Hi everyone, my name is Janet and I live in the UK. I discovered this Forum yesterday and I am so happy to join and discuss my problem with likeminded folk. I have suffered with what I think is this condition for several years now and have NEVER been to my Doctor... bad I know but it is so embarassing. It began around five years ago now.. yes I have suffered for a long time. Excrutiating pain when I went to the toilet to pass a BM. I hold onto the wash basin with one hand and the radiator with the other cos the pain is so bad. I used to suffer with this around every three months however over the past year or so it is now every five weeks like clockwork and I don't know why. If anyone could enlighten me I would love to know. I have ordered some Hemoclin gel off ebay so I am waiting to see if this helps. Anyway, I will keep you all informed.

Hi Janet it sounds a lot like the symptoms of a fissure. The pain with a fissure tends to be sharp well localized and excruciating and usually there is some bleeding . I have had fissures for years. Please check out my newbie post and you will see that I had symptoms. Just like yours. I chose to put off seeing a doctor too because it happened when I was rather young in my teens and finally my parents got the wind of it and took me. Seeing the colorectal surgeon changed my life for decade or more I was normal . Of late my recurrence has been rather long and I recognized the symptoms right away and in 3 months changed diet and got Botox for it: lots of info on this forum please benefit from mine and others experiences and if you can please do go see a colorectal surgeon if it's more frequent. Take care.

Jan,

I second what healing said. I know it's embarrassing to go have someone look at your butt, but trust me, it is worth it. It took me about a month to go see a colon rectal surgeon. These doctors are paid big money to do this sort of thing. I urge you to go to the doctor and get the diagnosis and that way the doctor can tell you what your best options are for healing the fissure and at least you know for sure what you are dealing with.

Thankyou for your replies. I know I need to see a Doctor as this has been going on for way too long and when it does happen I can be in agony for up to two weeks. Just wondered why it seems to happen every five weeks without fail?

I wish I could tell you the answer to that. Perhaps something to do with hormones, but the Doctor should be able to give you an answer. Perhaps someone on here may have dealt with something similar.

The sooner you can make that appointment, the sooner you can start to get some answers.

I finally did it!!!, after over six years of misery. Yesterday was really, REALLY bad. I suffered an intensely painful BM in the morning, I was in tears. Could not sit down, was uncomfortable standing up, it was horrendous. Being Saturday the Doc's was not open. I phoned a friend in tears. She told me to go straight to A&E at the local Hospital which I did. I was dreading it. Anyway, it was a female doctor who saw me... THANKYOU!!, and she told me my rectum was very swollen, there was a tag at the entrance which she said looked like the remnants of a small pile. She felt inside but it was too painful. She felt a small lump which she said was another small pile, and from my description she reckoned I also had a fissure higher up. OMG the relief of finally going. She wrote me a presctiption for a cream, of which I have forgotten as I had to leave at the chemists for them to order it. In the mean time I have been eating Smoothies, soup and ice cream as I have been afraid to go to the toilet. I have been taking anti inflammotary tablets and using coconut oil and lavender around and just inside the rectum. For now, this seems to be helping a lot. Fingers crossed the cream will help!

Hi jan,
Hope your continuing to see improvement, I'm sure once you start using your cream you will get much better.
I have recently started using hypercal cream you can get it from holland and Barrett you can also get the pillules too. It's meant to help heal cuts and ulcers...been using it a couple of weeks and it certainly soothes the burning. But the GTN is still my spasm saviour

Well done, Janet!! I think most people here can relate to feeling highly embarrassed making that first trip to the doctor - but it is definitely worth it, and the embarrassment pretty much completely disappears over time. :) And it really does help having people here to chat with who know EXACTLY what you are going through. Glad you have found some of the help you need. I hope the cream also helps in your healing.

Thankyou so much for your support. Picked up the cream today, it is called Ultraproct... has anyone heard of this? I am also on a health kick now.. much needed as I am overweight and have been for a long time. Got myself a Smoothie maker and cutting out all the fatty stuff now. Going to attempt to eat more fruit and fibre as I cannot go on with this every few weeks. Hopefully things will improve, and I won't be so embarassed to go to my GP now.