Hi Everyone,

After months of feeling that I was the only person going through this pain it was a relief to discover this forum. However, I find that as a gay man, on the few occasions where I have been able to openly discuss the issues I am facing, everyone immediately presumes that the problems stem from sexual activities which I know is not the case for reasons I will explain below.
I have had problems with haemorrhoids for over 15 years and have had them removed and banded on numerous occasions. Inevitably the severity of the haemorroids gave rise to skin tags and it was after a routine appointment with my CRS that he offered to remove them in stages. with the first surgery in December 2017. The first symptoms of the fissure appeared in mid 2018. I suddenly developed an intense pain and unsure of what had caused it went to my local A&E where the doctor diagnosed stage 4 prolapsed haemorroids. However, as the pain just got worse I returned to A&E a week later where the doctor correctly diagnosed an anal fissure and advised that I needed to see the CRS who had already been treating me. I live in the UK where medicine is free at the point of treatment, however waiting lists are ever-longer so I had to wait until january 2019 in order to see the CRS. Since then I have had 3 months of treatment with Diltiazem cream but the fissure didn`t heal so the CRS suggested anal botox and due to a cancellation he was able to do this in mid April 2019.
I appreciate that it is too early to say whether the treatment has worked but the pain is still very acute even after 2 weeks, although the pain was supposed to abate after a few days but I am hoping that the end of my suffering is close.
After the first skin tags were removed at the end of 2017, I was unable to have sex and the situation was made worse with the onset of the fissure. Even if the botox were to work and the fissure does eventually heal, I still have the tags which are dangling from my bum and make me feel so self-conscious that I dread the thought of intimacy with anyone. Reading various blogs on here the advice appears to be that one should not have skin tags removed where you have a fissure as it will only give rise to re-occurence. What with the pain and the thought that I will never be able to have sex again my life feels as if it is spinning out of control so any reassurance or advice from anyone who has gone through this nightmare will be gratefully received. Thanks

sorry people are making horrible conclusions.

I got mine from a large hard stool. No hanky panky involved. In fact my sex life has been on hold for 6 months. I want nothing touching down there. The thought of anything stingy getting in my area is hard NO.

I had my skin tag removed. I was told it would help with the healing of my fissure. I had a sentinel pile. Maybe get a 2nd opinion on that one.

I’ve had Botox as well and I have less spasm. I’m still recovering from my procedure which was on the 24th of April.

I hope it got better!

Personally I would try to go another route with the skintag removal. I had a sentinel pile removed, and it created an even worse more sever fissure, created a monster hemorrhoid along with another smaller one(which both left skin tags in the end). I feel like it ruined my anus and made everything WAY tighter down there, to which I'm still having issues. I'm queer and havnt had anal sex since oct-2018, feel like i never will at this point.
I was pretty upset about the giant skintag left behind after the removal, and found out through tons of internet research about skintag banding you can do on your own. I bought something online and now the big one is gone, which makes me feel a lot less selfconscious.