Good evening all
I have spent quite a while now looking over these threads and the fantastic information you all provide. I wanted to share my experience and hope to get a bit of feedback.
In June 2013 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was to be given chemotherapy followed by surgery and finally radiotherapy. The chemotherapy and/or anti sickness meds gave me terrible constipation. I got in such a state that the out of hours doc gave me a strong laxative which then gave me the worlds biggest poop and hello to anal fissure and piles. I had internal piles and a prolapsed pile which hung out of my backside for a few weeks.
I was put on lactulose and started taking 45 mils per day. I wasn't eating well as the chemo affected my tastebuds badly and gave me mouth ulcers and a sore throat. Every time I progressed in my healing, I would have the next round of chemo and would get in a mess again.
I should point out I am vegetarian and my diet used to consist of loads of fruit, veg, quorn, small amounts of cheese and eggs etc.
Once I got the fissure and piles the pain when I went to loo was pretty much indescribable - but you understand :)
In November I wasn't too bad but went for my final session of chemo and had a couple of days where my backside was extremely itchy and sort of dry feeling. I then got another tear with plenty of blood. This time I found that there was a permanent feeling of something being stuck in my bum, high up on the left hand side. I had awful spasms which were really only relieved by lots of paracetamol and sitting in the bath. It hurt to sit down and this continued right up to current date.
In December I went in for my operation and the general anaesthetic gave me constipation. After three days of lactulose and laxido failing to produce a bm the nurses gave me milk of magnesia, laxido, lactulose and a senna tablet. This gave me awful green diarrohea for 4 days which aggravated everything badly. My surgeon gave me glycerine trinitrate ointment as she said the spasming was probably stopping the fissure from healing. She also offered to refer me to a specialist which I gladly accepted.
The specialist couldn't feel anything nasty in there and asked me to carry on the GTN cream for a further 8 weeks before he would consider botox. He thought the feeling of something permanently stuck there was my Lavator ani muscle spasming and we discussed biofeedback and relaxing.
Over the last few months I had seemed to slowly be getting better with most bms being odd but not exactly painful - it's kind of on the verge of pain but nothing like it was when I had the main tear (I still cannot sit down for more than a few minutes at a time though as the pain builds and builds the longer I sit).
Today I felt another tear with a little bit of blood.
My poop varies on the Bristol scale from 4 to 6 which is quite frustrating because I still take 40 to 45 mils of lactulose a day and all I eat is:
Breakfast - activia bio yoghurt
Lunch - one slice of wholemeal bread with salad and a small amount of cheese or egg mayonnaise
Dinner - bowl of soup
Snack - pear or half a dozen grapes
Drinks - minimum 4 pints of water/squash per day with an occasional cup of coffee made with skimmed milk
If I try to increase my eating then my bm's get too big and I get pain. Even if they are soft, too big causes problems. Fibre causes me problems as well.
I have lost half my bodyweight since this began and am booked to see a dietician tomorrow as my oncologist is very concerned.
The bowel specialist wants me to change to milk of magnesia and start eating more
My oncologist wants me to start taking Docusate Sodium
My GP has me on Lactulose plus 1 Senna tablet a day (so I am not straining)
I am terrified of changing anything as the milk of magnesia can cause the runs which then just aggravates the fissure plus bring the piles up. Sometimes the Lactulose doesn't seem to do enough, some time it works too well and I get the runs.
I am now starting radiotherapy and have been told the latest scans show something suspicious on my liver so it is possible the cancer has spread. I need to be getting strong to fight this disease but I am just not able to eat and continuing to lose weight.
Thank you for reading and thanks for any guidance you can offer.