Textarea and converting entities

I have a textarea that uses TinyMCE but have tested this with just the normal textarea. When I submit the form the first time with the following line

Code:

<p>testing</p>

it saves that to the database without a problem, but say I updated another field in the form and do not touch the page content text area it saves this.

Code:

<p>&lt;p&gt;testing&lt;/p&gt;</p>

The only form validation rule being applied is trim as well.

PHP Code:

<div class="col-md-10">
        
            <?php echo form_textarea($inputs['PAGE_CONTENT'], set_value('PAGE_CONTENT', $row->PAGE_CONTENT)); ?>
        
        </div>