callmecrazy....
yes use the cotton stuff over the gauze cause it is definitely less irritable. my only concern with the cotton, is that it seems not as breathable as the gauze but i know that is not the case. the gauze is ultra-breathable and i am sure the cotton also allows for the wounds to breath.
i don't know if maybe getting a prescription for lidocaine 5% could help in alleviating the feel of the itch down there as well as help with any discomfort/pain/irritation from the swelling.
altho much of my swelling has gone down, the left side of my anus is still swelled up - especially the area of where Laverne & Shirley set camp (ie, my skin tag). so no worries there. i think it is normal. i don't even have any pain/irritation from that area. my only area of challenge, and it is quite small irritation, is the gapping area of excision at my 12 oclock end. it feels like a crator on the surface of an unknown planet! LOL!
i have confidence that all these swellings will go down. don't lose patience. keep the areas dry, do your warm/hot bath soaks, and keep positive thoughts.
you had a lot of work done down there - more so than any of us - and i would expect you to have some more time to heal but from what you have written and shared with us, you seem to be doing AWESOME!!!
what medications are you taking right now? still have toradol? vicodin? acetomenaphine? valium?
i know probably the anxiety is overwhelming for you right now. try to keep that in check and focus on the positives.
don't lose faith.

Thanks Happy! It's great that your recovery is going so well! And I LOVE your name for your tag! LOL I wish I had thought to name mine, I had it pretty much as long as I can remember only to have it grow in the past few years. Oh well, that's old news now.
As for what I'm now taking, I've pretty much cut out everything with the exception of the percocet, and I really only take that to relieve itching. It's the only thing that will make my body forget about the urge to scratch. Hopefully the doc will prescribe something else for the itching and I'll be free of major prescriptions. The CRS did give me a prescription for more toradol at my post op, but I'm hesitant to take it because he said they usually only give it a few days due to the increased risk of bleeding while on it. I may consider taking it again to help with swelling in a few days, but for now, I have a monthly visitor that will make it difficult to see if I have bleeding in other places too (sorry for being flippant about that info...but I figured it to be pertinent).
Thanks again for the support. I'm sure this will all be over soon enough, but patience has never been one of my virtues. I'm too much of a fidgeter to take this whole laying around the house thing easy. I'm ready to get back outside and do what I love. In fact, a little about me - my husband and I are avid fisher-people. We have several boats for all occasions, and living in Florida, the sportfishing capital of the world, the fishing is amazing everywhere! I'm itching to get back on the water. Oh wait.... that's just my ass from the stitches. LOL

hi callmecrazy,
well if you can handle it, maybe a little trip, short trip, on the boat this weekend will do you some good so you can get some fresh air and say hi to the fishies!
i am doing little by little here and think i will make it into work for 1/2 a day on thursday and 1/2 day on friday this week since there are looming deadlines that deal with online registration and housing opening soon and i have to make sure that we are all on track with the production of the preliminary program. i wish i could take the rest of the week off but i also don't want to have work build up horribly and cause me stress later.
it will be good to get out of the house. unfortunately, the weather is predicting 2-4 inches of snow for thursday at 1 a.m.

hi, callmecrazy i have been keeping up with your progress and just wanted to lift your spirits up by saying "wow i think you are doing fantastic" you have had lotts done and i only had botox 8 days ago for a fissure and thought that was awfull and then read what you have been through the term count your blessings came to my mind so well done you keep on being positive and keep that sense of humour xxxx

Gah!! This is so not fair!!! I had to go to the CRS today because I had a large 'chunk' of skin that was swelling considerably. He checked it and told me that it was the donor skin that was moved from elsewhere. The swelling is normal and that it would go down. Otherwise my healing was fantastic and I was even ahead of the game. I left there feeling like a million bucks!!
When I got home, I felt the urge for a BM. They've been great this whole time. I've been staying on my fiber supplements religiously, taking my stool softened, but no.... Not this one. As it started to go, u felt it. You know that feeling... the 'oh...my...goodness...its going to.... Boooooooo!!!' I felt it. The tear. I almost wanted to cry. Not from pain even though it hurt. I have gone through so much and my nightmare is back. I thought for sure is never feel that again.. Ever. Now I will be fearful of every restroom visit. Ugh! I feel like such a failure. I really hate my body right now. Sorry for being a downer, but I have no where else to turn. No one else will understand my frustrations. This sucks.

Aww nooooo!!!!! This sucks for you, but don't panic! You've had major work done, and there's bound to be swelling and an up/down healing process. If I were you I'd put my head in my hands and sob for awhile, but that's me. You just gotta keep on moving forward. It WILL get better. It sounds like you've got a great surgeon, can you give him a call for some advice? Hugs.

Thanks Alpine. I'm just so emotionally scarred from that feeling. It really threw me for a loop.
All I can hope right now is that the tear is just from something that healed up from the surgery, that just needs to heal again. ??? I just never wanted to feel that again. And I have on idea why I had a firm BM, unlike all the others previously. I've done nothing different.
I have to keep telling myself that even if I this had not happened today, it would have happened one day. I was bound to have a firm BM and it would have done this then too. For now, I am just going to keep drinking the hell out of my water, eating lots of fruits and veggies and continuing to take my stool softeners and metimucil.
Ugh. I just didn't want to go through that fear again.
I don't really want to call the CRS, as I feel like I've been bothering him so much since the surgery. I have an appointment with him again on February 17th, so I'll wait until then to see if any damage has been done. Hopefully I can heal-up anything that may have happened today.

Call,
I'm sorry this happened to you! You just had so much work done down there...I'm sure it's just so fragile that everything has to be perfect. No doubt there is probably a lot of swelling still going on down there. I know this has to be so discouraging right now. You have so much healing that needs to still take place and now this
I imagine you will have some set backs with this surgery and you are going to heal!! Once your butt gets some healing time on it, it will most likely be able to take the firmer bm's. It just sucks this happened though!
You may have already said this but what stool softener are you using?
I started the miralax after LIS. The docusate sodium( colace) just didn't cut it and I seriously doubt I would have done so well without it.

With this type of surgery, there is likely to be set backs, any kind of rectal/anal surgery will require a lot of healing time, generally, the more procedures you have done the more pain you will have post operatively and the result is longer healing times, most people that just have LIS alone are usually better off pain wise than people that have LIS and Fissurectomy, hemmorhoidectomy, anoplasty and Fistulectomy, I can definitely vouch for the LIS and Fissurectomy being very painful and lengthy healing.

Thanks Dawn and Steve. I'm really hoping that this was just a "normal" thing with my surgery, and that it'll heal and not be an issue. I mean, a normal-size BM, firm or not, should not tear me like that. Even before the surgery, that BM wouldn't have torn my fissure. It's just so scary and heartbreaking to feel that tearing again.
The worst part is that I'm fearful of BMs again. I had actually just gotten used to them post-surgery, and it's good to relax. LOL but there's no relaxing now! Geez! Stupid body...
As for the Stool Softener, I'm not certain exactly what I'm taking anymore, may just be a run-of-the-mill softener. However, I'm going to the drugstore this evening to pick up mouthwash, so I'll pick up miralax simply from recommendation.