u/JasonWPG

I’ll start by saying I have Crohn’s disease. Over the years I’ve had the occasional little tear that would leave a little spot of blood on toilet paper but it would always heal and go away after a day or two. Fur the last two weeks I have been dealing with that stinging burning feeling every day every time I poop. I also have a little tear at the top of my butt crack(nit deep, just looks like a little red line, superficial top layer skin tear) I had started using a new shower gel a few weeks ago that said it was moisturizing but now I’m wondering if that may have been what dried out the skin down there and made it more prone to tears. I’m waiting to hear back from my gastroenterologist and I was thinking I would ask for a referral to a proctologist. What do they do to both heal things like this but also help to prevent them? I’ve just been wiping gently and dabbing with toilet wipes after with aloe and vitamin e, and I’ve been showering using cetaphil body wash and applying zinc oxide cream afterwards. But the process just all starts over again as soon as I poop. Is this just life now? I’m terrified of getting an infection.

About a week ago I was masturbating and I don’t know why I did this but I pulled my penis to one side, I wasn’t being particularly vigorous or anything, just did it without even thinking like I was stretching it or something, but I heard this sort of crackle sound. Never had that happen before. There was no pain, I didn’t lose my erection, I kept an eye on it for the next few days and there was no swelling or bleeding or anything unusual. 3 days later I masturbated again (partly because I wanted to “test” it and partly because I’m a guy 🤷🏼‍♂️) and it felt like there was this slight tightness in my perenium, on the right, like a strained feeling, not particularly painful, just uncomfortable. I finished doing my business and ever since then there’s this sort of cooling/burning feeling but it’s so hard to pinpoint where it’s coming from. Sometimes it feels like it’s my butthole, sometimes it feels like it’s my penis, sometimes it feels like it’s my lower abdomen. And that burning feeling really ramps up when I have to pee, but it doesn’t burn WHILE peeing and then it goes away for a while after peeing until I have to pee again. It’s been like this for 4 days now. I’m avoiding masturbating and sexual activity. I’m trying not to get erections. I’ve been taking Advil and Tylenol but that didn’t really seem to help. Yesterday I took a Robaxin methacarbamol/acetaminophen for unrelated back pain (pulled a muscle while cleaning the bathtub) and I noticed the symptoms in my groin area also subsided quite a bit after taking the Robaxin. I’m really worried I caused some sort of permanent damage. Now my issue is talking to my doctor about this. It’s embarrassing. He’s a fairly new doctor for me, I’ve only seen him 3 times and now I’m telling him about my masturbation habits??? I’m worried he’ll think I’m some kind of weirdo who likes to get rough with his penis. I’m 50 years old and this has never happened. My doctor is in his 30s and he’ll think I’m some dirty old man. I don’t even know how to bring this up with him in the least humiliating way possible. I don’t know what to do. It’s so stressful. I know I need help but I also don’t want there to be any weirdness between him and me in the future. Advice, help, please, I’m begging. And sorry for the long post.