How to treat rectal bleeding? Started after prostate cancer radiation

@bill6161, seeing blood is unsettling for sure. I know that the husbands of fellow members @evelynlomantas @naiviv @havhav and @success101 all experienced rectal bleeding and inflammation months after prostate cancer radiation treatment. Hopefully they can share their experiences.

How much blood is too much is hard to judge. I might suggest contacting your doctor for more clarification. In the meantime, keep your stools soft to avoid irritating your rectum during a bowel movement.

When was the last time you had a colonoscopy?

Thank you for your info. It has been 20 years since my last colonoscopy , and because of an extremely long colon the doctors could not complete the colonoscopy. They tried 2 different times 5 years apart, so I gave up on having them.

Are you taking a blood thinner?

I had surgery and then radiation treatment (39 sessions) and suffered from radiation cystitis and proctitis. Lot of bleeding and pain. I've gone through 2 rounds of hyperbaric oxygen therapy and not having the issues reoccur so far. The side effect of HBOT (everything has side effects) was that it greatly increased the ripening of cataracts and now need eye surgery. Check out HBOT for the bleeding.

No b!ood thinner.

Thanks for the HBOT. info. No need for this yet, but I might need it someday.

I had bleeding after radiation. I had a colonoscopy at my local facility and the doctor noted the bleeding but that was it. I talked to my Mayo doctor and he said they could cauterize the bleeding vessels so I had 2 more colonoscopies 1 month apart at Mayo. They cauterized the bleeding vessels at the first one and then wanted to do the 2nd one to see if there were any they missed the first time. No more bleeding problems since.

@bill6161, how are you doing? Has the bleeding slowed or stopped?

Thanks, I 'm still bleeding. I have done further research and found that this can continue for months or years. Some sites say that this is mild and self-limiting, and treatment is normally not needed unless bleeding becomes significant (anemia), and then first line treatment could include stool softeners, sucralfate enemas, and metronidazole. Fortunately no anemia signs yet. In mid-April I have an appointment with a local Gastroenterologist, and i expect he will recommend a colonoscopy with argon plasma therapy. But as mentioned above there are other first line treatments and I am concerned about jumping right into a colonoscopy which also can have significant side-effects, especially since I am in my 80s. And now I will probably be getting more radiation at Mayo (a GREAT place) since my prostate cancer, while now minimized in the prostate and pelvic lymph nodes, has metastasized in my lumbar area. So while I try to stay positive, I am concerned and wondering what treatment decisions to make. Thank you for your concern.

My husband developed a bleeding rectal ulcer caused by radiation induced proctitis 2 years post-radiation therapy. He was treated with sucralfate enemas twice a day for about 8 weeks.