A month ago I got a terrible knife like pain deep in my rectum, the next morning I had really hard stools. Didn't really think anything of it until it happened again about three days later and this time it stayed. My constipation was so bad I had to use an enema. Now here I am after three different rectal exams and an anscope and I'm in agony. According to my CRS I have a fissure and it's healing nicely (if this is nice then what's bad....seriously). My question is can a fissure have your tailbone hurt too? Also how long does it take to heal? My CRS says I need the LIS surgery but I'm really hesitant seeing how I've only had this for a month. Some days are better then others and today is a bad day. I've made myself so worked up about this that I've caused what my PCP thinks is Gastritis. I'm a wreck, please someone shed some light on this :-(

Hi Momof3 beauties,
I'm so sorry you are in pain. I know what it's like - been there, cried, writhed, the rest of it. Please don't be afraid - you CAN heal, and this WON'T last for ever. I know it's awful now, and you can't imagine living like this, but it will get better.

I can tell you that a fissure CAN cause pain in nearby places. I had pain in my urethra (thought it was a bladder infection, but it was not), and pain radiating down my inner thigh. I was wretched. I'm sure you can get pain in your tailbone too. It's called referred pain.

How long it takes to heal depends on a few things. Firstly, you have to get your diet under control so that you are never constipated and your stools are always soft. You won't stay healed until you've got that sorted, and it can take a bit of trial and error. Make sure you are drinking lots of water, and try miralax, or movicol. Eat foods with soluble fibre, and not too much insoluble (bulking) fibre.

I don't want to scare you, but it took me about 3-4 months to get the diet and treatment sorted. After that I still took a while to heal fully, but was in much less pain, and I really felt as though I got my life back about 6 months after the fissure first came. I hope that with the help of this forum, you'll be able to get on track faster than I did. I didn't find this forum until I'd been suffering for about 4 months.

Did your CRS prescribe any muscle relaxant like nifedipine, nitroglycerol or diltiazem? Did s/he prescribe a topical painkiller like lidocaine? You can try those things first before going to surgery. LIS has a very high success rate, but for many people it makes sense to go the non-surgical route. I was able to heal without surgery, and you might be able to as well. If you decide to go for surgery, ask your CRS the hard questions. What is his/her success rate? How many patients got incontinence? How many got infections? What is the typical healing time for your CRS? and so on. If you don't like the answers, find someone else.

Good luck!

Thank you got your response :-) I did call my CRS today and they said that tailbone pain is normal when you have a fissure because of inflammation and it usually takes about two months. Which makes since because when I first got this a month ago I was taking Advil around the clock and it was really helping. Now because of that I have what my PCP says is gastritis....go figure! If it's not one thing it's another!!! Whatta you do :-)

Hi there,
Yes, this pain is the worst. It can be that bad. Amazing, right? I have had tailbone pain. I agree with all the suggestions made already. One other thing is that you can try botox. I had botox and it healed the fissure. Although I had other complications and am still in pain at times. Hang in there!!