Hello all,
I am a 29 year old male who is a professional athlete. I have dealt with anal fissures on and off since I was 18. I was told that in my sport fissures are common due to the overdevelopment of the internal anal sphincter due to always being in a squated athletic position. I wasted my time and put myself through a lot of pain by trying topical ointments including nifedipine and diltiazem. I had a lot of blood and pain with my BMs and my stools had to be really soft to fit through my narrow sphincter. My stools were very thin and never round, if they were they would hurt like hell! It was no way to live. In sept of 2012 I decided to have an LIS with fissurectomy. I had two fissures with sentinal tags. My surgeon was not very informative but I didn't know any better.... I had the surgery and it only took about 5 days to feel better before I was back on my feet and at practice. However I only noticed a slight change and my stools were still thin. I had to still be on miralax everyday to have a soft thin BM, again anything round would tear me open. It was less tight down there but still tight. It seemed like every month I would go through this even after surgery... I put up with this for another 2 years. I finally got a second opinion and she was a god-send! She said I still had 2 big fissures and one of them turned into a fistula. She also said it never even looked like I had an LIS done as I was still super tight. I had a second LIS and fistulaectomy and she divided more then a 1/3 of my internal sphincter and dilated me to make sure my sphincter was "loose" enough. I am about a month out of surgery and finally I have normal BMs. I was down for about 6 days before I could get out of the house and I was back at practice by day 11. It's been 10 years since I've been normal down there and it it great! Don't worry about the surgery worry about the SURGEON. Make sure you have someone who thoroughly checks your anatomy out bc everyone is different. Make sure they go over everything with you. Recovery is painful when done right but totally worth it.... You won't get incontinence, I've had this surgery twice and I'm not even close to that.... Just keep it clean after surgery and get moving no matter how painful bc it helps in tissue regeneration. Again I can't stress enough to find the right surgeon that you trust.... It's your well being and your responsibility to look out for yourself. Over my 10 year battle with fissures I've had 4 chronic sentinal tag fissures, 1 fistula, 2 LISs, 2 fissurectomys and 1 fistulaectomy. I've been to 3 different specialists, had my ass scoped 4 times and had a sigmoidoscopy. I am very experienced in all this and I can honestly say the surgery is nothing to be afraid of.... Suck it up and take control of your health and well being. If you find the right surgeon, you can fix this! Good luck and let me know if you have questions.....