Blog Archive

You probably haven't thought much about your pooping habits since your parents toilet-trained you eons ago. Our society doesn’t like to talk about poop, so if you’re doing it “wrong,” you may not even know it. Nevertheless, how often and how you defecate can have an impact on your colon’s...

Women have undergone Pap smears to detect cancerous or precancerous changes in cervical cells for decades. The Pap smear has helped drastically lower the rates of cervical cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, regular Pap tests decrease cervical cancer incidence and mortality by at least 80%.  Both cervical cancer...

Colon cancer has made headlines recently because of a puzzling upsurge in cases affecting young women and men.The American Cancer Society (ACS) found that 20% of diagnoses in 2019 were in those under age 55, which was double the rate in 1995. Rates of advanced colon cancer have increased by...

Pilonidal disease affects about 70,000 people in the United States each year. Most are men, but some are women, and a few are even teens or kids. Although researchers are murky about why pilonidal disease develops in some people but not in others, the disease usually starts with an entrapped...

While you may not have thought of putting a colonoscopy on your gift list this year, it’s not too late to add it to your New Year’s resolutions. Unlike the many resolutions that require willpower to accomplish, you don’t have to do much to make this one come true. A...

About 1.6 million women, men, and children in the United States have some form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes both ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD). More extensive than UC, CD can cause inflammation and damage in any part of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, from your mouth...

Pilonidal disease is a chronic skin condition that affects the area of your tailbone, right in the crease of your buttocks. About 70,000 — mostly men, some women, and few children — develop pilonidal disease in the United States every year. Since most people are a little bit embarrassed about...

About 600,000-900,000 women, men, and kids in the United States have an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) known as ulcerative colitis (UC). Although UC tends to strike most often between the ages of 15 and 30, anyone of any gender or any age may get it. This chronic — and so...

Rectocele is a kind of pelvic organ prolapse. A prolapse occurs when your pelvic floor muscles weaken to the point where they can’t support the organs above them.  In a rectocele, the wall between your rectum and your vagina weakens. Your rectum bulges into your vagina, which makes you feel...

A bowel movement is nature’s way of clearing your body of the solid and liquid residue, including bacteria and toxins, that’s left after you’ve extracted nutrients from your food. When surveyed, more than half of 20,099 women and men from around the world reported that they’ve struggled with constipation within...

Your rectum has prolapsed (i.e. dropped) through your anus. At first, it only happens when you defecate. Now it sometimes occurs when you cough, sneeze, or otherwise put pressure on your diaphragm and pelvic floor. Rectal prolapse is a fairly rare condition, affecting only about 0.5% of the adult population....

When your colon (i.e., large intestine) develops small pouches that push through its walls, you have a condition called diverticulosis. Diverticulosis is so common that almost a third of women and men in the United States between the ages of 50 and 59 have at least one diverticula. By age...

Every year in the United States, about 54,210 new colon cancer cases are diagnosed in men and another 52,380 in women. Although the overall incidence of colon cancer is decreasing by about 1% a year, it’s actually increased by 1-2% a year in women and men under age 50 since...

Everyone Poops, as the classic children’s book by Taro Gomi proclaims. But, it should be added, everyone — if they’re healthy — poops regularly, free from pain and discomfort. If you don’t fit into that latter category, you may wonder why. Are difficulties pooping a normal sign of aging, or...

Everybody eventually needs to undergo a colon cancer screening, which may include a colonoscopy, because everyone is at least at average risk for this deadly, but potentially curable, cancer. Despite the effectiveness of early screening to catch and cure the disease, 50,000 adults still die from colon cancer each year. ...

Constipation – the inability to pass stool regularly and comfortably – is a common condition among all ages and sexes in the United States, but tends to concentrate in kids and older adults. In fact, up to 33% of adults aged 60 and over have symptoms of constipation, such as...

