ANAL FISSURE AND TREATMENT

ANAL FISSURE

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ANAL FISSURE AND TREATMENT

Postby Sunflower » 06 Apr 2016, 16:08

Hello everyone,

First I want to say how grateful I am for this wonderful site and all the people who are experiencing this truly awful situation together.

I wanted to share my story in the hope that it can be of benefit to someone.
I’ve been meaning to write for so long but no energy until now and due to all the great advice on hear I felt it was time.

The anal fissure was preceded by a period on my life where I was eating a lot of very naughty food. Cakes lattes loads of sugar and fast stuff. I had just finished taking hard-core exams and was awaiting my finals. Around late December I tried to go to toilet and nothing was happening. I got frustrated and pushed a bit harder than I should have. A haemorrhoid followed and I tried to treat it for a few weeks with the usual xyloproct cream etc. I also realised this was a bad situation and completely changed my diet. I stopped eating gluten and dairy products and began to blend all my food from breakfast through to dinner. I went to the doctors to ask if I was ok as I still felt very irritated and told her I need to get through the next few weeks without there being a problem. (Me trying to control this situation J) the doctor asked if I was in pain and I said a little but it’s ok. I just wanted to make sure it hadn’t thrombosed as I had already experienced this first time last July and hat is cut open at emergency with 4 internal rectal injections. Not pleasant.

By the time the first week in January arrived I started to experience shooting pains from the opening to high up in the rectum around the sigmoid colon after a bowel movement. I had no idea what it was and was deep in study and didn’t want to be disturbed by this because after 5 years of studying it would all soon be over and I could then spend time on this problem.

After 5 days of this pain I realised I was in trouble and could not cope anymore and ended up rolling around on the floor in complete and utter agony crying out because I had no pain threshold left. For the first time since the haemorrhoid I took ibuprofen to dampen the pain. I went straight to emergency. I had an intern examine me saying there was nothing there, then he called surgeon who berated him for giving me an internal and showed him externally what to look for. I felt happy I knew what it was.

Then supplied my with diltiazem cream for 8 weeks. I started with the cream and felt some minor relief a few weeks later but I was still medicating and with each day the pain was increasing. I completed my exams and within 36 hour I ended up in emergency having collapsed from benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. I had 2 whole days of not going to toilet and to be honest it was such a relief. But after that the pain came back. I was so distressed as I was cancelling work and trying to organise work for the afternoon so that I wasn’t losing money (I’m self employed). I decided to see help from a homeopathic therapist. She gave me some tablets that really helped for two days then the pain came back. We tried again but it stopped working and she said she felt disappointed in the pills and would research an alternative. At this time I was also getting osteopathic treatment to improve the circulation to the rectum to reduce the spasms and to work with the stress response in the body to relieve the internal sphincter. It helped with regards to the night pain that I started to experience so that was relieved. By the time march came I was experiencing pain up to 12 hours daily and feeling like my life was simply revolving around organising taking my pain meds two hours before a BM to avoid the pain, sitting in the sitz bath for 30 minutes, applying coconut oil to the anus and trying to focus on getting through the day. I took a private session with a therapist who taught tension releasing exercises (TRE – you can find the video on YouTube and Google the physiology behind it) so that I could utilise it at home after I was able to go beyond the pain. Nothing was possible when I was in that pain. Nothing can compare to this pain and I simply can’t believe how many people here have been suffering for years with it. Anyway I decided to go to a psychotherapist to work through some issues in the hope of resolving the reduction of stress and hopelessness. She was great, hard-core but enough to know I was doing the right thing. The pain was still the same and I started to feel sore inside the rectum followed by the usual intense burning and pulsating inflammatory sensation. Things felt like they were just getting worse so I went to an acupuncturist got some pills and a treatment. The pills really helped with going to the toilet and by this time I’d lost 5 kgs and had cut out dinner, as I was scared to eat. I felt scared and fearful all the time and every time friends called I had nothing to say except I’m in pain and I’m suffering and I feel like I’m sabotaging my friendships. They were great and so were my family although I couldn’t talk to anyone for the whole morning until late afternoon when the pain would begin to subside. I cried most days and could barely have a conversation with people because I would get upset every time someone asked me how I felt. I was so damn consumed. It’s really hard not to be, as you go into survival mode and I would barely leave the house unless it was absolutely necessary ie.work. I couldn’t exercise except walk when the pain reduced as any other form of exercise would increase the pain. I was scared in case I needed to use the toilet when out and if I would be in pain and if I could clean myself straight after without using paper etc. By the second week in March I felt despondent and was thinking a lot of how my future would look with life this way. I never contemplated suicide but I thought a lot about how I could kill myself in a way that would be pain free. I would never have done it but my thoughts were going there as a point of relief I guess. I went back to emergency where the doctor gave me rectogesic and told me to take suppositories (which I had been but felt brunt inside all the time) The problem was I couldn’t take rectogesic due to having g very low blood pressure and vertigo. The contraindications of taking suing the cream so I felt I was going nowhere fast.

