Over two weeks ago, I went to the colo-rectal doctor, who said that I was not presenting like a classic fissure and said "there is a lot going on down there". For the third time, I came out of his office in tears, with no solution in sight. Two days later, I developed a thrombosed hemorrhoid...as if I didn't have enough pain going on! I ended up in emergency and wow, they are just no help there at all, no idea what to do except send you to a surgeon. So I was on Tramadol for pain and (for the first time since the start of the fissure drama), Milk of Magnesia. Lo and behold, within 48 hours, the "roid" had shrunk, and I was having BMs with NO PAIN, NO SPASMS afterward! This is the first time in 6 months that I have gone pain free for more than a day. And up until today, I had gone close to 2 weeks, in glorious, non-spasm heaven! I thanked the heavens everyday!

Then this morning happened. Never force a BM...that should be the mantra for all fissure sufferers. But sometimes it's impossible not to and that is what happened to me today. The results...blood, pain, spasm, anxiety, dreading getting up in the morning and having to go. Also, since the hemorrhoid, I really have quite the mess on my bottom...lots of lumps and bumps, you can't really tell what's where. I find it difficult to use my nifedrine cream, so I've stopped.

So, the drama continues when I wake up in the morning, thank god it's Sunday and I don't have to work! I'll post an update tomorrow.

Ugh...

High hootinannie

Nice to hear from you, sorry about your pain. There are a few things you
can try next time your on the stool and find your stool a bit too hard and
needing a good push.

Before you go, the old trick of prelubing with vaseline helps things come out
better with less straining. Also to get past that "plugged" bm at the start you
can try leaning to one side on the stool while squeezing together your butt cheek
near your anus with one hand.

This will often start the bm from its stuck position keeping you from straining too
much. Some have success at squatting over the stool and swear by this. Also if
the pushing your butt cheeks together does not start the bm try pushing upwards
right next to the butt hole and bm trying to come out. Some find applying pressure
to the tailbone area helps too.

But of course, the very best thing to do is to try to avoid hard stools at all cost
in the first place. Each time this happens to us, we just end up kicking ourselves
making us more determined not to have those hard stools again.

Yes. please keep us posted, hope your 'roids get under control again. Looks like
you have a date with Milk of Magnesia again. Sounds like you could use another
CRS for a second opinion of whats going on down there and where to go from there.

Hang in there; GL to you...

Hi Annie
Sorry to hear about this.I know how depressing setbacks are. The bad news is that it seems almost impossible to recover from an AF without setbacks. The good news is that they hardly ever send us back to square one and we get back on track fairly quickly. So I echo "Hang in there"!
Like you I find that I almost always have to push a bit to get started. I think there is a difference between pushing and straining. It is the latter which does the real damage and I have learned the difference through painful experience and also when to back off.
For me the secret has been to keep the stools soft. I find Movicol (Miralax) by far the best for this. I also make sure that my diet includes plenty of fruit, vegetables and water. I find that this works for me. But I am very conscious that we are all different and need to find what works for us.
Hope this helps and best wishes for healing.

Wheh. What a few days. Hey thanks for all the advice, I never dreamed there would be so much useful info on this site. You are all my salvation. Nurses, doctors, they all look at me as if I have two heads when I tell them of my trials and tribulations with this fissure. Honestly the most significant health crisis of my life. And I look at what others are going through and wonder why this is not given the same medical consideration as say, perhaps, migraine headaches? I just don't get it...

Maybe it's because you can throw the constipating opiates at other kinds of pain, and just give people relief. With the fissure, you are so limited. I have found that large doses of Ibuprofin are a little bit effective, but then they kill the stomach.

Anyhow, I am back on the mend again. I seem to do well with Milk of Magnesia. The Canadian version of Miralax is called Restoralax and it is very effective at keeping the stool soft. And water, water, water...keep that colon hydrated. Buttastic, thanks for the advice, but you know this forum is not without it's laughs...some of the contortion we go through to just go to the bathroom. Its crazy!

My heart goes out to each and every one of you that has had to endure this. I pray that I'll be a success story soon, I'll stay in touch. I am in line for LIS surgery, but these bum doctors scare me and I'd like to heal naturally. Cheers...and thanks!