The Colon Club

I’m a 20 yr rectal cancer survivor. Had radiation and all the chemo, surgeries, temp illi, but only 5 weeks then reconnected.
Recently:
I had some internal bleeding from taking xeralto starting about 9 months ago. Since then my red blood count went down to 4.9 and I received 3 transfusions in hospital. Dr removed a polyp that was very near rectum, causing bleeding. Since then I have no control over BMs. It just comes out whenever, wherever. Horrible!
And now for weeks I have such anal pain, it is constant.
Does anyone have this pain and what do you do to alleviate the pain?
I am depressed (widowed 3 years ago) and fighting that AND the anal pain is awful.
I am almost 80 and feel like I’m a big baby whiner.
Thank you for your time.

You most certainly need to talk to your doctors about this problem.

https://www.drugs.com/sfx/xarelto-side-effects.html

mentions specifically, in a very LONG list of side effects :

Back pain
bloody stools
bowel or bladder dysfunction

You may be able to have your doctors adjust / change your meds to help your situation

sending best wishes for you to get help from the Doctors

I can empathise, and I’m sorry. What you’re experiencing is horrible, and the worst pain I encountered over my 5 years of treatment to date, including 4 major surgeries.

The only thing that really made a difference for me was opioids (oxycodone), and cannabis products (not together, although also not deliberately apart either). In addition to analgesia, the weed seemed to help with just calming and relaxing everything a bit as well, and reducing the tension-related pain.

I also took a LOT of loperamide to try to slow things down (without going too far in the other direction, which is then like descending to another circle of hell).

I agree with J-Man though that I would definitely be getting a colorectal surgery consult again (and probably a flex sig) in case there is something more structural causing your pain (eg a fissure).

Good luck and thoughts with you.

Rob

Thank you for your advice. I really appreciate this club.
Now if I can figure out how to respond individually to each of you, I’ll take it.
Can you teach an old dog…???

Oof, this is something that I would definitely discuss with your doctor. All of the previous recommendations on here are good. Have you tried a sitz bath? It may help ease some of the pain. I have found sitz baths that can fit over the toilet bowl are more convenient and easier than climbing in and out of the bathtub. Sitz baths for toilets are available on Amazon. If you are interested, you can search Amazon by typing sitz baths for toilets in the search bar.

Hope you find some relief soon.

Paige

Chronic pain like that can be incredibly draining, especially when it feels like there’s no break from it. Alongside the medical side, sometimes finding small ways to calm the body overall, things like warm sitz baths, low-stress routines, even certain herbal supplements, can make the pain a bit more manageable.

There’s been some quiet discussion around CBD being helpful for this kind of discomfort, especially where nerves are involved. I was reading through some trip cbd oil reviews recently, and it’s interesting to see how people are using it in different ways. Might be something to look into or bring up with your doctor.

You’ve been through so much, and constant pain on top of everything else sounds brutal