Hi all,
Back in July 2014 I started feeling some anal discomfort in perianal area after having months of stomach problems that eventually went away (bloating, cramps, heart burn). I did a poor job at describing my symptoms to my CRS so she diagnosed me as having a fissure even if she couldn't really spot it. I spent months applying nitro and other fissure creams to that area without any progress. Eventually I decided to go in for Botox and when I was in the operating room they couldn't find any fissures.
I changed CRS at that time and he mentioned that the perianal area was very red and thought my symptoms were caused by pruritus ani. After that I realized that my discomfort really felt more like a rash. It never hurt when I went to the bathroom, only later would it start flaring up. So I followed -all- the recommendations for that: no overzealous cleaning (I started using a hand bidet), elimination diets (I'm pretty much just eating water, chicken, rice, soups, veggies), bulking up my stop, change of laundry soap, etc, etc. Nothing seemed to have help so I had a biopsy of the irritated skin. That came back with nothing.. just some thickening of the skin but no bacterial or other type of problems like yeast. At this point my doctor has nothing else he wants to try except waiting to see if it eventually goes away.
The only patterns I've found are that the anal rash gets worse after I have an upset stomach (which is not often). It also all started about a month after I started having weird stomach problems. But like I mentioned earlier these went away. I've never had any food allergies or problems like this in the past.