Hi Folks,

hope you're all having good days today.

I recently had (another) great success, having suffered horrible AFs for 7 years now, often looking to fiber to help me (as prev posts).

I recently went away for a month with work, and basically every meal i had to choose from a menu (restaurant, hotel etc). sounds like our worst nightmare right? I had a month of no pain! friendly soft small stools, and daily easy movements. lots of water still. no creams or supplements.

i was basically healed and painfree for the whole time i was away! when i returned i got back into my habits of muesli and loads veg. A couple of larger BM's later i was back to pain again! So, I made list of what i ate whilst away, followed it, and right now im pain free again!

Its true that without the fiber my BMs missed occasional days, but they weren't hard when they arrived. im guessing the mass went down thats all. but no dry hard stool or even a plug.

Im very surprised but happy with the present result! I still avoided red meat and sugar, but im sure my fat and salt intake went up a lot, maybe that is what i was missing.

Anyone have a similar experience?

Happily confused for once!

This is one of the frustrations....what works for one, may not work for another. If I don't eat high fibre, I get plugged up, big time. That being said, going easily everyday has not helped my pain one bit.

I'm glad you discovered that less fibre may help you. Now that you are back home, you may want to try the diet you were on when away...see if the pattern continues.

Hi hurtinend,

Hope you're having a good day today.

yeah i guess we are all different, such a complicated thing.

Ive realised it might not have been less fiber, but more food generally that gave me good type 4s. ive copied a recent post below just to update the thread.

take care.

..............

I'm back in a purple patch (long may it last), only two weeks so far but lets see. i have lowered fiber but also increased food intake...

This recent success (daily type 4 BMs on rising, no hard stools, no excruciating pain - the holy grail!) has coincided with a period of eating a lot, (more than i would normally) having 3 good sized meals a day, plus regular snacking (ripe bananas, ryvita, crisps, salami, chocolate, whatever)

this approach still adhers to a mostly plant based diet, but getting some fats+protein from a little meat. im not having any fibre supplements, or over depending/obsessing on any one thing like prunes or apples or whatever.

this approach kind of happened by accident while travelling with work for 3 weeks. i couldnt understand, why my stools softened and BMs regulated (=fissure pain goes) when i couldnt really control what i ate. but i was eating+drinking a lot as you often do when away.

So i tried to repeat this at home, and amazingly got the same results! This leads me to wonder if eating plenty of food gives a constant signal to your gastrocolix reflex to keep working, this shortening its digestion time (hard stools are what caused my fissures, but ive known acid D to hurt too).

Its been a fascinating 2 weeks: I eat healthily generally, but eating more throughout the day has really done more than controlling every last item in the cupboard.

for the record:

pre breakfast - pint warm water+coffee
porridge (water)

snacks - ripe bananas/salami/ryvita/crisps/cold plate

main meals - a starter (eg saladrocket/beetroot/cucumber) + veg stir fry/pasta+butter beans+pesto/chickpea curry.

ive always been generally underweight, but my BMI has gone up to 21 already - i guess increasing food intake may not sound appealing to some people, but i have read that constipation and being underweight can often go together!

Any way i thought i'd post this in case its useful. let me know if you've had similar experience!

Cheers, and all the best.

Hi folks,
thought i'd update on my healing methods as i'm still in a good patch, just over 6 months now! having given up work, and even moved city as a result of my 7 seven year fissure misery! i basically just gave up on much of life until i could sort my self somehow.
So I'm still well, having given up fibre supps, my vegan diet, overloaded fruit bowl and chia seed porridge breakfasts. I still drink loads of water though. I now can eat steak, chicken etc, potatoes, pasta - as i said before, a meat and two veg diet is what i have now. even if i miss a day or two with the BM, it seems that having taken out all the fibre, my BMs are type 4 every time. the only time they aren't is when i know i didn't drink any water the day before, or i maxed out on alchohol, coffee, salty stuff, and especially if i'm on a long journey by car or plane or something like that. for me i cant really drink too much water, especially in the afternoon/evening - i feel to go to bed hydrated helps with the next mornings BM.
im updating this post because we are all encouraged to eat loads of fibre, but ive found the opposite more helpful to me. food we cant digest will make your stool larger - you might find a way to keep it soft, with medication, or whatever, but it seems i digest meat and carbs really well and so theres little left! and then with the water i drink it seems theres no way that it can harden, or get stuck! when i remember how bad things were when i was overdoing it (fibre), was horrendous, can feel like life or death on the bathroom! but with this simple approach, ive had 6 months of type 4. Im not saying this can work for everyone, but at least it has worked for me. I guess theres a reason why cultures mill their grains, seeds, and peel potatoes, vegs etc. i'd love to read a cross-cultural study of fissures in relation to local diets etc.
Anyway,
I really hope some of you try this approach if you've tried everything else and are still suffering!
basically: dont think about fibre, eat meat+2 veg, cook well, eat slowly and chew well, 2l water through the day.
Good luck!