If you experience pain below your belly button on the left-hand side, you may wonder if its cause is serious or benign. You know to get to the hospital if you experience right lower-quadrant pain, because you may have a ruptured appendix or acute appendicitis. But what structures on the...

You probably never thought about your pelvic floor until it stopped supporting all of the organs it was designed to uplift. When your pelvic floor falls, the organs it supports can’t function the way they should. The result can be symptoms such as: Urinary incontinence Fecal incontinence Pelvic pain Pelvic...

Fecal incontinence (FI) is a highly embarrassing and potentially life-altering condition in which you can no longer control your bowels fully. Or at all. Instead of privately and comfortably evacuating your bowels in the bathroom, you leak fecal matter in various quantities. Approximately 8% of women and men in the...

When you’re constipated, your first thoughts about why may revolve around your diet. You may add fiber to your daily intake, or eat more fruits and vegetables. But when those steps don’t resolve your issue, your chronic constipation may be due to pelvic floor dysfunction.  In fact, about half of...

Chadwick Boseman, the actor, director, and writer who achieved international cinematic fame as Marvel Comics’ “Black Panther,” was only 43 years old when he died from colon cancer. An athlete and an intellectual, full of youth and vigor, Boseman was diagnosed with stage 3 disease in 2016, which had progressed...

A colonoscopy is the gold-standard screening test for colon cancer, one of the most treatable cancers there is, provided it’s caught early. Despite the efficacy of colonoscopies, colon cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer deaths (excluding skin cancers) in the United States. About 52,500 people died from colon cancer...

Over a lifetime, colon cancer strikes 4% of women and 4.3% of men in the United States. In other words, one out of every 25-35 women or men will develop the disease. You’re more at risk for colon cancer after age 50. However, colon cancer has increased in adults under 55 by 1% per...

Colorectal cancer accounts for almost 8% of all cancers in the United States. The lifetime risk for developing cancer in the colon or rectum is about 1 in 23 for men and 1 in 26 for women.  In contrast, anal cancer is rare, especially in young people. Over the course of a...

You may have expected some urinary incontinence as you aged, or when you were pregnant, but you probably never expected to experience fecal incontinence (FI). Nevertheless, approximately 8% of women and men in the United States suffer from occasional-to-frequent episodes of accidentally losing control of their bowels.  If you have a type of fecal...

One of the many not-so-pleasant aspects of being granted the privilege of aging is the development of small pouches in the weak areas of your colon. When these pouches develop, you have a condition known as diverticulosis. Most of the time, diverticulosis causes no problems and no symptoms. However, when...

Normal bowel movements vary widely by individual. Some people, especially if they eat a lot of vegetables and other fibrous foods, may have a bowel movement three times a day. Others may not need to evacuate their bowels more than a few times a week. When you consistently have trouble passing...

Each year in the United States, doctors diagnose more than 100,000 new cases of colon cancer and almost 45,000 new cases of rectal cancer. Colon cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer deaths in the US, not including skin cancers, and according to the American Cancer Society, it caused approximately...

When you have chronic gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms that cause pain, fatigue, and even weight loss, you may have an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). However, many of the symptoms of IBD are shared by other conditions, including colon cancer. That’s why you should never try to self-diagnose your GI symptoms.  A...

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a functional gastrointestinal (GI) disorder that may cause you extreme discomfort, pain, and embarrassment. IBS tends to cause symptoms such as: Constipation Diarrhea Both constipation and diarrhea Gas Bloating Mucus in stool Although IBS isn’t a disease, it can make eating and eliminating painful. Researchers...

Fecal incontinence (FI) affects more than 8% of women and men in the United States. You can develop FI due to muscle or nerve damage during childbirth, injury, or surgery, but the most common reason is simply aging. Nevertheless, even children, teens, or young adults may suffer from FI, too. Most people with...

Diverticula are little outpouches that form in the weak spots of your colon’s walls. When you’re born, your colon’s lining is smooth and pouch-free. But by the time you’re 60, if you live in a Western country, you’ll probably have at least one and possibly a few dozen diverticula.  Vegetarians...

