This forum has been a godsend for me since I developed my AF back in December 2015. Since I am now on the road to recovery I wanted to post my story in order to give back to this community. I had no idea what an AF was until I was diagnosed and I am sure I did it harm prior to the diagnosis.

Anyway, this is my story.....

In mid-December 2015 I was awoken one night by some bum pain. It got pretty severe (Don't think I have to go into detail here as we all know the pain). I thought it must be hemorrhoids but had never had any before so it was a guess. Treated with prep H and pain reduced/went away. This lasted for about a week when the pain came roaring back....again at night. Luckily I was on holiday leave from work for 2+ weeks so I just took it easy and tried to let everything settle down (still without knowing really what it was). It mostly worked, dealt with some pain but manageable. Then I went back to work and couldn't even sit at my desk. This spurred me to see my GP which I did the following day. He diagnosed the AF right away and prescribed Nitro and appts with a GI and CRS. Got the nitro ($100 a tube...yikes!) and it seemed to work a little but in reality not very much. Saw the CRS and he ended up prescribing Dilt which worked a little better than Nitro but not much. I went 2 more months (now we are up to Feb 2016) alternating between Nitro and Dilt with limited to no success. Had the typical days where I seemed to be getting better then relapsed (it's certainly a roller coaster ride). Finally decided to do BOTOX (CRS wouldn't go straight to LIS -more on this in a minute).

BOTOX first day seemed to be working but in reality it was just the lidocaine. BOTOX did nothing for me. At this point I was pretty disheartened and my CRS was not helping at all...plus his manner was to offer little to no information and get out of the office as quickly as possible. I am lucky enough to have a friend that is an Ortho Surgeon. I talked to him about it mainly because I wanted to get an Rx for valium (I was WAY stressed out and the spasms were getting worse by the day). He wrote the Rx and it helped a lot with my mental state but it's not something to take long term nor does it "heal" the AF. He was kind enough to make some calls and found a very good CRS for me. Highly recommended by the head of surgery and his wife (an anesthesiologist....they really know who is good!). Went to see her about 3 days later and right away I knew this was the right person. She examined me and was able to fully see the AF (none of the others could fully see it) without sticking something up there and said "we're gonna fix this for you". We talked about what had transpired and she said "BOTOX is really experimental. We're not even sure if its just a placebo effect or really works yet." Anyway, I booked my surgery for 1 week later which was 23 March 2015.

I had the normal jitters surgery day but did not experience the long term worry most of you did as I didn't care (and still don't) about the possibility of incontinence. I just wanted my life back. I am here to tell you that surgery was FANTASTIC. I was in pretty decent amount of pain the day of surgery and the next day but it subsided pretty quickly and here I am almost 4 weeks out and I can do almost everything I used to. I even had a slice of pizza the other day!!

this is leaving tons of info out so please feel free to ask any questions. I will continue to check back in here to answer as this forum helped me so much with my mental state all throughout this horrible ordeal.

I guess the moral to this story is to not be afraid of getting LIS (I waiting 3 months but wish I hadn't) and to do your research and get a good CRS.

I truly hope you all find relief.


NOTE: My surgeon friend is convince my first CRS was being paid to do BOTOX research and is adamant about me reporting his behavior. Apparently they are paid more for research than to, you know, actually treat people and relieve their symptoms. It fits in that my AF was probably not as bad as some others and he could justify the research with "it's a conservative approach". I'm not bringing this up to scare anyone or as a conspiracy theory...just food for thought.

Hello Skiponzo!

So glad to read how much better you are feeling since your surgery. I have been down a very similar route to you, but in the UK (I'm guessing you're elsewhere). I had botox on the NHS, which didn't do any good. In fact it may even have made it worse as my life basically imploded afterwards. Mind you initially I was too afraid to go straight on to the surgery. Given the choice I would have tried botox anyway I think, as it makes logical sense somehow and actual cutting sounds horrific!

Anyway I had LIS done nine days ago (had to pay for it privately as they couldn't give me any kind of date on the NHS) and so far it hopefully seems like I'm moving forwards at last. Worth mentioning maybe that my surgeon (who is very experienced in the field as far as I can tell) didn't rate botox at all and certainly felt it wasn't worth giving a second go.

Good luck to you and enjoy your recovery!

Thanks BB. As we are all well aware this ailment can completely derail your life and throw you into a mental anxiety state. I read on here (and felt myself) that many would just rather leave this earth than continue to deal with an AF. I total understand that but it's also sad as I look back because I have a wonderful wife and 2 great kids that I love dearly. I'm a very active person and am heavily involved in my kids lives as well as my community and I believe the loss of the ability to continue doing those things really threw me. Friends said "you even spoke differently". I'm an otherwise very health 49 year old male that has really never had anything take me down like this did and I did not handle that mentally well at all. REALLY happy to be moving forward......


BTW you are correct. I'm in the US.

Thought I should give a bit of a follow up to my original post.

