Hi everyone,

It has now been a little over 4 weeks since my surgery. For the first 2 weeks things were going really well. I had virtually no pain with a BM and almost burst into tears one day on the toilet over how pain free my BMs were. Over the last couple of weeks though I have been feeling like I have to "push" harder to get the BM out. There was sometimes just a little bit of blood on the toilet paper and a little pain after but not too bad. I still can't get things soft enough though and my body has gone into this weird habit of only going every 3rd day. I'm not very happy about that. Every other day is about as far as I can go I think. Today, after 2 days of nothing, I had my warm chai latte in the morning which provided the urge, but I really had to push this time. The first bit was a dry nugget, then a big part that I think has retorn my fissure. There were a few drops of blood in the toilet. After that big part I had some long skinny soft bits with the telltale streak of blood on them. I hopped right in the tub afterwards and the pain right now isn't too bad. I have a gauze with Polysporin on it over the area which provides a bit of relief. I can feel that when I am not paying attention that I am clenching my external sphincter, so whenever I think of it I make a conscious effort to relax it. I wonder what my internal sphincter is doing? I'm assuming that after surgery the muscle is quite loose but that it slowly regains some of it's strength? I really hope that this is just a minor set back, but I can't help but feeling in my heart of hearts that I am going to need another surgery, which I think I am OK with. The first two weeks after this surgery were really great and I was feeling very hopeful. I was supposed to follow up with my surgeon 4 weeks after surgery but I haven't been able to. His office is in another city which entails a drive and a 2 hour ferry ride to get to. With my husband and I working on alternating days and the kids, I haven't been able to find a day that would work! I don't want to take the car on the ferry as it costs around 80.00 each way, and I would rather go without the kids so I don't have to worry about entertaining them or having the person who picks me up on the other side having carseats for them etc.
I have a quick question though. I have been taking a full dose of Miralax a day and eating a high fiber cereal in the morning everyday. As was happening before surgery, the more fiber I eat, the more constipated I get. Maybe I don't drink enough water to work with all the fiber I am eating? I remember reading a post from someone else who said something along the same lines and he/she (I think it was a he) said that he had the most success with another product, Fybogel? Is that the right name? Does anyone know exactly what it is and how it works? I would be curious to try it if it's available in Canada.
Man, it just seems like these butt issues will never end. Interestingly as was mentioned in another post, my period is just ending and I always seem to be more constipated when I have my period or when I'm ovulating. Damn hormones!!
I hope everyone who's had surgery recently is doing well. I have been trying to keep up with all the posts but it's hard. I am so busy and it seems that there have been so many of us who've had LIS so far this year! Let's hope that by this time next year our fissure problems are nothing but a distant memory.

scaredy_butt wrote: I remember reading a post from someone else who said something along the same lines and he/she (I think it was a he) said that he had the most success with another product, Fybogel? Is that the right name? Does anyone know exactly what it is and how it works?

That was probably me, I swear by Fybogel (Ispaghula Husk) fibre supplement, it has helped me enormously by bulking up stool and keeping my bowels regular, I only have BM twice a day now, when on Movicol I was going between 8-10 times a day which was hurting like crazy, for me it's been a godsend, I'm sure you'll be able to get it in Canada or at least a generic version.
Fybogel: Fybogel Hi-Fibre contains ispaghula husk, a natural fibre which can help to ease your digestive flow, no tablets are involved - Fybogel Hi-Fibre is conveniently taken as a drink. The fibre adds bulk to the stool, which helps to promote peristalsis - the natural process by which food moves through the digestive system.

Sorry you are having a setback scaredy-butt, and I hope it's just temporary too. My first thought too was that maybe you weren't getting enough water. Oh, hey, I just read someone's post (maybe it was either desperatehousewife or Hopeful_lad in Introductions) that said the timing of drinking the fiber supplement in the morning really made a difference to the consistency of their poop. Maybe that's something for you.
Sounds to me like you have to adjust something in order to acheive the Miracle Soft Poop. Since you are just 4 weeks post-op, probably your fissure is still vulnerable to being easily re-injured.
My period screws everything up for me too. I get constipated before and get diarrhea after, so I just adjust the dose of Movicol accordingly, and that has worked out fine. While my digestive system is touchy, I'm lucky, since movicol really seems to help me out when taken in the right doses.
Hope you are feeling better soon! By the way, are you eating fruit to get your fiber too? Not just cereals, etc?

Don't lose hope! Up the water as much as you can- I have found that to be the most important thing for me and my CRS also says that in his literature he gives you. And I have a hard time figuring out how much fiber is too much too. My body does not seem to be able to handle much more than around 20 grams a day or maybe up to 25. I had the opposite issue this morning with my stools being too loose, which led to a slightly alarming incident during breakfast (thank goodness I was home!) but at only 1 1/2 weeks out, I am reducing the stool softeners with great caution to avoid what happened to you.
Fear not, I bet it will get better much more quickly even if it did retear a little bit because of the increased blood flow to the area. And if you can get the bowels sorted out to at least be softer. This would never work for me and would be way too much, but can you take more than 1 full dose of Miralax a day? Like 1 morning and night? I'll have to go look at my bottle!
Bambi