Pain with bowel movement can happen when you have underlying pelvic floor hypertonia or pelvic floor muscle dysfunction. It can also happen when you have irritation of your pudendal nerves which often come with pelvic floor muscle dysfunction.
A risk factor for having a pain with bowel movements is constipation. So, chronic constipation can ultimately irritate the muscles and nerves of the pelvic floor and cause secondary pelvic floor muscle spasm. And that can spread to both the perineum and the testicles and the base of the penis in men, and for females, it can spread to the vaginal area and the bladder in both men and women, and ultimately lead to Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome.
It’s important to address your constipation and let your healthcare professional know about it so that we can address it with both lifestyle and nutrition. Particularly with lifestyle, we have patients do the breathing exercises to help release the spasm in the pelvic floor muscles because often, even just the mechanical restriction of the pelvic floor muscles near the rectum can cause constipation. So it’s important to release the tension in that mechanical restriction.
In addition, diet modification is important. We recommend supplements. Quite often, we use something called magnesium, which can gently promote normal bowel movements daily. Also, we recommend patients to prevent constipation to get the Squatty Potty. It’s a simple maneuver that can really relax the muscles of the puborectalis and pubococcygeus and help the mechanical inhibition of bowel movements.