This forum has given so much to me and I think it's time to give back. I will share my story going through LIS and what follows. I posted my background and history in another post titled "Creams, Botox and now looking at LIS". Feel free to read up on me prior to proceed below. I will be happy to answer any questions regarding home remedies and alternative treatment methods that I tried.
One big mistake I made was wait too long before seeing a doctor who diagnosed a fissure, before realizing I did not have hemorrhoids and wasted months treating them, etc. So my acute fissure turned chronic.
Here we go. My LIS journey is about to start.
A little more than 24 hrs before surgery.
Having second thoughts because I currently don't have pain. The BM this morning caused only a little bit of pain, and no burning or anything afterwards. But yesterday was a different story, pain during BM and burning afterwards. But then again, two Advil took care of it. I figured out the burning is probably caused by stool getting into the fissure. The better I clean, the less chance of the burning pain. And it's also related to straining, which is why I increased my fiber intake, and now I have to go to the bathroom twice a day, instead of once. I will reduce that again, because I don't want to go twice on surgery day.
So, being pain free today, it's really hard to settle with surgery! But I will go through with it because I know this fissure will act up again before I know it, and the weeks of healing are always time intensive. The fissure, by now, must be chronic, after about a year or so. I see surgery as an investment of a few weeks (hopefully not more) that will solve this problem for good.
I am not even so much scared of the LIS itself, since the cut will be outside of the anus. I am more afraid of the cleaning up of the fissure inside the anus/rectum. There is currently no bleeding, so the thought of introducing a new wound in there is gruesome.
The other thing I am afraid of is the removal of an older skin tag, not at the current fissure site, but across from it. That will give me a third wound down there.
Currently, after each BM, I use wet toilet paper to carefully wipe the inside of my anus clean. That requires some plucking and pulling on the skin around it. And that for sure won't be possible after surgery. So my concern is also how to keep it clean. A sitz bath can only reach the outside, not inside.
Yet another concern is not being able to pee after surgery, because that can happen to some guys. When my fissure acts up and things are swollen down there I already have a bit of a problem sometimes.
I am sure everybody facing this surgery is having their own set of concerns depending on their specific situation.
My surgery, by the way, will be an office procedure, only with local numming. The doc seems to prefer this, since it's quicker. Booking the surgery room requires much more time, and wouldn't have happened this quickly.
I took care of a few household chores today, which I know I don't want to be doing the next two weeks, such as laundry, cleaning the bath tub, etc.