This year alone, more than 52,000 women and men in the United States will die from colorectal cancer, according to projections from the American Cancer Society. What’s even worse is that most deaths from colon cancer and rectal cancer are preventable.  Colorectal cancer is a slow-growing cancer. When it’s caught and treated early enough, the 5-year...

Although it’s not a topic that usually comes up at dinner parties or Zoom meetings, anal pain is actually pretty common. In fact, one study found that almost 16% of women and men have an anal complaint at some point in their lives. However, only about 2% bring up the subject themselves when at...

Diverticulitis is a painful condition in which small pouches in your intestines, called diverticula, become infected and cause a variety of symptoms, including nausea and vomiting. In the Western world, about half of adults over age 60 have diverticula, with 10% of them going on to develop diverticulitis. At Colon and Rectal Surgeons...

Pilonidal disease (PD) affects approximately 70,000 men, women, and teens in the United States per year. If you have PD, you may have a cyst or irritated area at the top of your buttocks crease, near your tailbone, that can become infected and quite painful. Many times, people avoid getting...

Your colon is the largest portion of your large intestine, which includes the rectum and anus, too. The small and large intestines are sometimes referred to as your “gut.” Your colon wraps around the perimeter of your small intestine and connects your small intestine with your rectum so you can...

One in five women and men in the United States suffer from some sort of pelvic floor disorder during their lifetime. Pelvic floor disorders more often affect women than men, mostly due to their anatomy and also the pressures and trauma of pregnancy and childbirth. In fact, half of women over...

If you’re at average risk for colon cancer, you should undergo a colonoscopy every 10 years, starting at age 45. If you’re at increased or high risk for colon cancer due to family or personal history, you must have a colonoscopy more frequently. When your doctor inserts the colonoscope into...

More than 50,000 women and men in the United States die from colon cancer each year, according to the 2021 figures from the American Cancer Society. However, deaths from colorectal cancers have declined since 1970, largely due to increased screening via routine colonoscopies. Colon cancer can be deadly, but it...

All surgery — whether it’s traditional open surgery with long incisions or minimally invasive robotic surgery with short incisions — traumatizes your body. That’s why it’s important to give your body all the support you can before your procedure.  One of the most important elements of presurgical self-care is ensuring...

Fecal incontinence is an embarrassing and inconvenient condition that affects about 1 in 3 women, children, and men who see primary care providers in the United States. If you have fecal incontinence, you accidentally leak small or large amounts of feces when you pass gas, or you lose control of...

Probably because of our meat-heavy, vegetable- and fruit-poor Western diet, diverticular disease is on the rise. Almost half of adults over age 60 in the West have little sacs of tissue called diverticula in the weak area of their colons. About 10% of those people have complications from the diverticula,...

Our highly sanitized life, resulting in an underdeveloped immune system, may be one of the factors that led to the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in western countries. If you have IBD, your immune system mistakenly identifies benign substances — including food — as pathogens and sends out white...

When it comes to subjects for polite conversation, anal pain ranks pretty low. In fact — other than the scatological jokes you told as a kid — you don’t talk about, or hear about, anuses much at all. So when you start experiencing anal pain, you worry. Is this something...

Colonoscopy is still the most accurate means we have of detecting colon cancer in all its various stages, including the most treatable early stages, as well as detecting and removing abnormalities before they become cancerous. A colonoscopy is also efficient: If you’re at average risk for colon cancer, you only...

Colorectal cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer deaths in adults in the United States, excluding skin cancers. You have about a 4.0% chance of developing colon cancer at some point in your life if you’re a woman, and a 4.3% chance if you’re a man.  While 4-4.3% doesn’t sound...

People with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, are prone to pus-filled abscesses in their anus or rectum that can cause excruciating pain and other symptoms. But you don’t have to have an IBD to develop abscesses. Abscesses often form as a result of an...

