The Colon Club

Is this normal to have this bad of tenesmus pain that you can't even sit down? Since we are still trying to get his bowels on track if he goes the other way and has diarrhea it starts the tenesmus pain bad. It takes hours before it will calm down. Has anyone else experienced this? It's not just when he has to go it's just a constant spasm contraction that is painful.

My pain levels after the reversal could be quite sharp but I could sit and drive with the pain. I'd say that the pain from radiation was a lot worse for me.

His is a cramping and it's like a spasm where his bowels want to open like he has to use the bathroom, but the cramping pain is extreme and once it starts with an episode it's constant for hours.

I had this, along with rectal bleeding from the need to push. It was very compelling and uncomfortable. Sometimes in the bathroom doing little or nothing except pushing 25 times in an hour or two. As I mentioned before, with no help or diagnosis from the doctors, I took a combination of Imodium and / or Tylenol to tamp it down. At the height of it, I was up to six Imodium at a time and a couple of Tylenol 3s. The doctors were ok with this but I don’t think they ever really understood what I was going through. Also had to start taking fiber and miralax to keep things moving. It’s a truly miserable situation.

Unfortunately, this is a very real situation and I don't think that doctors, especially family doctors, understand the level of pain Tenesmus can cause during flare-ups.

I truly believe that those of us battling and winning our cancer fights become "programmed" to tolerate more pain than most people because our number 1 priority is living and number 2 is "everything else"!

I hope the day comes when there is a treatment for this that is 100% guaranteed to make the pain stop.

CRguy had some great info on some treatment procedures in another thread on this site.

Rob

I’m not sure what treatment your husband has had or is currently going through but here’s a thread I posted when I was at the height of my issues. I don’t think too many people experience this and so I really did not get a lot of answers.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=55888&p=442112#p442112