After having a failed fissurectomy and dilation, I met with a new CRS yesterday, who is the top guy in this area.

After taking a new complete history and performing an exam he asked me if I wanted Botox or LIS. I asked for his professional opinion and he said in the UK (where he trained and is from originally) Botox is he go to treatment, but that both basically achieve the same result. Only drawback is that here (Ontario, Canada) Botox isn’t covered by our provincial health insurance so price could be an issue. I just called my insurance company and it sounds like with preauthorization it will be 100% covered.

No one I had seen mentioned Botox as a possibility before now so I haven’t read up on it. I just searched it and it gave me an overwhelming 1140 pages of results. I am supposed to call back today or tomorrow and let them know what to book. 1200 pgs of posts is a lot of research to do in a day so I thought maybe I would ask.

Opinions?

I had Botox five months ago and it helped some, but hasn't fixed the problem as I expected. I'm thinking of asking the doctor about doing it again and I hope it will work. Botox has mixed opinions among the CRS community. My primary CRS thinks it simply postpones the inevitable surgery since it wears off in a few months. The second CRS said she had an 80% success rate, but I've heard from another doctor that it also has a high recurrence rate. It all depends on how confident you feel about getting the surgery, and how much you want a permanent solution. If you get Botox and it doesn't help, then they have to wait till it wears off before doing surgery.

Hmm. That’s interesting. I hadn’t been told that I would have to wait to have surgery if it didn’t help. I was just told that worst case scenario I end up having the LIS if Botox doesn’t work.

I am going to have to bring that up with him. That’s frustrating that I wasn’t given that info. Makes a big impact on my decision process.

My CRS in Toronto, believes that Botox simply doesn't work, but said that if I had insisted on it before LIS, that he would inject it for me but I would have to pay about $400 for the drug. I went for the LIS and was very happy with the results.

My experience with Botox was it gave me pain relief...I ended up getting LIS but my CRS says he has a over an 80% success rate. But hey if you have to pay, may as well go for the LIS
Good luck