Approximately 20% of people with Crohn’s disease develop complications around their anus; we call it perianal disease, just a fancy word to say for around their anus. And those complications can include having a fissure of the anal canal. The anal canal is the muscle that holds us from having stool all of the time. And the sign of that is that you go to the bathroom and it is very painful to have a bowel movement and often has bleeding associated with it so that’s an anal fissure.
People with Crohn’s disease can also have something called anal tags. They are like big pieces of skin around the anus that you can feel when your whipping and they can be painful. And finally they can have something called fistulas. Fistula is a fancy word for a connection between the inside of the bowel to the outside of the bowel. In this case, they’re usually from the anus or the rectum to the skin around the anus. These are fistulas. Most people notice them because they feel like painful bumps, like you are sitting on a big pimple, and can sometimes explode and drain pus and occasionally stool or blood that come from these fistulas but it can be very painful.