Painful rectal spasms at night. What to do? What to do?!

Painful rectal spasms at night. What to do? What to do?

I have been awakened at night by severe rectal pain (lasting about 5 painful minutes) so I looked it up and found that it’s called Proctalgia fugax, a severe, episodic rectal pain that usually occurs at night, a muscle cramp in the wrong place at the wrong time, rectal spasms or just plain pain in the anus…
It could last a few seconds to a few minutes so most people do not even report it to their doctors.

Warm baths and massages seem to relieve it but I’d like to know if any one of you people found other true and tried methods to relieve that pain in the butt fast.

2 weeks ago
I do not have IBS, I'm very regular and eat lots of fiber and have no problem my my digestive system.

Very nasty pain that.

I had much more when I was younger but not for many years. It is very painful - I can remember sweating and feeling faint when it came on. I also had bowel pain in my lower abdo and actual rectal pain (even to touch) A friend of mine also has it.

The only thing that made it manageable was to get a heat pack on my tummy and lay on my tummy and try to relax as much as possible (it is pretty hard when you feel like you have a bunch of hyenas biting on the inside of your butt) Taking a hot bath also helped me. The problem is that it used to strike me at all sorts of times which makes it hard when you are at work. Usually though it was in the early evening and before midnight. It usually lasted around 20 mins but the peak pain for about 5 mins.

I would avouid taking anything OTC until you have had a formal diagnosis to exclude any other problems. This is usually with a colonoscopy where a scope is used to take a look around your rectum and lower bowel. This is done under a very light anaesthetic.

Taking anything with codeine (you can get pain killers with codeine otc in Australia) is not recommended due to its constipating action. You could discuss with your doctor about taking something like Buscopan (an antispasmodic).

Sorry I cant help more
Goodluck