I've spent many hours trawling the net to try to find out what the source of my anal/rectal discomfort is. My main problems are a feeling of tightness/pressure in the anus/rectum, a feeling of incomplete evacuation (often though not always), a feeling of prolapse, and very rarely minor, fresh bleeding. My rectum gets a very strange feeling of being bruised all round if my bowel movement is hard at all.
I've been diagnosed and treated for a pilonidal sinus (standard excision, repeated a couple of times over the last two years with limited success) and internal hemorrhoids (banding, about 3 weeks ago - recovery has been straightforward). I've also had a first appointment with a physiotherapist to look into various muscle-related pelvic problems (levator ani syndrome, chronic pelvic pain syndrome, pudendal neuralgia, mucosal prolapse, etc).
However, I recently read online that fissures can be often misdiagnosed as hemorrhoids. Is this correct? I've had digital rectal exams, a sigmoidoscopy, and a rectal exam under anasthesia. A fissure was never mentioned, however I'm wondering if I could have a chronic fissure that has been missed? Although my bowel movements rarely sting, I often notice a stinging sensatation around the anus if I pull my cheeks apart to clean my pilonidal wound, and sometimes randomly when just walking about. Could this be a chronic fissure? I am convined that due to stress and OCD etc, I have chronically tight and spasmis rectal muscles and I know high sphincter resting pressure is related to fissures. Such a symptom does not seem to fit with what I have already been diagnosed with.
Is it possible I should look into exploring the fissure line of thought?