Szechuan chicken, buffalo wings, and sriracha all have incredible flavors on their own. Feeling those spices emerge the following day as burning poop is less amazing. When you eat spicy foods, the substances that give them their heat pass through your body largely unaltered.
Why does getting rid of spicy foods cause such drama? What happens when you eat spicy foods is that the chemicals that give them their heat continue to move through your body largely undisturbed. Luigi Basso, M.D. claims that because they are not nutrients, your body cannot absorb them., a specialist in coloproctology and laparoscopic surgery at Rome’s Sapienza University is in Italy.
We examine the causes of your poop burning after a spicy meal, as well as the main signs and symptoms, remedies, and advice for avoiding anal pain.
Bum Burning After Spicy Food: Causes
Why does eating spicy food cause your poop to burn? Contrary to popular belief, there is much more in common between your mouth and your anus than you might imagine.
According to Dr. Kevin Barrett, chair of the Primary Care Society for Gastroenterology, the majority of spicy foods derive their flavor from a chemical substance called capsaicin, the active ingredient in chili peppers that “correlates to the hotness of a chili on the Scoville scale.”
The more capsaicin a food contains, the higher it registers on the scale, with the Carolina Reaper – at 2.2 million Scoville heat units (SHU) – and the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion (around 2m SHU) among the most potent chilis in the world. For comparison, the SHU of a typical jalapeño ranges from 3,000 to 8,000.
When you consume capsaicin, the chemical binds to a pain receptor called TRPV1 that also sends your brain a signal when you burn your hand on a hot stove. It can be found in your mouth, digestive system, and, you guessed it, your anus, among other places on your body.
Spicy Bum Burning Symptoms
Food moves through the gut more quickly when capsaicin binds to TRPV1 and produces feelings of heat and pain. According to Dr. Barrett, some capsaicin unfortunately passes through your digestive system undigested, which “will have a direct effect on the sensitive skin around the anus.”
Additionally, he adds, “The increased speed of gut activity will reduce the absorption of bile acids, which are important for fat absorption and digestion in the small intestine.” ‘Bile acids will irritate the sensitive skin in this area if they are present in feces in higher than normal concentrations.’ Just so you know, diarrhea can also result from having too much bile acid in your colon.
How to Stop Bum Burning After Eating Spicy Foods?
The receptors that alert your brain to the burn are inside your digestive tract, so it’s best to tackle the problem for good from the inside with strategies like these:
Tweak Your Menu
Reduce your intake of fatty, spicy foods like chicken wings and quesadillas topped with hot sauce. The bile salts your body produces to digest excess fat can irritate the skin around your anus, according to Brooks D. Cash, M.D., a University of South Alabama professor of medicine.
If you won’t be giving up wings anytime soon, Dr. Oz advises soaking up some of the fatty acids in your gut by taking a fiber supplement before or right after eating. Cash suggests.
A diet consistently high in fiber is preferable, advises Dr. Chumpitazi is not only beneficial to your health in a variety of ways, but it also has the potential to prevent haemorrhoids, anal fissures, and even constipation, which may be the cause of the burning poop or burning diarrhea problem. Additionally, some people find relief from fissures and hemorrhoids by taking a warm bath (without soap) while waiting for the fiber to take effect.
Clean Your Butt
The receptors are on the inside of your GI tract, so putting something on the outside is unlikely to help in the long run. On the other hand, you could use a soothing cream, such as Calmoseptine ointment, which contains calamine to lessen itching and burning, as a temporary solution by applying it to a clean butt.
Eat Chili Peppers for 3 Weeks Straight
Yes, this tactic is excessive. Even though it may make you feel uncomfortable, if you absolutely cannot live without spicy food, try eating a lot of it quickly.
If you only eat spicy foods for a couple days, you induce “rectal hypersensitivity”—that burning pain, plus the frequent urge to go number two, says Sutep Gonlachanvit is a doctor., chief of the division of gastroenterology at Thailand’s Bangkok-based Chulalongkorn University.
“But continuous [spicy food] ingestion for greater than 3 weeks can induce desensitisation—which in turn can reduce rectal sensation,” he says.
In his study, subjects who consumed 2.1 grams of hot pepper daily—equivalent to 1.25 teaspoons of cayenne pepper—saw this benefit.
In other words, you’re putting your butt through hot pepper bootcamp by training pain receptors in your gut cells to cope with the spices better. It’s a little bit like putting on your shirt in the morning, says Dr. Chumpitazi. “You can tell it’s on when it first starts. Your brain quickly recognizes that the receptors are transmitting signals that are very similar to one another. It is able to stop focusing on those signals over time because it is aware of how to process them.”
Conclusion
Bread and yogurt are examples of bland foods that can be included in the meal as a precaution to help; just make sure to pick low-fat options. Increasing fibre and reducing fatty foods eaten at the same time as spicy foods will reduce the production of bile acids that can contribute to a sore anus.
