I’ve had a colonoscopy (without pain relief) where they took biopsies. The doctors said the biopsies wouldn’t hurt because the colon couldn’t feel pain, and they were indeed painless. The amount of air they pumped in was horrifically painful however.
Trapped gas sounds trivial, but can also be extremely painful. Ulcerative colitis also hurts. So does diarrhoea.
So how do these pain mechanisms work? What causes the pain, if the interior of the colon is unfeeling?
In: Biology
Part of the intestines are covered in a thin layer of extremely sensitive tissue called the peritoneum. When gas presses your intestine it also presses that thin layer and that’s why it hurts so bad.
The reason why you don’t feel every gas or growth (cancer) is that the obstruction needs to be of quite great mass so that it stretches the peritoneum to much.
I’m not sure about Colitis and Diarrhea. I’m guessing Colitis hurts because instead of pressurizing nerves cells are actually dying.
Diarrhea could hurt because your body is applying the pressure to get whatever you ate out of your body.
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