Just wanted to thank everyone for their support. Being able to read your stories has helped me a ton during my dark days.

I'll start by sharing my back story a little bit. About 3 years ago I began having some Bleeding dying BM's. I was going through divorce and I was stressed to the max. I just assumed it was a hemmoroid issue and carried on with life. A few months into it I would have really bad spasms and burning afterwards. I work a job where I am continually getting in and out of car which I made me feel like I was ripping my butt several times a day.

I refused to go to the doctor because I was convinced that I had rectal cancer or something horrible.

Finally I went to see my PA. He diagnosed me with hemmeroids and gave me a steroid cream. I used this for a couple weeks which only made matters worse. More bleeding and more pain.

I asked to be referred to s GI specialist. He did a digital exam and diagnosed me with a fissure. This was about 1 year after my first symptom. With his help I cleaned up my diet and it seemed to be helping. When all this started I was about 185 pounds.

He sent me in for a colonoscopy. But at this point I felt like my fissure was healing. I still wanted to make sure that I didn't have anything else going on so I went through with it. Doing the prep was horrendous for my fissures and basically ripped me open all over again.

Afterwards I was told that I had a fissure and and otherwise healthy colon.

My fissure continued to heal for about 6 months until I had another unexplained tear.

At this point it's been about 2 years since my first fissure. I decided to see a CRS. He has been amazing. He prescibed me dilatizem and set me up for LIS. I used the cream for 3 weeks. And the fissure seemed to be healing so I cancelled the surgery.

Flash forward 5 months, which is about 3 years after my first year. I started getting loose with my diet and eating cheese burgers when I had another retear. It was the was by far. I ended up going to the emergency room after I developed a fever and I couldn't stop the bleeding after 14 hours.

I immediately started using dilatazim again which started my healing again. I decided I couldn't live another day like this. So I scheduled the LIS.

I had my surgery yesterday. I was very surprised to see that I weighed 152 pounds just before surgery. I was surprised to see how much weight I lost.

I was dreading the pain of the surgery but to my surprise it was nothing compaired to the pain of my spasms before it.

I was quite hungry so I ate a normal diet (post-fissure foods) which has sat very well. I have also been taking colace three times a day with a half dose of miralax once before bed.

I was numb for most of the day but I decided to take a Percocet to stay a head of the pain. I didn't really care for the side effects (dizziness) so I haven't taken another.

As I was getting me ready for bed last night I was having a lot of discomfort. I realized the site was packed with a golf ball size gauze wrap. I took a sitz bath and it fell right out. I found the site was no long bleeding.

I slept like a baby my first night but woke up dreading my first BM. I sat on the toilet after feeling the urge but I can't seem to get it to come with out straining. There is a cotton wound pack in my rectum which I can't seem to get out.

I'm going to continue hydrating and eating my fruits and veggies. Hoping that I can get things to come out.

So far on the second day I have not taken any pain meds. The pain is more of a mild pressure/discomfort so far.

Right now I'm feeling optimistic and want people to know the surgery is not nearly had bad as you might think.

I will keep you guys posted. you guys keep up the good fight!

Welcome, and thank you for sharing your experience!
I am glad everything went fine with your surgery, please let us know, how is it going after almost a month?

I thought I’d give another update since it has been almost a month since surgery (and because I’m being prompted to :).

I’ll be honest, the first few days were a breeze but after that things started to get challenging. I became really constipated so I was taking Colace and Miralax together. I found out quickly that this was a big mistake. On day 4 after surgery I woke up at 2am with a severe bout of diarrhea that lasted for 3 days. I wasn’t able to eat or really do anything for those 3 days. I was going about 10-15 times a day, and this was after I stopped using the stool softeners. This really aggravated the incision site and it was bleeding pretty good for about a week after that. I had to use a cold wash cloth to put pressure on the incision so the bleeding would stop after each bowel movement. I was really scared that I was going to develop an infection at this point.

I stopped using Percocet after the first day and just took one dose of Advil for the pain. I continued to do this for about 2 weeks until I no longer needed it. I mostly just used sitz baths to manage pain. That seemed to work better than the medications did.

I had a checkup with my CRS on about day 12. He said he was unable to see my fissures from the exterior and said they appeared to be healing well. He said the incision site was about 80% healed and he believed it would be completely healed within in an additional 3 weeks. He told me to keep taking Colace but only one dose at night.

I continued taking the medication at night and it kept my BM’s the perfect consistency. I have not had any bleeding or spasms during or after BM’s since about day 10 or 11 post surgery.

At week 3, I started having a lot of discharge from the incision. It went from clear, to white, to yellow, to light green in a matter of days. I called my CRS and he told me to check for a fever because it was unlikely to cause an infection this late in the game. I bought a thermometer and checked but I was fine and I also didn’t feel like I had a fever. He told me to start using Diltiazem again to help bring blood to the area and accelerate healing.

I have kind of loosened up my diet and started eating more junk. I also started doing more physical activity like walking several miles and doing so in the heat. At week 4 I decided to go on a 4 day road trip with my friends and girlfriend. I was just so tired of sitting at home and letting this thing run my life. The trip was tough because I got fatigued so much easier than I did pre surgery but it was totally worth because it really helped me get my mind of healing. So I have to tell you guys, go get out of the house, spend time with your family and friends. Go back to your old hobbies it really helps you heal quicker when you’re not sitting there thinking about it every minute. Go back to work and occupy your mind with positive thoughts, it helps!

The green mucus discharge is still coming from the incision site but as long as I am fever free and still feeling good, I’m going to just keep using diltiazem and not worry about it. The CRS seems to think it is normal. So, what the hell, let’s just roll with it and enjoy life again.

I’m still very happy that I had the surgery. I feel like I’m getting back to the old me. I really recommend having the surgery if the other conservative methods of healing didn’t work. A lot of people are concerned about losing control of their bowels, me included. I have to tell you that I had straight water diarrhea 4 days after surgery and never had any loss of control. There have been a few skid marks but nothing that I would consider a deal break for having the surgery. Even though I’m not 100% healed, my quality of life is so much better since I had it done.

If you have any questions about the post-surgery, feel free to ask and I’ll try to answer them.