This may be a dumb question but what is a type 4 BM?

hey folks,
thought i'd jump back in to say that this 'forget about fibre' approach has given me more day by day success than any other method! obviously i cant speak for all, but ive reached a very manageable level of health!
my meals now include rice, white meat (NO STEAK), fish, potatoes, some veg, pizza, pasta, bananas, cereal (not high fibre).
this meant cutting out porridge, red meat, bread binges, huge amounts of veges and seeds, and fibre supps.
i have also moved my now daily BM rhythm to the morning by getting up early and stimulating with plenty of water, coffee and breakfast. (kingfish: type 4 is the perfect one we dream of while we are ill, no plug, little wider than your thumb and soft so it adjusts to you in the way out! i also find that a slow exit reduces risk of irritation - i still can get a a 24hour hem if im not careful)
i love getting it out of the way in the morning - the BM has no time to dry out, the low level of fibre means it cant get large or hard, even if i miss a day or two! really! even after two days, it was still soft when i finally got the chance to be alone. (i was away with work). the mrning routine means im free to get on with the day and no need to think about it. i have made a ritual of morning ablution though. i might even start a religion.
i never would have thought that cutting fiber out would help me. i was clearly going over the top before (all bran, powdered chia and others. the best thing for me was just to sense my bodies natural time (which came earlier and earlier as i allowed it to, until now around breakfast.)
cutting out fibre and no longer experiencing the plug (at all!) was pretty illuminating. my present guess is that fibre is unnecessary for me - things got way better in every way after i stopped buying and including in every meal. i still dont eat loads of bread or steak though.
anyway thought id leave this here in case its useful for anyone. give it a try if you havent already!
good luck.

Hello again!

ive been continuining this style of eating another 6 months and its still working!! its pretty rare for me to have a hard movement now, and even if i do (due to travel perhaps) i seem to have healed to the point where im strong enough to survive it. im still pretty careful to stick to the above, but my golden rules are no red meat/bread/tea/fibre supps/hi fibre anything/fibre/wholegrain/appleskins/nuts etc...

I basically live on chicken, fish, pasta, rice, pizza (plenty of it seems absolutely fine for me). basically im pretty convinced my fissures before were caused initially by too much bread, steak, brown rice, wine, chocolate, tea, and sandwiches. i then made it worse by trying every fibre supp under the sun. the last to mess me up was chia seeds with porridge. yes i went, but stools were horrible. ive dropped fibre entirely from my diet (at least intentionally) and my life is back to normal. i didnt believe it could be the culprit of course, because of common 'knowledge' but 12 months later, what more proof do i need? i dont take any pills or special medications. i had the worst pain for 6/7 years, robbed me of my prime years, and to solve it, all i had to do was stop adding fibre to things, and only eat easy to digest food.

i still try to plan a movement most mornings (unless leaving for work early) with nice warm water, coffee, then breakfast. now it is reliably soft and literally moulds to me gently on exit with no hard feelings whatsoever. when i think about it, of course after all this evolution, my body knows how to create a stool, when to go, how to tell me, how to initiate, how to evacuate fully etc. it really doesnt need much in the way of control from us. I thought my reflex was broken, or my digestion faulty, or my hydration skewed, or whatever. but i was wrong. I was convinced i had to do something to make up for a lack in my genetics or something, by adding supps or controlling my diet to the nth degree. but in fact as it turns out, i was my own worst enemy. i have gotten out of the way now. even if i dont go for 2 days, its fine when i do because i havent packed my self to the brim with 30gs of fibre (or rapid hardening cement as it felt like).

I can of course appreciate, we here are not the same, and suffer from different ailments, levels of health, activity. All i can say is that if you are considering whether fibre can be the cause of your constipation - take it from me, it is possible. and since realising that, my life has gone back to normal 99%, despite losing almost a decade of full health.

I wish you guys all the best as always.

AG

Thanks for taking the time to update!

I have suffered a bad re- tare through eating plant based and too much fibre. 6 weeks in and I’m still trying to get on top of things.

Long may your healed bum continue! :)

youre welcome owmybum,

Sorry to hear of the re tear - after a good period its maddening isnt it!

actually i had a veg stir fry the other day - testing the waters and trying to change things up a bit - and predictably had a gentle reminder not to eat that stuff! back to chicken and rice for a few days!

so much of this is discovering your limits and then trying to stay within them!

All the best for you too!