Proctalgia fugax is sudden and intense anal pain that lasts for short time.
Fortunately, this isn't a serious condition and some
simple physiotherapy exercises and techniques can quickly relieve this type of anal pain.
Hi, I'm Michelle, and today we're looking at 4 ways to relieve proctalgia fugax or anal rectal
pain. Now, apart from being a difficult word to say proctalgia fugax is thought to be caused
by a spasm in the pelvic floor muscles, particularly in and around the anal sphincter
and this is where some physiotherapy techniques come into play. Now before we go through these
physiotherapy techniques, some of the symptoms of proctalgia fugax that you need to be aware of,
are listed here. But some of the most noteworthy symptoms are that this is a really brief episode
of intense pain. It will last for less than 20 minutes always and this is a diagnostic criteria
and it can happen during the day or at night even wake you up during the night. Now,
it's really very important that you have this condition diagnosed by your doctor
rather than self diagnosing because there are other causes of anal pain that need to be excluded
so make sure you see your doctor for a diagnosis of proctalgia fugax. And by the way, if any of the
information here helps you as we go through, I'd love it if you could give it a like below because
then YouTube will recommend the video to other people too. So let's dive into our techniques now.
The first technique recommended in the literature is massage through the area.
Now there's a number of ways that I found that you can apply massage just like you'd apply massage to
tight neck and shoulder muscles in and around the rectal area. You can first of all, use a rolled up
towel, and you could use a hand towel or a bath towel folded in half and rolled up, placed onto
a chair and sitting on that towel just to apply gentle pressure into the anus and the rectum.
Now you can move side to side you can rock between your sitting bones side to side or perhaps even
forwards and backwards while that spasm is there. You might also like to use a larger pilates star
ball again on a fixed chair to sit on and rotate around or you could use a smaller tennis ball
as spongy ball to massage around the area very gently to relieve some of the spasm just as you
would use a tennis ball to relieve spasm in and around the neck and the shoulder area.
The second technique that you might like to think about using is a technique involving
this position here which is the happy baby pose in yoga and it's interesting this is also
recommended in the literature. Using this position, grasping the inner buttocks and
drawing them apart gently. Now in my mind, this is going to apply some stretch to the tissues,
including the external anal sphincter so this is the way of getting stretched gentle stretch this
area and the technique described in the literature is to adopt this position using the fingers in the
buttocks and to bulge down gently as if passing gas that's another technique in your repertoire.
The third technique and it's also described constantly in the literature is to use
hot water and hot water bath. Now a hot water bath would be at 40 degrees celsius
or 104 degrees fahrenheit and soaking in the bath and we know that warmth relieves
muscle spasm and muscle tension. But in my mind, because proctalgia fugax is such a brief episode,
you might not actually have time to run a bath so it might be useful to get into the shower,
run the warm water over your back and through and down into your buttocks.
If you've got a detachable handle on your shower, you might actually detach that and use the nozzle
to apply gentle pressure and that's gentle, warm water around the anus just to help again
relieve those pelvic floor muscles and relieve the anal sphincter to encourage it to relax.
Now very finely deep breathing exercises are a technique that we use in physiotherapy
to release pelvic floor muscle spasm. Now, if you're going to be doing your deep breathing
exercises, I suggest that you sit down, adopt tall posture, place your hands over your lower
abdomen and as you breathe in, your belly moves forward and you breathe down into your pelvic
floor so you visualize the pelvic floor between the sitting bones lengthening and opening,
stretching out as if to pass gas. Now you do that within breaths so breathing in deeply
ribcage expands belly moves forward and pelvic floor moves down and then leave the air fall away.
Now I think it's really useful while you're doing your deep breathing to be mindful of the fact
that it's important to relax with this condition because anxiety and stress have been associated
with proctalgia fugax or anal pain. So I think you could actually use the deep breathing exercises in
combination with some of the other techniques that I've already described to help with pelvic floor
relaxation and help to relieve anal sphincter pain. So I really hope that this information is
informative and also too reassuring for you if you are a sufferer of proctalgia fugax. I really hope
that you've enjoyed the video and enjoyed the content today and if you have don't forget to
give it a like below so that YouTube will share the information with other viewers too. Thanks
so much for watching today. I really look forward to seeing you in the next video. Goodbye for now.