Hi everyone! The past few days have been really rough. My doctor (a general surgeon) has prescribed me with muscle relaxants to see if that will help to relax things down there but they haven't helped at all... He said that if they didn't work I'd go in for an LIS. But as a woman I'm trying to avoid that option and I'm going to see a CRS on Thursday (after scouring the whole of my country I finally found a center dedicated to CR problems! I'm so relieved!!!!) even though it's very expensive and I have no insurance. My thoughts are if it heals me, it's all worth it.
I've been really depressed lately and on a scale of 10 my pain has been at 11 when I'm doing #2, but it's at about 5 or 6 when I'm idle. It's killed my appetite and I'm really getting scared of going to the toilet... but let me get to the point of this post.
I've tried sitz baths of every kind -- plain water, sea salt, epsom salt, apple cider vinegar and even concentrated mineral drops. They would all relieve pain but I haven't really seen very much healing, I would still tear every time I went to the toilet. My mom has called around in her desperation to help me and someone gave her advice that is apparently an old wives' tale here in my country (Philippines).
Apparently, when women give birth in the provinces here, they are told to boil guava leaves (therefore extract) and use the water as bathwater, or as a sitz bath. It's especially helpful for women who have had traumatic births, and also for aiding healing of C-section wounds. I just tried my first guava leaf extract sitz bath an hour ago and let me tell you, the relief is amazing... the pain is gone and my body feels mostly relaxed. It even helped me to pass gas painlessly (while in the sitz bath)--that to me is heavensent because it's been feeling like passing glass for the past weeks.
I take twice daily sitz baths so I'm gonna do guava leaf extract at night and epsom salt in the morning and see how it will help.
And I've actually done research on the healing properties of guava and guava leaves... Apparently it really is effective! Supposedly guava really accelerates wound healing and is also used for a number of different conditions too. If anyone wants the link to the study I found please just PM me cause I can't post links yet.
FINALLY, I'm hopeful!!! I've been so depressed the past few days that I've started having suicidal thoughts. I'm feeling infinitely better right now.