Hello all! I have been lurking about one month now, so I figured it is time to introduce myself. I gave birth to my second child 3 months ago. At first my stools were fine, I had no trouble passing them. About three weeks went by and they became very hard. I am assuming due to BFing. Then the pain started. It felt like I was shitting glass. I figured it would pass. I figured wrong. My butt became so sore I couldn't sit down. My mom suggested a sitz bath and I also started on stool softeners and fiber. After about 5 days things started to get better. I was able to sit and my stools were becoming softer. Then I got diahhrea. So for 2 days I did not take stool softeners. Big mistake. I thought I had hemmroids so I went to the health food store and got some oil for it. It helped a little, but not much. At my 6 week appt, my MW told me I had a fissure. She gave me estrogen cream to apply and see if it helped. Well, it did not. She also suggested magnesium, which I started taking but my stool still wasn't soft enough. I stopped taking fiber b/c it made my stool giant and that is not what I want!
Thankfully I found this forum and found out about Miralax. Low and behold I had it in my house the whole time...my daughter's dr had presrcibed it to her for her hard stools since she never eats veggies. Started using it and things started feeling better, I didn't have to use a sitz bath just to take a crap. Then I came down with 2 breast infections and forgot to take my miralax for a couple days. AHHHH!! It started all over again with the bleeding and pain. I started at the beginning of last week using coconut oil and then Carlson E suppositories. It has helped somewhat. Finally I decided enough was enough. I got a referral to a CRS and went there last week. What a waste of my time. I had to wait like an hour and then the guy looked at my butt for like 30 seconds. He said "that's a pretty acute fissure and I can see it's very tender". What does that even mean?? I'm pretty sure its chronic now, dummy.
I also had another growth on the other side of my anus which he told me was a skin tag. He prescribed Nifedipine, which will be delivered to my house tomorrow.
After more self-examination I am pretty sure that I have two fissures. I have one on the left side that has a red bump and is constantlly sore and tender and I'm pretty sure there is one under/near the skin tag on the other side. I know this b/c once the pain subsided on my left side, I started feeling horrible pain on the right. I though it was b/c of the skin tag, but I can see a small tear. I'm hoping that one heals easier than this first one.
So for now, I try to do sitz bath 1-2x a day, always after a BM (its hard with a 3 M old) then apply coconut oil a couple times a day and usually 2 suppositories a day. I also sit on a heating pad whenever I nurse my son. Last week was feeling better than this week. I am just so sore and have been having lots of burning and itching. But I have not bled in a week. I am hoping that means I am starting to heal. I hope the cream I get tomorrow helps as well.
I'm so glad to have found you all and thank you for listening!!