oh and i forgot to add - don't worry about becoming incontinent from LIS. i've had TWO and i've had no problems with anything coming out unintentionally! i think people worry unnecessarily about this "side-effect". it's very rare and mostly happens in older people or people who've been compromised from child-birth - according to my dr at least. :)

Thanks for the advice. I know it's been too soon to really judge the success/failure of the first surgery but somewhere in my gut I know that I will eventually need the LIS. My surgeon suggested it soo soon b/c it was actually his initial suggestion I was just scared of getting LIS so he said we could exhaust all options before we do LIS.I think I am going to wait two months. Besides, I had a trip planned to Thailand for April since I took off from work but now it looks like I will be cancelling my trip and most likely doing the surgery then. It will give me ample time to recuperate and hopefully I can go to Thailand next year.

Dear Erin,
I wish you luck with recovery ! The Botox should kick in already !!! How much of Botox did you get ??? If your sphincter is relaxed you should not be in so much pain ?!? Did he check your sphincter status ??? Fissure is deep, of course, he cut it just a week ago ! Since I had both - fissurectomy AND LIS - I can tell you that LIS side was healed in 2 days strait - incision and all !!!! Fissurectomy site needed 4 weeks to stop bleeding and being sore completely and developed nasty skin tag on top af everything. So, you got worse procedure -pain vise : (. If you had just a LIS it would be easier.
Regarding incontinence - I interviewed 4 CRS surgeons and all of them said that they never had a case in their whole practice time.
So, just find an experienced surgeon and you will be fine. I have no problem controlling anything, neither gas nor loose stools.
All the best !!!!

Hang in there, Erin. I think giving it a couple of months is a good idea -- or at least as long as you can bare the pain. At least then you'll be 100% confident in your decision to do LIS.
Me and my fissure actually just got back from a trip to Thailand. (I had actually postponed my trip for a while too, until finally I realized this thing ain't going away, and since my fissure doesn't cause me major pain, I just went). Amazing country. Great food. And the weather is a definitely a tad better than here in nyc.
Hope you heal soon!