# Anyone Suffer from Stinging Bot - long term?



## Scumble (Oct 18, 2016)

OK, I've just joined this Forum although I don't really know if I have IBS. I'm in the UK by the way, 60ish year old male.

I have a specific question to start, about stinging and burning anal/rectal pain.

Here is my story, but first I should mention that I have quite irregular Bowel habits. Bowel Movements (BM) can be once every two days for a while, then diarrhoea, then nothing for a week, etc. I'v often gone on holiday and not had a BM for a week. I have had haemorrhoids 3 or 4 times in the past - all with an anal swelling. So I have a tendency to constipation.

Around 6 months ago (March 2016) I had two bouts (one on each of two mornings) of watery and stinging stools - like you would have if you had eaten very hot curry on two successive days. The stinging seemed to ease, then after the second bout, the stinging stayed. I've had it since then, although it now seems to be getting better albeit very very slowly - perhaps helped by the treatment I mention below.

After three weeks I went to the Dr, who said I did not have haemorrhoids but was simply not cleaning myself properly(!) after a BM, although the stinging is not just around but also inside the anal area, where you can't clean. Curiously at this point I didn't have any bowel aches. They started around June, around 3 months later. Then I started to suffer aches and pain in various parts of the bowel, although not actually in the stomach (although some aches were just below the rib cage - perhaps this could be my stomach). No heartburn or indigestion.

At this point I went back to Dr who sent me for a Sigmoidoscopy, which proved 'normal'. Good news since the doctor wrote on the referral 'suspect cancer'.

Then, after being prescribed various treatments for the bowel aches (Buscopan, Peppermint pills etc) the Dr referred me to a Gastroenterologist who put me on a Laxitive - 'Laxido', to 'get things moving and referred me to a Dietitian. Actually, while waiting two months for the Gastroenterologist meeting I did have a bad haemorrhoid - the worst I've had. The pain of the stinging plus haemorrhoid pain was almost unbearable. Suppositories and painkillers didn't really do any good.

The Dietitian has put me on a FODMAP 8 week diet which I am managing. I am going the whole hog - no dairy, Gluten, wheat etc.

The stomach aches have eased now, just some minor discomfort. My BMs are stable - once a day and loose and the stinging is gradually easing. I'll probably be taking those laxatives for ever now. Having said that, I had diarrhoea the other day and the stinging returned worse for a while. Since all this started I've been suffering from low energy and I feel very weak. My back aches every day now, feeling like I haven't got the strength to hold myself up straight.

I have some BODMAP questions that I will post on other threads but for now, has anyone heard of this specific symptom of anal/rectal stinging and burning? Nobody, not the Gastroenterologist, the Dietitian or any of the various Doctors I've spoken to have had any experience of this. Am I unique?


----------



## dailybetterme (Oct 28, 2016)

I got the same thing from taking IBEGARD (enteric coted peppermint). I was okay the first months but started burning. Pretty large area and it continued over a week after I stopped taking it. It had nothing to do with hygiene. I showered every time, used a lot of vasoline and aquaphor. I couldn't believe it. The peppermint stopped all symptoms and I loved the menthol feel in my belly then relief. There's menthol in peppermint therefore prolonged burn.


----------



## Scumble (Oct 18, 2016)

dailybetterme said:


> I got the same thing from taking IBEGARD (enteric coted peppermint). I was okay the first months but started burning. Pretty large area and it continued over a week after I stopped taking it. It had nothing to do with hygiene. I showered every time, used a lot of vasoline and aquaphor. I couldn't believe it. The peppermint stopped all symptoms and I loved the menthol feel in my belly then relief. There's menthol in peppermint therefore prolonged burn.


Thanks for the reply. Are you saying that you took the IBEGard to relieve IBS and it worked but gave you the burning sensation after using it for a few months? I'm not taking anything like that. My burning symptoms are very gradually receding now, thankfully. I do wonder what the cause can be though. As I say, nobody seems to have any idea about this. Thanks again.


----------



## KellyPa78 (Oct 24, 2016)

I find herbs and spices can cause this for me even if they are so mild that they don't 'taste' spicy, it seems they still irritate my digestive tract. I think they probably irritate it the whole way down but we only have the nerves to sense it near the 'exit'.


----------



## Scumble (Oct 18, 2016)

KellyPa78 said:


> I find herbs and spices can cause this for me even if they are so mild that they don't 'taste' spicy, it seems they still irritate my digestive tract. I think they probably irritate it the whole way down but we only have the nerves to sense it near the 'exit'.


Thanks. Yes, I've been wondering why I haven't had worse pain in my upper and lower bowels. I did a search the other day and found this post, by 'Chris', on another forum. I presume it's accurate:

"The hot chemical in chilli is capsaicin. This is an oily molecule that provokes pain by locking onto a class of small calibre nerve endings called C fibres, which bear a specific capsaicin "receptor" - this is effectively a molecular docking station to which capsaicin molecules can bind. When this receptor engages with capsaicin it opens a pore in the nerve cell membrane, activating the nerve and triggering impulses (action potentials) which are interpreted as pain.

The same nerve endings also convey noxious temperature (heat) sensations, which is why the pain triggered by chilli is experienced as a burning heat.

In order to experience the burn the capsaicin molecule must come into contact with appropriate nerve fibres bearing capsaicin receptors. Skin is relatively resistant to the effect because it is a thickened stratified squamous epithelium mainly composed of many layers of dead skin cells. The capsaicin therefore finds it difficult to penetrate the layers to reach vulnerable nerve fibres.

However, at sites where the mucous membranes are thinner there is a much-reduced barrier to the penetration of the molecule through the tissue and onto the nerve fibres. As a result mouth, eyes, nose, genitals and injured skin are much more susceptible, because the mucous membranes here are much more delicate than coarse body skin.

When you eat curry you therefore experience the burn as the capsaicin binds to receptors in your mouth, but the rest of the GI tract (oesophagus to rectum) are not endowed with the receptors for capsaicin (at least in appreciable quantities) and hence you do not experience burning as the hot meal makes its way through you.

Capsaicin is also not broken down (at least completely) by digestion and hence what exits later can still contain a reasonable amount of the chemical. And where the lining of the GI tract gives way to normal skin again, at the anus, there are large numbers of capsaicin receptors. As a result you have the killer combination of a sensitive mucosal surface "seeing" a reasonable does of capsaicin, so you get ring sting.

Thankfully the effect is usually mitigated by the fact that the material often spends very little time in contact with that tissue - at least going on my recent curry experiences...

Still doesn't explain why I've had stinging for over 7 months.


----------



## dailybetterme (Oct 28, 2016)

Scumble, you mentioned the doctor giving you peppermint. If it is in capsule form it can burn if you take enough for days. It seemed to build up in my system then caused burning.


----------



## KellyPa78 (Oct 24, 2016)

Scumble that is very interesting to read. It is like a scientific explanation of what I was guessing at.


----------



## Scumble (Oct 18, 2016)

Thanks everyone. My symptoms now seem to be easing very gradually, although it's maybe partly because I'm on some serious medicine because I had a massive spasm the other day, somewhere in my hip, when lifting my leg and twisting my knee outwards to wash my foot in the shower. I actually passed out with the pain but luckily my wife was just behind me and helped me to the floor. That's never happened to me before but now I know what a faint feels like and can watch out for it in future. Just one thing after another for me.


----------

