Good afternoon all,

I've toured these forums in the past, and had forgotten about it until now. I've been in and out of town 4 times in the past 4 weeks, and that has taken a toll on my digestive system. I just wanted to share what I do that typically gets rid of the pain for me in about 3 days or less.

The most important thing for new sufferers is to get over your embarrassment. You are in agonizing pain, go to the pharmacy and pick up anything you need to get relief. In my case, these are the products I use whenever I get a fissure:
-Medical Gloves
-Vaseline
-Sitz Bath
-Disposable Enema
-Pain Medication (I mix ibuprofen and tylenol),
-CBD Oil for topical use
-Miralax
Prevention obviously works best - if you feel that your stool is going to be hard, and you have the means, pick up an enema and use that to save yourself some unneeded pain.

If the damage is done, I follow these steps for future bowel movements:

1. Drink lots and lots of water, and use one cap of Miralax. These two are the most important in my opinion. When I stay hydrated, I never have hard stools. I think that hydration is more important than diet in this case (for my body at least).

2. For your next bowel movement, fill up a sitz bath with the warmest water you can handle, lubricate yourself with the Vaseline, and use the bathroom in the sitz bath. This is obviously not fun, but it cuts the pain of going down by a lot. I still feel pain, but I am not wincing and wanting to pass out like if I go without the sitz bath.

3. After using the bathroom, clean up the sitz bath, refill with warm water, and sit in the sitz bath for 15 minutes to reduce pain. If you have time in your day to sit in a sitz bath more than just after the bowel movement, do it!

4. Once finished with the sitz bath, dry off and lubricate the fissure with an ointment that would speed healing. I use a CBD ointment that helps with the pain (though this is a hit and miss). It contains other ingredients that are supposed to aid in healing as well.

5. Once pain is gone, continue using the sitz baths for at least 2 weeks. Hopefully that would be enough time to let the fissure heal up some.
The thing that originally stopped me up was supplements. If you are taking supplements, I'd suggest stopping any that you don't really need. They can make your stools as hard as a rock!

Other important things are diet and exercise. Diets high in vegetables are good for soft stools. Exercise keeps the bowels moving and keeps you going regularly. Your body may also release endorphins that will help with the pain.

Hope this helps someone out there! I'm on day 2 of pain (not as bad as day 1) and hoping by tomorrow I'll be pain free!