Well I am not called healing through diet for nothing. I firmly believe the long term answer is diet . What i did is turned vegan and eat mainly soluble fiber - anything with too much insoluble fiber bulks me up too much. I used to eat raw salads, now I cook veggies and add a touch of oil. Lentil soup everyday my friend - boring - yes for sure- but helps me. I have found there are different kinds of lentils and I change them up by the week. Nuts and dried fruit don't help me as much. I juice up berries - blue berries mostly- very often too.

I have changed my diet somewhat. Mainly cutting down on the amount of red meats I had been eating previously. I tried "more fiber more water" as I kept reading everywhere and my first 4 doctors kept repeating to me. But I found out that my normal diet contains enough fiber for me personally and that in fact more fiber was causing things to get worse for me (I had to push during a BM when eating more fiber, things got really sticky and would not come out so easily). And the more water part, well, I had been drinking almost 3 liters of water a day already. Turns out drinking around 8 glasses of water a day and going back to my normal diet, (with just slightly less red meat), was what my body needed. The final doctor I saw, the one who has lead me to recovery, was the only one who told me to listen to my body and that more fiber wasn't for everyone.

Now that I think about it, I have cut out coffee as well. I eat plenty of breads though. but as I was trying to say above. Diet change may work for you and it may not. I firmly believe it's just one of those things you have to experiment with until you find the right combination/quantity of things that work with your system. I worried and stressed over all of that. And the constant diet changes weren't good on my system. So in my opinion if you do start a special diet, ease into it. Now that I can look back on things a little, the worrying part caused more problems than anything. It would have been best for me to just sit back and let things run their course. It takes time to heal from these things.

I agree with the fiber thing - too much is almost worse than too little. Soft foods help me some

Caf1988 - What type of discharge were you having? I am just past two weeks post LIS and am having greenish discharge, pretty sure I've got some sort of infection and really worried about it turning into an abscess if it's not treated.

What antibiotic did you take, and how long did you take it? I have an old antibiotic prescription I never took and have been thinking about taking it to see if it helps, but want to make sure it's the right one.

By the way, I saw CRS Monday and he pretty much blew me off, barely even looked at the site, said everything looked fine and discharge was normal. I asked about green discharge and he just shrugged his shoulders. I had been using bacitracin and I think that may have hidden some of the pus that I started to notice when wiping the area, so maybe he really didn't see anything at the time. He told me to stop using the bacitracin and keep the wound dry with a piece of gauze tucked it. Now the discharge is very obvious every time I change the gauze.

Maybe I'll call to see if I can get the in to see him again, but he was so flippant my last visit, I'm not sure I trust him to do a proper exam/diagnosis. Very frustrating...

After I took the antibiotics the discharge went away. This was 2 weeks ago - I didn't have much pain but I had hard stool seeming Retear then some light yellow discharge that turned slightly green so I took the flagyl and cipro for 5 days and got better. I never felt sick or much pain. Since the discharge disappeared, the pain and pressure are still there like a hard knob inside my right cheek near anus. The canal does not hurt anymore and I think my incision and fissure are healed. The knob gets swollen and more painful with BMs too hard or lots of sitting. It feels like a swift kick to the butt lol. I'm fine in a comfy chair though. I'm getting the MRI results tomorrow so I will tell you. Push for an MRI! I physically moved my doctors hand during the digits exam to say this is where the problem is then he started becoming more concerned. I too was heading nicely but I've been pretty sore since the surgery. I'll update this soon with results. Also the antibiotics helped my entire digestive system. Taking a round or two won't hurt I would try to.

@ Titanius, definitely get it checked again. But I will say this. I took antibiotics for my infection/abscess for almost two weeks, one week prior to surgery for the abscess and one week after. It's been two weeks since I quit the antibiotics and 3 weeks since my surgery. I am still having the greenish discharge and my Doc says that is completely normal. Said the thing to watch for is swelling, redness and pain. He basically said that if I didn't have those problems then I should be fine. He also told me the discharge probably wouldn't go away until after my wound is fully healed over. I'm not a Doctor, so definitely get it checked out, but if you aren't having swelling, pain and additional redness appearing. It may not be anything other than normal like your doc said.

Thanks caf1988 and Uvall! I appreciate the info and advice. I don't notice any unusual swelling or redness, although I think my actual wound is inside, so not sure how I would be able to tell. Pain is a bit worse, but it's been up and down depending on BM, so I can't say it's worse because of infection or BM - it's not significantly different than earlier in the week when I first started having the discharge. I would like to do the antibiotics just in case, but doubt my CRS would prescribe anything since things haven't really changed since Monday. Hopefully things don't flare up over the long holiday weekend...

My wound was initially inside as well, except for the tiny incision where they went in for LIS. But when the infection set in my whole butt cheek swelled and became very tender to the touch. I was also feeling a deep pain along with that. A constant deep throbbing pain. The swelling got worse along with my cheek turning reddish and then getting sort of purple in one spot right where I ended up having the abscess. All of that happened within a week. I could not even sit and could barely walk it was so painfully swollen. I noticed the extra pain and tenderness right away, it was just before Memorial Weekend here in the US and I was basically told to just sit tight through the Holiday weekend and let them know if it got worse. It did, of course. I guess what I'm trying to say is. I'm pretty sure if you have an infection, you'll know it. Even if your wound is on the inside, the pain and swelling will still be noticeable.
But do make sure you tell your Doc of any changes you may notice or feel. It's better to catch things earlier than later for sure. And good luck with your healing!

So I talked to my CRS this morning. I noticed that I could cause pus to come out if I pushed on the right side between buttock and anus, also noticed some popping sounds when I did that sounded like trapped air getting forced out. I explained this to him and he said there is likely a pocket where the LIS was done that is collecting drainage and that I should massage the area twice a day to keep it draining. He didn't think antibiotics were needed at this point (not sure I agree, but he's the expert). I think he's trying to prevent the pocket from closing and forming an abscess.

Now I'm worried that pushing the area could spread an infection deeper, but equally worried about getting an abscess. I'm going to follow his advice and hope for the best.