yep you're right about needing a diagnosis. Today i tried to take a picture of my downstairs to see if i could see anything (i dont have a mirror). After quite a bit of effort, I think i captured what appears to be two fissures. I know about the first fissure - ive had that since i was 11 and it was bearable (no spasms for hrs after, etc). The newer fissure (9ish months old) is there and im quite surprised because i thought it was only inside but its visible from the outside. I can totally see how it has caused the skin tag now too - seems like the fissure has just left that skin below it to sag down. I'm still not sure either were fissures but from what i think i can see it looks horrifying. Like they both look so wide. I'm thinking its no wonder these things aren't healing. If i had a cut on my hand that wide id be going to the doctor for stitches, soaking it in dettol and applying a gauze. and it would probably take a good week before it scabbed over and more than a month before a looked better. But again, the visual is still very blurred and very difficult to make out. I really hope no one goes through my phone anytime soon - that will teach them not to go through peoples phones lol

Sounds like you need to see a specialist to get rid of this. Don't waste any time!

Hi Normajeanchariot, I live in Western Sydney area and I have seen with two specialist, Dr Garry and Dr Darren Gold. I did prefer Dr Garry who sits in Westemad private hospital and had to pay $170 for visit and you will get medicare rebate around $75. He does private and public, so you can choose him to do public in Ryde hospital, if you go for private, it'll cost around $1800, few people from this forum has seen with Dr Garry, nice person, cheers.

Well after being told by 2 doctors I'd have to wait 6-12 months to see a surgeon as a public patient, I now have an appointment to see one just 27 days after getting the referral from my doctor. Oh and yes, I can choose who I see to some extent. I also had one doctor say I had no choice in what hospital I went to but then another doctor just sent the referral through to where I wanted to go and I've managed to get through. Long story short, please don't believe what your doctor tells you.

That's great!!

Good on you, normajeanchariot, what is the surgeon name ? I may need to recheck again in couple of months that I got small retear with hard stool, use GTN again, good luck and have a good one, cheers.

Dr Mark Doudle. I have no idea what he will be like. I just did a heap of research on about 20-30 surgeons and he came out on top. Also his receptionist told me he has never caused incontinence with any of his patients when doing the lis. I really don't believe this. Sort of just makes me think he's dodgy but like I said, from the small amount of info I have, he seems the best.

From that research I did, I found that some surgeons do about 1 lis a week and hardly any botox injections, while other surgeons do like 2-3 lis a YEAR and about 1 botox injection a week. In other words, some surgeons are only using lis and other surgeons are only using botox. Meaning most fissures are obviously able to be cured via botox (I'm assuming some patients just keep getting shots of botox until it heals). It's all very interesting and I really wonder if money is playing a role as I'm assuming lis is much more expensive meaning more money for the surgeon. One surgeon also claimed that botox is still very new so they weren't very familiar with it (new? really?) Having said that I don't think I could get botox because of the wide range of side effects that can't be linked to the procedure and hence aren't documented (think chronic depression and anxiety, brain fog, etc). The surgeon I'm going to see does about 1 lis a week. I don't know how many botox injections he does but apparently it's 'not as often' as lis. Point is, I have absolutely no idea what any of the surgeons are like or what motivates them to do the procedures they prefer. I'm also scared to death of being left incontinent from lis and fear that in the future I will view the decisions I'm making now as huge mistakes.

Hi normajeanchariot, thanks for the information and hope you had a nice weekend. With my experience, some old GPs didn't know about botox treatment for fissure, I think pretty new in Australia. I have seen with two surgeons and first person straight told me for botox treatment and second person told me to do LIS. But I didn't go ahead with both treatments and maintain my lift style, drinking water, eating fibre and apply GTN cream. Since from July, no blood, no pain but I didn't stop taking Osmolax and applying GTN till today but last week, I had hard stool and made me crazy, got pain when I applied the cream. But recover after few days and the thing is I can only insert one finger when I applied the cream, mean still tight. I will see for few months time for the improvement and if not, I have no choice to go for one of the treatments. Good luck and all the best, cheers.

Yeah I'm still not sure I'm even going ahead with the appointment. I keep hoping I'll get better without surgery. I do feel like I'm slowly improving. I'm even scared of the examination. I feel like he will tear me open and it's going to be a big bloody horrific horror scene.