The title of this thread says that I have had an anal fissure for 13 years, but actually the first inklings I ever got that something was wrong in my anus was 21 years ago back in the late summer of 2000. In 2000, I remember having a mild pain when I walked. I had an acute anal fissure, and that went away on its own after just a week or two. I did not develop a chronic anal fissure until 2008. I might have the message board record for the longest time with an anal fissure.
I really got a genuine, chronic anal fissure back in the spring of 2008. If I am nervous or upset or frazzled about something, eating a lot of junk food calms me down. In the Spring of 2008, I moved to a new city with only about $200. I moved to a new city to get away from certain people in my hometown. I was doing a job search in the new city. My having to do a job search and my living on the streets had me very nervous and frazzled. While I was walking from business to business applying for jobs, I stopped at fast food restaurants several times and ate an insane amount of food in a very short time to calm myself down. I didn't know about anal fissures at that time. I had never heard of an anal fissure at that time. When I had an anal fissure back in 2000, I did not know that the pain in my anus was due to irritation from bowel movements. In 2000, I thought I had hemmoroids because I had never heard of an anal fissure. Eating an insane large amount of food (including a lot of ice cream which gave me diarrhea) resulted in me having to have a lot of bowel movements in a short amount of time. I remember one day I had about four bowel movements in one day. Then I got an anal fissure. My anal fissure made it painful to walk, especially shortly after a bowel movement.
In 2008, I went to the "Community Free Clinic" in the city I was in for my anal fissure. The doctor at the free clinic for indigent people told me that I have an anal fissure, but she did not do a rectum exam on me. I think that she did not want to look up my anus lol. She had me get naked and then put on a gown, and she put on latex gloves and explored my anus with her finger. In December 2009, I went to a urgent care clinic where I had to pay for the medical advice, and a doctor did a visual exam of my anus. He said that I have two tears in my anus. One at 12 o'clock and another at 6 o'clock. The big tear was at 12 o'clock.
I did a lot of experimenting with my anal fissure. The challenge was to find food that filled me up and was palatable without harming my anal fissure. At one time, I tried drinking a lot of apple juice to fill myself up without harming anal fissure. I drank a great deal of apple juice and then the malic acid in the apple juice caused me to have diarrhea. I did the same thing and had the same outcome with egg nog.
In 2011, I got a new job cutting grass on a large army base. The job would entail a lot of walking. I quit my old job three weeks before starting the new job. In those three weeks, I ate nothing but green beans in an attempt to heal my anal fissure. The strategy worked. The anal fissure stayed healed for one year. But a year later, I got a job at a factory, and I started having a bad diet again. The fissure re-teared.
Then in 2012 I got a job as a long-haul trucker. In this trucking job, I would drive a big rig all over America and stay out for 6 weeks at a time. I was a team driver. In my trucking job, I was under a lot of pressure by both my teammate and my fleet manager to drive for a long time without stopping to eat or use the restroom. So I would eat a huge meal, so I could drive a long time without stopping to eat. And I would drink very little water so I didn't have to stop to pee. The anal fissure got worse than ever by far. My anal fissure got so bad that sometimes I would be in agony after a bowel movement.
When I am sitting on the toilet having a bowel movement, the bowel movement itself does not hurt. But starting about 15 minutes after the bowel movement, my anus starts hurting. I have the delayed pain. My anal sphincter starts spasming.
In 2018 I quit trucking to go to a trade school. I bought a lot of baby wipes. I only use baby wipes to wipe my anus. Then I bought a "Squatty potty" device that I use to poop. Then I started not wiping at all after a bowel movement. After a bowel movement, I would immediately fill up my tub with warm water (about 105 degrees fahrenheit) and take a 20 minute bath. I figured (mostly erroneously, probably) that since water is the universal solvent, the water in the bathtub would clean out my anus after a bowel movement and making wiping unnecessary. My butt probably stinked a little bit, but this strategy was effective in helping heal my anal fissure. But then in the fall of 2019, I went back into trucking and was unable to take a bath after bowel movements. I had to start wiping after bowel movements again, and my anal fissure got a lot worse.
Then earlier this year, I bought a flexible, metal hose that I installed on the end of my shower head. The hose is about four feet long. When I am at my house on hometime, I don't wipe after a bowel movement. And I immediately take a 20 minute bath after a bowel movement. Then I take a shower and clean off my entire body with soap. Then I use the hose showerhead and spray the water right up my anus. It is like a bidet. And that is how I clean my anus after a bowel movement. The spray of water does not irritation my anus as much as wiping does.
So in closing, I will go over what has worked best for me. I've done a lot of experimenting with trying to heal my anal fissure over the years. The most effective things to help heal the anal fissure for me were to eat more green beans and avoid eating ice cream. I avoid caffeine because caffeine can give me diarrhea. I avoid ice cream because ice cream gives me diarrhea. And I found that not wiping after a bowel movement helps me reduce the pain of an anal fissure a great deal. I think about 50% of the damage done to an anal fissure is due to wiping.
I hope to totally heal this anal fissure one day.