Stock photo. Posed by model.
What are they?
Pain in the bum isn’t always a result of haemorrhoids. If you’re having anal pain and bleeding after a bowel movement, it could just as well be because you have an anal fissure. Anal fissures tend to cause sharp pain ‘like being cut with glass’, whereas haemorrhoids are either painless or ache, burn or cause discomfort.
If you have an anal fissure, you may notice one or all of these symptoms1:
- A sore anus, especially during and after a bowel movement
- A visible tear or crack in your anus
- Bleeding from the anus during or after a bowel movement, usually bright red
What causes anal fissures?
When the lining of the anus or anal canal is stretched more than normally, the skin is sometimes damaged. The skin damages typically heal quickly on their own, but in some cases, they develop into fissures. Once there is a fissure in the skin, passing stools becomes painful, and the cramps in turn make it harder for the crack to heal. For one out of four people who suffer from fissures, the condition becomes chronic, meaning that it lasts for six weeks or more.2-4
1 Lohsiriwat V. (2012) Hemorrhoids: From basic pathophysiology to clinical management. World Journal of Gastroenterol, 18(17): 2009-2017 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v18.i17.2009 Johns Hopkins Medicine. Anal Fissures. [Online] Accessed 2020-10-17.
2 Tidy, C. Anal Fissure. [Online] Published 2017-05-24. Accessed 2020-10-17. https://patient.info/digestive-health/rectal-bleeding-blood-in-faeces/anal-fissure
3 https://www.nice.org.uk/advice/esuom3/ifp/chapter/what-is-a-chronic-anal-fissure 2020-10-17
4 Tidy, C. Anal Fissure. [Online] Published 2017-05-24. Accessed