I am now 9 weeks post op (as of tomorrow) and things are going very nicely indeed. I still have some pain mainly around the surgery site but it is not constant and in fact was pretty much completely gone from weeks 6.5-8. Last week I had a bad D episode (my system has always gone through a cleansing period 3-4 times a year) which worried me as I did get surgery site pain again which then seemed to lead to a fissure site irritation (SIDE NOTE: the surgery site pain while bothersome does not stress me out....when I have had fissure site irritation (2 times since surgery) it freaks me out for obvious reasons). This lead to me experiencing very minor discharge again for about a week after which has subsided over the last 2 days. All in all I am VERY happy I had surgery and am looking forward to this being completely in my rear view mirror. I know it will still take quite a bit of time (I am hoping for end of summer but expect it may be even longer before that happens) but no matter what this is WAY better than before surgery. I can't tell you (well maybe all of you understand but most do not....even my wife) how happy I am to have my life back. I was very depressed prior to surgery thinking I would have to live my life like this FOREVER. Thanks to God for my surgeon.

Hi there Skiponzo.

So lovely to hear that you are moving onwards and upwards! Thanks for dropping by to leave an update - it's really helpful to people like me tagging along behind you (I had surgery 6 weeks ago). The most worrying thing I find is that it's not a steady improvement. I have days that feel like I'm nearly completely better and then days where I'm pretty sore down there still. It's more like a wavy line than a steady slope.

Here's to continuing improvement for us all. BB x

Thanks BB. Here's to hoping that your recovery continues to move forward as well!

You bring up a salient point in that no recover is completely linear. I too have more of a wavy line than a straight shot to successful healing. In fact, after I posted this yesterday I had a particularly troublesome BM that ended with what seemed like a glob of mucus. My thoughts? "Dammit, what happened now" but I've taken to uttering the phrase BE BRAVE with each curveball thrown my way and it helps to reset my thinking which allows me to better understand where I was and where I have come to at this point. All I can do is hope and pray it keeps moving in the right direction (NOTE: Bum is a little sore today but overall nothing else of substance has happened since).

I would like to note that my diet has pretty much returned to what it was prior to the AF rearing its ugly head. The exceptions are that I have yet to eat red meat (lots of chicken, turkey and fish) and of course I am taking steps to ensure I am getting the 30-35 grams of fiber required everyday. My system is still rebelling from the fiber intake as previously, though fairly healthy in my diet, I did not eat much fruit or veggies. Now I have a serving with every meal, take 2 spoonful's of Metamucil per day, eat at least 1 fiber bar (they are surprisingly tasty....enough so that I have to hide them from my 13 year old). It should also probably be noted that I have never had a BM issue in terms of hard stools or having issues going. I go...a lot. Normally 2-3 times a day but there does not seem to be a Colitis or other issue though I will know more about that later this summer when I am courageous enough to undergo a colonoscopy. Oh the joys of getting older. :-)

"Be brave" - I like that! May give that a go myself at low times. My other half's favourite incantation through all this has been "hope and cope" which covers a lot too.

Hope things continue to improve for you, Skiponzo. It's true getting older is not for cissies!

BB x

I guess it's time for a quick update to my story. I will be 13 weeks post op tomorrow and things have overall been very good but sloooooooow (story of life with an AF I guess). I continue to experience sessions of minor pain and irritation but they have recently been offset by periods of....nothing. Like no discharge, no blood no pain. What I am finding is that when I decide to try and wean myself off of daily baths (I'm still taking 1 per day) my anus gets slightly irritated. I'm not sure if this is mainly a mental thing I need to overcome or if it is fully physical (probably a bit of both) but it's definitely something I've noticed. About 2 weeks ago I ended a round of discharge (I seem to fluctuate between no DC for a few days then minor DC for a week- 10 days) and went through a good week plus with nothing ....even started to let myself believe this might actually be 100% over.....NOPE. As soon as I thought that I had some pinching type pain in an area I thought was different but very well could have been the fissure itself since it must at least be smaller if not fully healed. So for the past week I've had a couple of days of minor DC and some of the pinching pain periodically. Frustrating that it's taking so long but still trying to be positive. After all, I have a life again......if this is what the rest of it looks like I can deal with that.....I'm just getting greedy now.

I have yet to have a steak or a burger but I have re-added spicy foods and LOTS of alcohol back into my diet. I notice a definite change in the "outcome" when I drink so I'm thinking I may have to end that portion of my life.....just not fully ready to do that yet.....though I'm like 75% positive it's something that needs to happen for ful recovery.

Hello Skiponzo! Glad to hear things are generally positive with you. I'm moving in the right direction too but it's hard not to be impatient and every setback causes a huge cloud of doom to descend.
But yes, so much better then the dark days before the surgery!
Here's to full recovery for us all... eventually! BB x

Well tomorrow makes 1 year from my date of surgery and though I haven't thought about this site in a long time the anniversary made me decide that I should check back in.

Am I fully 100% recovered from the AF. No, I don't think I am but really I'm not sure. I still have occasional pain or slight burning sensations that go away quickly. When they happen I am ALWAYS afraid that I'm now going back to the dark place I was a year plus ago but it seems to go away very quickly (like within 10 minutes) so I'm not sure if this is normal recovery, something I should be worried about for fear of future AFs or if it's totally normal to feel these things and before the AF entered my life I felt them too but just ignored them. Who knows. I'm just happy that my LIS WORKED!