is where the Ketotifen comes in. For anyone who doesn't already know, Ketotifen is an antihistamine and mast cell stabilizer. When I first started reading about it, I only knew that mast cells are what produce histamine. I did a google search for "serotonin and mast cells". Of all places, Dictionary.com describes mast cells as the producers of not only histamine, but also serotonin and heparin.

Getting my hands on some Ketotifen is going to be a challenge since the oral tablets are only available in Europe, and I don't think that swallowing eye drops is going to work. I don't even know if that tablets will actually work. As my GI reminds me sometimes: I'm not a doctor. The big seller for me on Ketotifen is that it doesn't block serotonin. It just alters some cells that produce it, or "stabilizes" them. Hopefully, that is the trick to keeping my body from building a tolerance.


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## onyx (Jan 13, 2006)

dECIBEL7 said:


> Anyway, my major complaint right now is burning/itching after bowel movements in the morning. Almost every morning, right when I get out of bed, my stomach churns and I rush to the bathroom.


I have this too, all the time, IBS-D for ten years. It burns and itches like crazy. Often happening hours before and hours after any BM's for the day. I personally believe it's from bile acids / enzymes or whatever that aren't reabsorbed like they should be. When I have serious D which is most days, I actually feel it burning my skin as if one might have spilled acid on it. After using a ton of t.p. and wet wipes since it's always a mess, if it still is bad then I reach for Desitin, which is a zinc-oxide ointment for diaper rash. It's messy and not pretty but for me it seems to help cool things down.


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## sdreader (Sep 24, 2013)

Diaper rash cream!


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## legbuh (Jan 9, 2005)

My advice... bidet after every poop (I do it in the shower with an adjustable removable shower head that get get a good stream going from the middle), and gold bond powder between the cheeks after the shower. The normal powder is fine, but the new spray powder contains a lot more menthol and depending on how you like that feeling, it will either be awesome or painful. 

On really bad days or days you can't poof the powder and bidet, use a "man-pon" until you can wash and powder. This is a piece of tissue paper folded and inserted as far up your cheeks as possible to not only absorb any leakage but protect the skin.

May sound bad, but trust me, it works! 20 years and counting I've got things figured out for that part.. lol..


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## HumanistRuth (Sep 19, 2013)

I rigged my tub like a bidet, with a hand-held shower wand on a very long hose. It's easy to straddle the tub.

I too rely on Desitin. It lays down a thick greasy protective layer that's soothing.


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## KailuaBeach (Feb 14, 2012)

I tried Desitin and a bunch of other creams and while they helped a bit the itching never went away. It turned out I had some type of fungus/bacteria there, and once I used Purell Hand Sanitizer on it within days the itch was gone. It stings at first as your skin is raw, eaten by the bacteria. But the alcohol in the Purell kills the bacteria and your skin can then heal so it won't sting much, just a warming sensation. I guess the creams do not kill the source of the problem, so while they do feel good, the problem goes on.

To make things even better I spent $36 at Amazon.com and purchased a bidet. That did not solve the problem, the Purell did, but it feels much cleaner now to use a bidet vs. just toilet paper.


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