At this point I was recommended to visit a renowned Ayurvedic doctor who specialised in digestive disorders and constipation. Ayurveda is an ancient Indian form of healing using natural herbs to treat different body constitutions.
I spoke to her about my situation and she prescribed me a medicated ghee called mahathikthakam ghrutham to take before breakfast, then two tablets (with hot water) called guggulutiktam kwatham to take 45 minutes before lunch and 45 minutes before dinner. I also took one teaspoon of castor oil before bed and told to drink a lot of water. I was also injecting coconut oil into the rectum at least 3 times a day and either coconut oil or castor oil on the external anus. I had to completely change my diet again as the food i'd been eating were inflammatory (tomatoes, celery, any form of spice, tumeric, potatoes, etc). So I started to eat root vegetables and cruciferous vegetables with rice, homemade ghee and mung beans/green lentils daily for about 3 weeks now and I only drink boiled hot water, nothing cold. Breakfast consists of gluten free hot oats with honey pumpkin and sunflower seeds plus fruits like melon pineapple, berries, papaya, grapes plums. Everything as organic as possible if you can. After about 4 days I started to feel really different. The pain subsided and I came of the pain meds for four days and only suffered one hour of pain then nothing! Until I split myself again. I hadn’t drunk enough water (I drink between 7-9 350ml glasses per day), which left me constipated, and I was unable to defecate as it got stuck for about 30 minutes the day I split! So I remained on the pain killers which contributes to dehydration and constipation the pain of course increased after the split and it felt like I was back to square one. Anyway, I continued with the herbal pills and decided I was going to go through with the operation Lateral internal sphincterotomy. I’d had enough and I wanted my life back, I had no quality except for a few hours and I yearned to sleep to be out of misery. I felt that I’d rather risk being incontinent that continue with this pain. It was debilitating and life consuming and I didn’t want to continue life this. I had my appointment with the surgeon last Wednesday and as she’s examining me she says, there’s no tear, internally or externally, there were no internal or external haemorrhoids but that I have a polyp that needs to be removed. Whilst she was feeling inside she touched it and it was pretty painful. When I left I thought I’d have loads of pain but I had nothing. I believe the actual fissure healed as 3 doctors had agreed with this diagnosis. The few days leading up to the examination I could feel that something had changed, as the pain wasn’t present after I medicated which it usually was. Last Saturday I went to a Dao medicine acupuncturist who also gave me some meds and a treatment and said this will pass and you will heal but there’s been a trauma in your body that needs to be addressed first. Sunday I decided to come of the pain meds and since then I’ve had no pain. To first few days I could feel a mild irritation like itching and slight burning for about 10 minutes after a BM then nothing most of the day. It’s been 4 days and I’m still pain free. After 14 weeks of pain I feel there’s hope and even if things to back to where they were I know it’s possible with the right help that there can be a shift. At the same time I feel like I would still go through with the operation due to the intensity and debilitation of the pain. If you have access to an Ayurvedic doctor please go and talk with them. The osteopathy and acupuncture will also contribute. Try as much as you can if you have the finances and if not, my next step but to buy a TENS machine to change the neurological input in the sacrum S1-S3 nerves in the hope that I could rewire the impulse and short circuit the pain. There is also a therapy called neuro-feedback therapy to rewire the pain mechanism that is misaligned in the brain and to assist in self-regulation. Look into it if you’ve tried the above options and I just want to wish you all the best in your recovery. Something else that I thing contribute to the pain and that was my incessant habit of watching murder crime series. In hindsight I should have been watching something to make me laugh due to endorphin increase and reduce of pain. Crying also helped with relieving pain due to leucine enkephalin hormone release which is a natural pain killer so do what you have to do to survive and ask for help. Please do not suffer in silence. Good luck, take care and feel healthy soon.
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Re: ANAL FISSURE AND TREATMENT

Postby owmybum » 17 Apr 2016, 11:07

Thankyou for your very detailed post. I'm sure some of the ino will be very helpful to others.

OMB
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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