Hi All,
We're in our busiest season at work, and I haven't been able to update. I'll take a quick moment here. Thanks, Juney, for the MOM recommendation. I know what you mean now! The first day I think I took 2 TBS, and nothing happened. The next day I took 4 TBS, and everything fell out of me for the next few days! To think I allowed myself to go over three weeks with hard, though daily, bms. MOM is a miracle drug, and I feel so much more confident now. I wish I would of known how different it was than Colace or Dulcolax 16 mos. ago! I'm not knocking those drugs if they benefit others, but MOM is unreal, for me, at least! Anyway, I scaled back to 1 TBS, and hope to wean soon in order to maintain efficacy. If I have surgery, MOM is what I want to turn to afterward. In the meantime, I visited an MD this week with naturalistic emphasis, and he wants me on digestive enzymes and probiotics. He thinks I will see a big difference, and wants me to come again in a month. I bought the products at the clinic where he works, but I think they're too expensive to continue with. I want to find comparable products at regular stores. One of the products contains a number of probiotics, including acidophilus, and the other product is fructooligosaccharide (I believe it is the digestive enzyme - I need to look it up). I also am eating All Bran Buds and some oat bran and fruit (I already am into vegetables), so we'll see how it goes. I've been doing real well painwise since mid-November. (It's probably the nitro plus healing.) Thanks again for this board, and everyone's recommendations. I've said it before, but I've learned the most here!
Blessings,
Queenofpain/AgonyAnn

yes, MOM has been a miracle for me too! :) i vary between 1-2 tablespoons each night, depending on what i've eaten that day. and i also still take 4 100-mg stool softeners every day. i'm hoping to wean myself from the MOM in the next few weeks/months. but from what people on the board/drs have said, it's ok to take MOM long-term...

Thanks for the reply, Juney. I want to wean from MOM, especially since I have to report to a doctor in a month about how the probiotics and enzymes are working. I'm contaminating the results by taking MOM, too. I'm also trying to switch up my diet because my bms can inexplicably get hard if I stay on the same type of fiber. It's just hard to figure out, but I've had to pull back from All Bran Buds this week, even though I'm not sure that that was the problem. It seems like things start out ok with a new type of fiber, and then my stools get more lumpy. This never happened before the AF occurred, and that's why I find it hard to get off any stool softener for a length.

Juney,
Do you almost always have a liquidy BM with the MOM?? I seem to be on that track with the magnesium I take as well, very liquidy, but to me it is A-OK!! As long as I go, that is all that matters, not having that pressure is a great thing! Just wondering if it is ok to almost always go very mushy/liquidy??

it seems to vary slightly for me sometimes. it can be really mushy like oatmeal, or completely watery like diahrea. always just a puddle of mush in the toilet - as descriptively gross as that sounds. it's never long or connected pieces and never hard-tipped or painful. and no pain afterwards. that's been my biggest relief and the reason why i take it everyday!
i do worry about the effects of long-term liquidy BMs...like making my already tight sphincter tighter so that I can never get a normal BM out. but i'm trying to ignore my worries now and hope that the fissure just heals and i can wean myself off MOM, one day at a time and allow my sphincter to stretch back out slowly.
i haven't tried a BM without MOM in 2 months! the thought is too scary to me at this point....

Hi Juney,
Yeah, the same thing happens with my bms if I take 3 TBS or more. One or two doesn't seem to have an effect. I've just about given up trying to have soft bms otherwise. My digestion clearly changed immediately following the fissure(s), and no physician seems to offer any explanation. Insoluble fiber doesn't seem to help either.

Hi Guys,
I haven't posted for a long time because we are in our busiest season at work. I had been meaning to write last week to say that I have hardly had any pain since late November (nearly 3 months), when I began nitro. But, things collapsed last week. I've still been dealing with very hard stools off and on, and I just step up the MOM when that happens (I've been on a TBS of MOM daily - trying not to take too much - on "normal" days.) I have never been able to figure out this hard stool bit. But, anyway, the last 2 weeks my bms returned to their normal watery pre-fissure state, for the first time in the near 18 months since I've developed the fissure (I actually have 2). Strangely though, one of the watery bms re-tore an aspect of the fissure that led to some bleeding. The next day, my bms were inexplicably hard, and I bled so much, more than when I originally tore the fissure! There was still no pain until after a bm the next day. I stepped up the MOM right away, but have been back in pain since late last week. At any rate, I'm thinking of writing the surgeon this week to find out his thoughts. I think I'm probably headed toward surgery, at last. He had said last November that he had never seen anyone with as tight a sphincter not end up in surgery at some point, so I've been expecting this. I just think it's strange that my first CRS thought I could heal naturally, and was against surgery. I guess the bottom line is I just can't figure out how to heal, so surgery is probably necessary. I'm so afraid of surgery not working. Has anyone else fallen back into pain while on nitro or other cream? Thanks!
Queenofpain/AgonyAnn

Ann, even while using the nitro or creams, the pain can continue, but hopefully it will be much less intense than without it. That's why I often think of those as "pain management" tools more than cures. But they help, and I would not let anyone take my nefedipine from me while I was suffering!!
Sorry to hear you have had a relapse. Sounds like your fissure just doesn't want to give up the ghost. If your surgeon has had a good success rate with the LIS, then why not?

Ann - make sure you keep drinking lots of fluids while using the MOM. since it draws all the liquid into the stools i feel like it might make us dehydrated quicker than usual. that could be why your BM was hard the day after a super watery BM. I carry a water bottle around with me all day to make sure i constantly drink water. I've noticed that the only times I have hard BMs, even with MOM, are when i've drank a lot of alcohol and not compensated enough with water.
I've been having about 1 setback a month. I usually get back on track within 4-5 days after that. I think setbacks are common in the fissure healing process, but your recent one with all the blood sounds pretty severe.
Since you haven't had surgery for this before, and your dr's already mentioned how tight your sphincter is, you might as well try the LIS. i think it can only help you! i'm not sure of the "success rate" of creams. I know they didn't help me at all, and i think most people with chronic fissures end up having surgery anyway.

Hi Juney -
Thanks for the reply! I've been praying for you, and the others even though I haven't been posting. I know how dreadful this thing is. Okay, I'll keep an eye on the fluid intake. I felt I was having enough, though. I've been having bouts of hard stools, since this thing began. I've only had watery bms previously - that's why I still wonder if the fissure somehow affects the motility of the colon. I plan to ask the CRS about that the next time I see him. Maybe my irritable colon is taking a turn, and resulting in hard stools now rather than the normal watery. So, you're still having a setback every month even after surgery? That's highly discouraging. I thought most people get relief after surgery because the ends of the tear are able to come together to heal. Surgery has benefited you, though, hasn't it? Has your surgeon been encouraging at all by saying the setbacks are normal even after surgery? There must be a sure way to heal a fissure like any other tear in the body - I just don't understand why there is no good solution. Thanks.