Sidra,
I take it you don't have constipation issues with your IBS? Have you tried to control your IBS which would also help your fissure/butt prob? All related you know.

Yes, usually no constipation problems...once in a great while it will manifest itself like that...probably what caused this AF, it's what I assume anyway.
I've tried many things over the years, sometimes things seem to work but then it's like my body gets "used" to or immune to the thing I'm doing and reverts back to it's old ways.
All I know is even when doing the colon prep Monday, that passing that watery stuff didn't hurt really, just a bit of burning...so obviously I have to stay on Miralax forever if I don't want this AF to return.

I've been able to reduce the amount of Miralax I take since I completed the Pelvic Floor Retraining class. :D

I'll have to check that out.

sidra1968 wrote:Gosh, I SO totally understand!! I did the same thing for weeks on the internet trying to get a grip on what I was actually dealing with - I basically self-diagnosed myself, then told the CRS that the doc at Prompt Care said for sure that I had a fissure- when technically they said they couldn't be sure without a sigmoidoscopy, and were gonna give me the runaround with first having to go to a Gastro (which was a month away for the first appt. available). HA! Wasn't gonna happen, I was too desperate.
My days were pretty much the same...like this..
As I mentioned I have IBS and I go roughly 2-3 times per morning. I go first thing and then get another massive have-to-go urge about 10 minutes later..sometimes it happens a 3rd or even 4th time.
My pain was the "passing shards of a broken glass" pain or as I said, "being violated by a broken beer bottle".
Very extreme, leading to the cold sweats and screaming. THEN, for about the next 5-8 hours it was a terrible, constant burning, like having a lit cigarette up there, or as someone else said "molten lava"
It would slowly subside and really usually by evening you wouldn't know I had been through that at all. I was perfectly fine some evenings/nights. But it was a total repeat the next day, and the next day, and the next day )other than when I thought I had "cured" myself with baths and stool softeners and the like.
Hope this helps.

Thanks Sidra! I have a similar pattern of bowel movements, usually I go right when I wake up in the morning, and then about 30 minutes or so later the urge strikes again. In fact my wife and I refer to the first BM of the day as the "unplugger" I usually go about 2 more times or so through the remainder of the day, sometimes in the evenings. Those are the worst because for a while I have some hope of being done with the insane BMs for the day, but then it's like uh-oh, there's that feeling again. I wish there were some way I could just dispose of all the day's stools first thing in the morning and then not have to go again until the next day, that would definitely make it easier to deal with, since the threat of a BM wouldn't hang over me the entire day!
And yeah, I know what you mean about the wait to see the right doctor. I've got an appointment for a consultation with a well-reputed CRS on August 26th, and can't wait for that day to get here. It's less than 3 weeks out but seems like an eternity. I'm half thinking about showing up to the ER and trying to get myself fast tracked with a STAT referral, but every time I step foot in the ER about $1k leaves my pocket, even with health insurance. But at this rate the money is most definitely a secondary concern to the nuclear war going on in my butt!
I'll be following your progess posts with a great deal of interest, please keep them coming!

Sounds just like my mornings...sometimes it happens in the afternoon to me also (just did last Thursday and I swear I almost died as I was at work). It's just that damn IBS, I've been going to doctors for stomach problems since I was 4 years old...don't remember too much trouble in college...it got to where it is now (the morning thing) and the intermittent more major pains when I was around 30. I see that's how old you are. It's generally manageable. I just have to make sure I'm up earlier than most people would have to be to get it "my morning problems" as I call them, out of the way. Also, wheat seems to make it much worse in general.
It always scares me for my trips, so I make sure I am well supplied with OTC meds like Immodium, Pepto, etc. When I went to Egypt last November I demanded Cipro antibiotic cause I was frightened to death I'd get as ill as I had in the Dominican Republic (had to be taken to hospital) - which cost me about $1000. This bad stomach crap (IBS) has cost me quite a bit now that I have to pay the very high deductible for this surgery. Honestly though, I told my sis and friends that I wouldn't have cared if they said it was gonna be $20,000, I would have no choice but to get a loan or whatever, and would've paid it gladly...I couldn't live with the pain any longer.

Sidra1986, u have given me hope when I was just about to give up! Thanku! I feel it is time for me to stop pussy footing around now aswell and I will be stressing to my upmost the pain I am in and the way this fissure is ruining my life at my next CRS consultation, next week. Thanku for giving me the confidence to go and let rip! X