I am new to the board...I just now joined. I am 25 years old and had my little boy a year ago. I have always had issues with constipation, even as a baby. When I was a baby I was scared to have a BM and wouldn't go and get constipated to the point where doctors had to dig it out with q-tips. Fast forward to now...I had my little boy a year ago via c-section. Stool softeners have never really worked on me so the pain killers I took made me constipated. When I finally went I ripped big time I think. I have not been pain free for more than a few days at a time since he was born. I either always have a fissure or hemorrhoids. I went to a proctologist around this time last year and he told me to increase my fiber intake and take Benefiber. I did that for a while and the AF seemed to heal but everything would always come back with a vengeance over the course of the year. I stopped taking alot of the Benefiber because it would just make me have pellets instead of the BM being soft. I switched to Miralax. I took 2 capfuls of Miralax a day and that seemed to be the only thing to help until now. I know I have an AF and possibly may have hemorrhoids right now and I am taking the 2 capfuls of Miralax a day but even with that making my BM soft I still am in a tremendous amount of pain. I used to push a lot and used to literally have to squeeze it out myself (sorry TMI) but I have stopped that. I think my problem is my sphincter muscle and it not relaxing. Every time I go to the bathroom it tenses up and I swear it is humanly impossible for me to relax that thing and I will bleed and it will burn and just be very painful. When I am done I will be shaking and have chills and I will have to immediately put some type of medicine on it, lay down and breathe and try my best to relax. After about 15-20 it will finally relax and just be really sore for the rest of the day. Even going from sitting to standing is painful (I am a photographer so I edit all day LOL). The medicine I rub on it is Nifedipine 0.2%...I am not sure what it is supposed to do...I don't see it helping much. The last BM I had today was not as bad as it has been. It hit me (thanks to the Miralax) and I literally didn't have time to sit down and used the bathroom standing up and that seemed to help. I still had a lot of pain afterwards but not during the BM. I just need some sort of help and don't want to resort to surgery. Sorry for all the graphicness...I just don't think people understand how painful it is and I just feel like I need to be up front about it.

Hi abhodges,
Sorry to hear of your suffering..we all know your pain!
How long have you been using the nifedipine for? It is a type of muscle relaxant and will help to relax your anal muscles...it takes a couple of weeks to really notice an improvement... Keep going with it though.
It helps to put a dab of Vaseline on your anus just before a bm... And I find putting my feet up on a stool helps things a bit.
It must be very hard for you with having such a young son to look after too... Try to make some time to relax... Hard I know... But it helps.
OMB x