Pelvic floor prolapse — also called pelvic organ prolapse — is a common type of pelvic floor dysfunction that affects both women and men. The pelvic floor muscles in women support their colon, bladder, uterus, and vagina. A man’s pelvic floor muscles support his rectum, bladder, and other pelvic organs....

The inflammatory bowel disease known as ulcerative colitis (UC) is a disorder that causes your body to attack its own colon and rectal tissue. The result is ulcers, or sores, in the lining of your lower gut that may produce mucus and pus and can be extremely painful. You may...

It went in easily. So, you figure, it should come out the same way. If you or your child has inserted a foreign object in your rectum, however, removing it yourself could cause permanent damage.  While you may feel embarrassed by your situation, don’t let that stop you from getting...

Your rectum is the last part of your colon (i.e., large intestine), which ends in your anus. Just a few inches long, your rectum stores your feces until you’re ready to defecate. Although it’s part of, and continuous with, your colon, your rectum has its own distinct appearance and functions....

If you have hemorrhoids, you have a lot of company. In the US, about every third adult has them, too. However, when hemorrhoids make bowel movements painful or even excruciating, you may feel very much alone.  The understanding and expert team at Colon and Rectal Surgeons of Greater Hartford treats...

Cancer doesn’t usually come with a lot of good news attached, but colon cancer does. When caught early enough, colon cancer isn’t just treatable, it’s curable.   That’s why the caring and expert team at Colon and Rectal Surgeons of Greater Hartford recommends regular colonoscopies. A colonoscopy is the best, most...

You’re having a bowel movement and something feels “off.” Even after you’re finished, you can still feel something protruding from your anus. You may even feel it, and see it, long after your trip to the bathroom. Rectal prolapse is a condition in which the lowest segment of your colon...

One of the body parts that few people learn to love and feel comfortable with is their anus. Because we defecate through our anus, and because it’s part of our “private” parts, we don’t like to talk about it, and we don’t want to think about it. Until it hurts....

A series of anal glands runs along your rectum and anus. The function of anal glands is well known in most animals: The glands produce and release powerful, scented oils that mark territory and help the animals identify one another. Researchers aren’t quite certain why human still have anal glands....

Ulcerative colitis is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that can strike at any age, though it tends to first appear before you turn 30. About 3 million adults in the United States  have IBD, a category that also includes Crohn’s disease.  The main symptoms of UC — pain,...

You probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about your anus. But when you develop anal pain, your anus may be the only thing on your mind. Why do you have anal pain, and when should you see a doctor for treatment? The expert team at Colon and Rectal...

Hemorrhoids are inflamed, bulging veins — similar to varicose veins — that are in or around your anal canal. Hemorrhoids can be internal, which means that they’re underneath the skin inside your anus and your lower rectum. They can also be external, developing under the skin outside your anus.  The...

According to the American Cancer society, around 8,590 people will be diagnosed with anal cancer in the US this year. While it might seem frightening, anal cancer is highly treatable, especially in its early stages; you just have to know what to look for, and when to go to the...

Hemorrhoids are the most common cause of rectal bleeding. In fact, three out of four adults will experience hemorrhoids at some point in their lives. They are largely harmless; however, they can still be uncomfortable and embarrassing. Before you and your doctor can begin treatment, it's important to differentiate between...

While anal pain or bleeding might be frightening and even embarrassing, it's a common issue and can usually be cleared up after a visit to the doctor. You might experience brief anal pain for various reasons, but persistent pain might be a sign of a more serious problem for which...

Constipation isn't something to be embarrassed about; in fact, 16 out of 100 adults experience constipation, and this number doubles among people over 60. The symptoms of constipation usually clear up on their own, but sometimes medical intervention is needed. That begs the question: When should you go to the...

So, your doctor has recommended that you have a colonoscopy. You probably have a lot of questions about what happens during and after the procedure. Don’t worry, you’re not alone! More than 19 million colonoscopies are performed each year in the United States, and you don’t have to be anxious...