I have them, you have them, we all probably have them. Hemorrhoids, that is. Those pesky little piles of swollen veins inside your behind. Maybe you had them before you had kids, and maybe they’re a fun, permanent little postpartum party favor. Either way, they’re a common problem many women deal with regularly. And yeah, they’re a total pain in the butt.
There are a few well-known existing products to help shrink hemorrhoids and offer a little pain relief, of course. And while witch hazel pads are great for many reasons, they’re not exactly convenient to carry around on-the-go. Enter: Butt Stuff by Megababe.
If Megababe sounds familiar, it’s either because you already own one of their other amazing products (shoutout to Thigh Rescue and Bust Dust, I can’t do summer without them), or because you follow and love Megababe founder Katie Sturino—one of the most brilliant, funny, and relatable women on social media. She develops products that are truly for the people and has no time to fuss about societal stigmas surrounding common body issues.
“We launched Butt Stuff largely based on the fact that my sister and my other business partner had horrific hemorrhoids after they had babies,” Sturino tells Motherly. “Neither one of them had ever had a hemorrhoid before.”
So she urged her team to consider creating a hemorrhoid cream, and voilà, Butt Stuff was born. Sturino polled her followers about experiencing hemorrhoids after having kids, and the consensus was exactly what she thought it would be: Yes, we’ve got ’em. Yes, we hate ’em.
Let’s talk about hemorrhoids
There are different types of hemorrhoids, so symptoms will vary, according to the Mayo Clinic.
First up, internal hemorrhoids. These lie inside the rectum. You usually can’t see or feel them, and they rarely cause discomfort. But straining or irritation when passing stool can cause:
- Painless bleeding during bowel movements. You might notice small amounts of bright red blood on your toilet tissue or in the toilet.
- A hemorrhoid to push through the anal opening, called a prolapsed or protruding hemorrhoid. This may result in pain and irritation.
External hemorrhoids are under the skin around the anus. Symptoms might include:
- Itching or irritation in the anal region.
- Pain or discomfort.
- Swelling around the anus.
- Bleeding.
If you have bleeding during bowel movements or you have hemorrhoids that don’t improve after a week of home care, talk to your health care provider.
How Butt Stuff was born
According to estimates, 75 percent of Americans will experience hemorrhoidal symptoms at some point in their lives.
“I think what’s so interesting is that people don’t really talk about that part of the pregnancy and postpartum process because there’s so much going on that it becomes, like the least of your concerns,” Sturino notes.
Until it isn’t. Personally, I really resonated with this statement because hemorrhoids weren’t something I was even thinking about when I was pregnant. And when I felt them during my postpartum period, I didn’t even know what it was that I was feeling, I just figured it was all part of the healing process. And then during the standard 6-week checkup, I talked to my doctor and we determined I had them. And the only thing I knew about hemorrhoids was the creams and tubes I remember seeing in my mother’s medicine cabinet.
“It’s usually the same product your parent or grandparent had, like a crusty old tube that no one talks about in the back of the drawer,” Sturino adds. “And I wanted to bring this conversation from the back of the drawer to the top of the beauty cabinet essentially.”
And that she did, because the packaging is simple, small, and actually pretty cute!
Butt Stuff contains 5% lidocaine, which is the maximum strength available for over-the-counter products. It’s also made with Phenylephrine HCI, a vasoconstrictor that helps soothe and shrink swollen tissue. It contains other soothing skincare ingredients like calendula, aloe, and colloidal oatmeal and it’s an FDA-approved vegan formula as well.
Sturino says this woman-made product has been in the works for quite some time.
“This is mega babe’s first OTC product,” she explains. “So we needed to find the right manufacturer, one with OTC compliance experience. And one who understood what we were trying to do.”
The cheeky name—pun intended, duh—was simple to come up with, Sturino says.
“I call my lip balm my ‘lip stuff,’ so yeah, it just works.”
Indeed it does. In all the ways you want it to! You can buy Butt Stuff on Megababe’s website along with any of their other amazing products.
