Healed fissures after 10 painful years and fistula after 2

fissures, fistula, abscess, home remedy, success story

Do you suffer from Crohn's/Colitis or IBS. If you are looking for info on how to deal with an anal fissure with these ailments, or just wanting to share your experiences, then this is the place.

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Healed fissures after 10 painful years and fistula after 2

Postby Fine and Dandy » 10 Nov 2015, 22:43

First, I am not a snake oil salesman, I have nothing to gain from writing this but instead am taking my time to write this story and share my experience so that it might help another. It very well might not, the following might just have been luck for me, so I make no promises, so please don't accuse me of trying to profit off of people or spreading false hope. My abscesses/fissures/fistula have all healed and for anybody who knows how bad this is, which it is absolutely awful, I feel like if I have any knowledge that could help somebody, it is my responsibility to help them.

I used to apply a homemade ointment each day in the morning and night and after each BM. Missing this schedule would cause relapse. I no longer have to follow that schedule as things are all okay now, but still will apply it a few times a week when things haven't been going so well with my Crohn's and I can feel the anal disease coming back.

Also, and very importantly, during the process of healing I went on medicine that helped me to get Crohn's manageable. Not full "remission" but many days are symptom free. The regime includes taking Humira and following a strict version of the SCD/auto-immune paleo diet. I have tested meds and diet alone and neither does it for me by itself; it takes the combination of both.

The recipe for the ointment is 1/3 Burts Bees orginal lip balm in the tin, 1/3 wild oregano oil, 1/3 arnica oil. I am including a screenshot. I can buy these from my local health food store, but I tend to buy them online at iherb or Amazon as it is cheaper that way.

Next, the warning should be noted that 1) this ointment burns, sometimes pretty badly, and 2) in the case of very bad fissures for some reason there is more blood for the first couple of days as it is starting to work, but in my case at least, there was less pain and spasms as I went about my daily work.

I want to also give instructions on how to apply it. If you have some fissures, you can't just go applying this stuff inside directly on top of the fissures. It will be way too painful. Instead I applied to the outside of the anus and then as I walked or moved I think it kind of slowly worked its way in a bit and that was enough. With more healing I was able to apply closer to the affected areas, eventually even able to apply a little inside, but that being able to apply some inside didn't come for quite a while.

My experience is as follows:
Fissures. This was one of the first signs of my Crohn's. I had these for just over 10 years! They were not small and the pain was excruciating. Doctors I went to wouldn't give me anything that worked which included suppositories/nitroglycerin ointment/pain pills. The doctor would not operate because he was afraid I wouldn't heal because of Crohn's so I was told to just live with it. This led me to on my own trying anything and everything to just get some relief.

Why I think it worked is like this. Nitroglycerin wasn't bad in that in stopped the spams, but it also gave me headaches and there wasn't a lot of healing. Suppositories helped a little with healing, but didn't stop spasms. The suppositories had steroids in them and that was suppose to be the active ingredient but in hindsight I think it was just the oily filler that helped because it helped moisturize and grease things up so they came out easier with a BM.

What I think I personally needed (again this might be different for other people) was to first get everything to relax, and then provide nutrients to help heal things; nutrients alone wouldn't do it because the wound was not relaxed and relaxing the muscles was not enough because my body didn't have the power to heal itself correctly. The above ointment allowed that to happen.

First, it has peppermint oil in it as a part of the lipbalm. This peppermint oil makes things burn. For me it reminds me of putting icy/hot down there. Not a comfortable feeling at all, but.... it made the muscles relax (for me). Otherthings in the lipbalm helped nourish the skin and the arnica oil helped to speed up the healing.

So again, for me the turning point was to get things to relax and then getting some stuff to help it heal while it was relaxing. In theory I guess you could do this with prescription nitroglycerin and prescription suppositories, but I found this combination cheaper, more wholistic, and with less side effects (other than the burning).

Abscesses/fistula: In a way I was a bit lucky because I only had one fistula and it was a milder form, an "transphincteric fistula" that resulted from an abscess being cut and drained. Even in a mild form the shame, pain, and complications with dealing with this still sucked. On a daily basis I dealt with bleeding and the infection leaking. This lasted for 2 years.
I later on additionally got a second abscess but luckily was able to get it under control before it developed into a second fistula.

In addition to applying the ointment I also was on antibiotics. This was about my 4th time on antibiotics before I had been on Cipro/Flagyl and it always helped the abscesses, a couple of times after taking the combination for six months it even went away and healed on the outside, but I think it didn't heal on the inside all the way and as soon as I stopped the antibiotics it came back.

I took a 23&Me DNA test and part of my results were that I wasn't a good metabolizer of Cipro, so the last time I asked for a different antibiotic in combination with Flagyl, and I think that really helped me to get it once and for all. (sorry I don't remember the name of the Cipro like antibiotic)

So for taking care of the fistual/abscesses it took 1. the strict following of the diet, 2. Humira, 3. a good antiobitic combination, 4. the homemade ointment. I did try different combinations of these at different times, but it really took doing all of them to heal up.

The reason why I think it worked is that the diet/humira kept me from flaring, the antibiotics helped fight via my immune system and the ointment helped fight things topically. I especially think that a key part was the wild oregano oil and the arnica oil. I think the oregano oil helped to disinfect the area as it is known to have anti-viral/anti-bacterial/anti-fungal properties. And then arnica helped the wound to heal when it wouldn't have healed otherwise.

The process was like this. After a while the swelling from the abscess would go down. Next the outside would kind of heal over but still sometimes need popping or draining. Then it would heal again and then need popping/draining again. Eventually it all healed over on the outside but there was still a noticeable swollen track about the thickness of a pencil. As time went by the track got smaller and smaller and then kind of hard and rubbery. Finally it just disappeared. On the inside what was a hole eventually healed over and now I am left with a pot hole type indention in the inner anal wall, but it has healed over.

It has now been full year with no more antibiotics and no more signs of abscess/fistula. I waited a while before writing this because there were other times I thought I had it beat, only to have it come back. Now I feel pretty sure about it being gone and can even go a couple of weeks without using any ointment if everything else is going well (that of course is hit or miss depending on the state of my Crohn's at any given time). When I do use the ointment now, it is to counteract fissures that are starting to develop, of which it does a good job of stopping them and healing it up.
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Re: Healed fissures after 10 painful years and fistula after

Postby Savaici » 18 Nov 2015, 08:22

Thanks for posting this for others. Good to hear of your healing!
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Re: Healed fissures after 10 painful years and fistula after

Postby Fine and Dandy » 19 Nov 2015, 02:05

Thanks. I know it is a long read, but I didn't want to leave anything out.
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Re: Healed fissures after 10 painful years and fistula after

Postby owmybum » 21 Nov 2015, 14:46

Thankyou for taking the time to share your story!

OMB x
fissure after hem banding and tag removal feb 11
Pelvic floor therapy
Diltiazem
Botox June 13
Nitro
Internal flap July 14
EUA and polyps removed Nov 14
Diagnosed with neuropathy Jan 15
Diagnosed with HS EDS type 3 (causes poor wound healing )
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