Three years ago I moved to Brazil (from the New York area) for work.
Since then, Ive been having recurring (essentially semi-permanent) painful anal fissures (no bleeding), a problem I never had in my life (once, before moving, I had quite a lot of painless anal bleeding, but it stopped after 3 days and never came back). Literally this was and is a sudden and complete surprise, the only very negative aspect of the move.
I have been to a proctologist. Since I am very sensitive to touching, we could not do an exam (I literally jumped the moment his fingers were inserted, it is involuntary), he ended up prescribing me a Colonoscopy, saying he would do the rectal exam.
I did - my digestive system is in great shape and he concluded it is just a fissure that recurrently opens and closes. He prescribed a cream which, in combination with an anti-inflammatory (prescribed earlier), seems to keep things under control.
I do most of the recommended things, and have no absolutely no problem with constipation or digestion.
While it is painful, I am slowly learning to live with this. A combination of sitzbaths, creams and anti-inflammation pills seems to keep things at bay.
What is really bugging me is that I never had this problem, and now it is occurring more often than not. I really have the feeling that this regular occurrence from nothing must have a unique cause. As far as I can tell, the only lifestyle changes I had were
a) The hot tropical weather (in fact it seems this occurs more often in the cooler dryer season).
b) I stopped using toilet paper to wipe, as bidet-like cleaning showerheads here are very common (I used to wipe with wet toilet paper. In fact, on the internet it is recommended against its use).
Of course an allergy is also possible, although I have no idea of what.
So, I would be very welcome to any suggestions specifically on weather something related to the move might have caused this. I really suspect this has a single identifiable cause, but have no idea what and could be mistaken.