LMAO - OK, than you will have to join "cardio-vascular" forum once your butt heals !!! What can you possibly like in a McD burger ??? If you must LMAO - than at least have some real meat - like a good organic stake or at least "In-n-OUT" burger ha ha haaaa - although "OUT" part will be difficult for your butt
Oh well ; ) - I am glad you have all "pampering" stuff ready and yes - you will LOVE that Balneol thingy and you will need more than one ha ha, as you can see - it is "flying" of the shelves LOL ; ))) - for a good reason ; ))) !!!!!
Fried fish is OK and tempura is actually "veggies" - so they are not so catastrophic for a fissure !!!! Taco ,(like popcorn and nuts OMG) - that is VERY scratchy food - good luck NP !!!! Please do take care of your butt : ((( - the bigger is the fissure before the LIS the longer it will take to heal regardless of the surgery .
Also - no crazy food till one year passes (at least ) - you do NOT want to risk another fissure and another LIS - do you LOL !!!!!!????
Sigh.... what a person to do with you

Hey don't rain on my McDonald's parade now :) Nothing beats a few ice cold beers with a Big Mac plus french fries, YUMMY. In 'N Out is okay, but it's not the same... When I lived in LA, there was a place called Fatburger that was awesome, but unfortunately we only have a few Fatburger stores up here and they're all kind of far away :( If I could I'd go for a few Fatburgers between now and LIS and wash them down with some tequila! I fully plan on being careful after LIS, but I just want a small taste of the good life before I have to behave myself again...
I'm sure (actually I kind of hope) I'll regret it tomorrow, but boy those tacos are sitting real good in my stomach right now. First time in a while now. Had them with taco sauce and everything, what a treat :) I actually had a big fat bag of nice buttery "movie theater butter" popcorn last night too :)
But yeah, one more day before surgery day, so I'm actually kind of hoping that the tacos cause me pain tomorrow morning, so that will make the mental follow-through easier. I think my fissure must be tiny right now because I can barely feel it. Hopefully I'll have a chance to talk to the surgeon beforehand and ask her to please check the fissure size before deciding how much muscle to cut. I'm willing to bet that the fissure is mostly healed already. My main goal with LIS is to prevent a recurrence and get back to beer drinking and snowboarding form by the end of this year. If December 2010 comes around and I can be in Tahoe with a nice cold beer in my hands without any fear of the consequences then it will all have been worth it!

NG - i just skimmed this post but wanted to warn you to be VERY careful with your diet in the days leading up to LIS. after surgery you'll probably have a hard time with the first BM (literally and figuratively!) so please be careful and make sure you stick to a very strict diet before and long after LIS. also, hopefully all this will make you think twice about chowing down on tacos and chugging beer in the future. i know things like that are what caused my going-on-4-years problems.
regarding anal stenosis, I've had 3 anal surgeries so my situation is different but my BMs have been very narrow as a result of all the surgeries, chronic pain for the past 4 years, and the build up of scar tissue down there. My BMs aren't much bigger than 1 finger, sometimes 2. i can still go without problem everyday (although i do use Miralax religiously) so i doubt i have stenosis but who knows how i'll fare in the long-run. i think once you've dealt with this for a significant amount of time, you're bound to always have problems and have to be cautious.
all that said, i think you're stressing way too much about LIS. i don't really know your story but seriously the surgery is not that bad! stress only makes it much worse. and give yourself time to heal. don't rush back to anything and don't be overeager to get back to your pre-fissure lifestyle. i know it's hard but it will make a huge difference.
good luck.

Ok so I chickened out of LIS today. Yes. I am officially the biggest loser.
Since the fissure wasn't hurting very much (and the tacos actually passed today without any problems ), I called the surgeon to specifically ask her to please double check the fissure again before deciding how much to cut. I figured I should do that ahead of time since I'd probably be out from the anesthesia by the time she gets to the operating room. I must have sounded very apprehensive on the phone because she asked me if I was sure I wanted to go through with the surgery.
Long story short, she ends up squeezing me into her schedule today so she can double check the fissure. She says, yes, it's still there, smaller than before (partially healed) but still visible. And the sphincter is still in spasm. But when she pokes around with her finger directly on top of the fissure, I don't feel any pain at all. So it's largely asymptomatic at this point.
So I basically tell the surgeon that I'd follow her advice, if she thinks surgery is the way to go, then we'll do it, if she thinks it's better to wait based on what I've told her and she's seen, then I'll wait. To my surprise she says that if she were me she'd give it more time and see what happens. So that's what I ended up doing...
I was very anxious about LIS, but I was also very eager to take that leap of faith and have my "all or nothing" moment, so I'm kind of emotionally weird right now. I will say that I greatly appreciate the doctor being so understanding of the whole thing and not minding such an 11th hour change. That goes a loooong way... I fully expect to circle back to LIS at some point over the next few months (because hey, if the stupid fissure isn't healed by now, what other than mindless hope would lead me to believe it'll spontaneously heal now?), so I'll definitely be doing it with the same surgeon if/when that happens.
And with that, the saga continues.
Signed,
- Huge Loser!

BTW thanks Juney, I was a big junk food consumer back in the day too, and I'm sure that has a lot to do with my ass problems. This week I was purposely trying to "yangtze fluid" off the fissure so that LIS would be an easier mental commitment. But no matter what I did, the stupid thing just wouldn't act up. I don't know if that was all mental or what, but for whatever reason, I ate fast food and junk food all this week and nothing really happened except some occasional mild discomfort.
I'm sorry that you've been through 3 surgeries and are still having issues. I'd always thought of LIS as the magic bullet, but having been on this board for a while, I now understand that it's not. In most cases I guess it works but it seems that for some people there's no clear answer.
Now that I've filled myself up with junk food all week, I'm half expecting a bad BM to happen this weekend and make me regret canceling LIS. Man I'm one neurotic dude. I'm definitely stressing way too much about LIS, the fact that you've been through 3 surgeries and I'm flipping out over just one makes "Huge Loser" more like "Enormous Incomparable Loser" :)

oh geez NG! lol

Yeah I know :( I feel like such a moron about the whole thing. I was worried about the surgery but also looking forward to possibly putting the whole fissure episode behind me once and for all. But now it all just continues.
In my mind I feel like the right thing to do was give the fissure more time because it wasn't bothering me very much. But emotionally I really wanted to just have my "all or nothing" moment.
The surgeon was so nice about the whole thing that I felt terrible about flip flopping at the last moment too. And I just know tomorrow's poop will probably be bad. Maybe I should seek psychiatric treatment before I seek LIS again :)

lol! i don't think so, i completely agree that it is stressful thinking about surgery. it would be easier if you knew for sure that you were going to have it and feel great again in 2-4 weeks, but there are no guarantees! it's rough!

Woke up today regretting canceling the surgery. DOH! Now I'm thinking about calling the after hours number to see if the slot is still available. And psychosis officially sets in

were you having pain or just mental regrets?