What is anal “neuropathy”

  There is a “strange” disease in the anorectal department, which is very painful for the patient, but cannot be seen, touched, or investigated. Sometimes the anus is swollen, dropping, painful, and sometimes it feels like frequent bowel movements, unclean bowel movements, insect crawling, and burning, and sometimes it also involves the perineum, waist, crotch, sacrum, and even the lower limbs. The symptoms are persistent or recurrent. It is also accompanied by poor sleep, insomnia and mental depression over time. Some patients describe it as worse than death, and individual patients appear to live lightly.  This disease is not rare, basically all ages can develop, from 20 to 80 years old, but with a high incidence of 40 to 50 years old, more women than men.  What kind of disease is it? The diagnosis varies clinically, and there are probably nearly a dozen diagnoses that I will list. Anal sinusitis, anal canalitis, proctitis, intra-rectal mucosal prolapse, prolapse of the rectum, anal swelling, anal neuralgia, anal neurosis, etc. But the basis is very far-fetched, mainly based on the subjective judgment given by the patient’s description of the symptoms. Some also go for CT, MRI, colonoscopy, ultrasound, etc., but cannot find the problem. If these diagnoses are followed, the results are not good either. That is why it is still an undiagnosed disease.  Since it is a sensory problem, it must be related to nerves, so I will call it anorectal “nerve” disease here.  Because of the unknown etiology and diagnosis, the treatment is unknown and even misunderstood. For example, because it is locally uncomfortable, so always local medication, enema, plug, sitz bath, etc., but most are not effective. There are also thought that surgery can quickly solve the problem, so you go to do hemorrhoids, cut the nipple, treatment of rectal protrusion, treatment of mucosal relaxation, which is in fact the crown, after surgery hemorrhoids may be better, but anal discomfort still exists, and the surgery has the risk of increasing the bloating.  So what exactly should you do if you have this disease, is it impossible to cure it?  Strictly speaking, there is really no good way, like acupuncture, local physical therapy, biofeedback, drug nerve block, although also have some effect, but not significant.  For such chronic and stubborn diseases, we cannot take the simple approach of “treating the headache”, and the holistic view and discriminatory treatment idea of Chinese medicine has great advantages. In the past 10 years, I have been in contact with a large number of such cases and have been treating them with TCM, and have accumulated rich experience, and many patients have been cured.  From the point of view of Chinese medicine, in the past, this disease is mostly thought of as “Zhong Qi is sinking”, and the weakness of Qi lifting is falling, which is actually “taken for granted”. Obviously, the problem has been explained. In fact, this is “taken for granted”, many people have been taking “Blood Mansions and Blood Stasis Soup”, but the effect is also not good.  This disease is actually a mixture of deficiency and reality, the first is Qi deficiency, blood deficiency or Yang deficiency, clinical evidence must be carefully identified. Secondly, there is damp-heat injection. The final result is “stagnation of Qi and Blood”. That is why the clinical symptoms of discomfort such as swelling and pain are produced. Therefore, these three factors (evidence) must be taken into account when treating with medicine to receive good results. This treatment not only solves the local problem of the anus, but also corrects the imbalance of yin and yang in the whole body, which is a real cure in one stroke.