Hi friends,

By no means am I cured, but I've had some positive signs. Firstly, let me explain my "pain cycle": For me, the BM is not very painful at all. The pain hits me about one hour after the BM, and it will last for several hours. What I've been doing is immediately when I wake up in the morning (~5AM), I take 600mg Ibuprofen in anticipation of the upcoming pain (I've learned that you really need to stay in front of the pain). This is typically sufficient to make the rest of the day manageable, although I do on rare occasions take another 600mg around noon.

Well, I've noticed a subtle decline in the pain in the last couple weeks, and last week I had a few days with no pain at all. I decided to not take pain medication yesterday or today so that I could get a sense of where my pain was at. Yesterday the pain was ~3 (0 to 10 scale, 10 being imminent suicide as a result of extreme pain). Today the pain is ~1. I guess less pain equals more healing ? I don't know, but at least there's some ray of hope.

I am doing one thing differently. Some of you may recall that I had a sigmoidoscopy a couple weeks ago. The knowledgable nurse that performed the procedure seemed very familiar with AF's and all the suffering they cause. She told me to begin using large quantities of those gummy-fibers. From her experience over the years, she said that the texture of these gummy-fibers had a tendency to make stool form even more smoothly than conventional fibre sources alone. I took her advice and immediately picked up a bottle. The recommended dosage on the bottle is 2/day(2 gummy = 20% daily fibre intact). I'm taking 8/day, and I'm spacing them out about 2 every couple hours.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will help keep the healing going.....I'll report back soon

Very happy for you! It's so encouraging to read posts like this. I think I may be in a similar situation myself. This time last week when I thought about going to the loo i'd get tears in my eyes just thinking about it. Today I went and the pain was minimal, the kind you can pretty much ignore. I've felt gradually better over the last few days. I know it's not over and the chances are i'll relapse but I feel like my body has proven it can heal itself to some degree. I was starting to doubt it ever could. I've been using vaseline before going to the loo and taking one hot bath a day with lots of coconut oil added to the water, as well as keeping my poo very soft with a bowl of branflakes in the morning and one satchet of Laxido at night. I used to take Movicol but it upset my stomach too much.

Hope things are on the up for us and everyone reading this post.

Good for you hayleyw !

Today is another good day. Virtually no pain at all. I intend to continue with my current regiment for a very long time. I'm lucky in that I work from home on Mondays and Tuesdays, so this allows me four good days of multiple sitz baths each day.

Something else that's interesting (warning, unpleasant/graphic)... For quite some time I've been getting a greenish sort of mucus like emission (looks exactly like flem/spewtum that you might cough up when you have a cold/flu). This emission stopped two days ago. I know this emission is not uncommon, but I'm not sure what it is....maybe like a abscess that developed from the fissure ?

Good for you!

Jay, can I ask you about the fiber gummies: I was reading the label in the store today and it said no more than 4 per day. I am assuming you haven't had any adverse effects taking double that? Which ones do you take?
Thanks!

I live off fiber gummies lol that was one of the biggest things i cut out my diet i loved gummies then i found fibr gummies and it was on lol i love em i eat about 6 a day and i do feel mucher better about like you explained!

Cupcake wrote:Good for you!

Jay, can I ask you about the fiber gummies: I was reading the label in the store today and it said no more than 4 per day. I am assuming you haven't had any adverse effects taking double that? Which ones do you take?
Thanks!

Cupcake the only real side effect of taking more then 4 is you can get a litte gassy nothing crazy.

Cupcake wrote:Good for you!

Jay, can I ask you about the fiber gummies: I was reading the label in the store today and it said no more than 4 per day. I am assuming you haven't had any adverse effects taking double that? Which ones do you take?
Thanks!

Hi Cupcake,

I actually end up taking 10-12 per day, 2 gummies every couple hours. In the morning, for the first few doses I take one of:
http://www.amazon.com/vitafusion-Fiber- ... on+gummies
and one of:
http://www.amazon.com/Phillips-Fiber-Gu ... 2D4M7ZTNWG

Then, by late morning I take 2/ea of the first one above (FiberWell). There's nothing special in how I selected these brands. I originally bought the second one (Philips) because it was the only one available at the store I went to. It wasn't until after I got it that I noticed it was also a vitamin supplement as well, so a couple days later I went to a different store with a bigger selection and got the Fiberwell brand (I wanted one that wasn't also a vitamin supplement). So, these are what I've been taking, and since I'm seeing a benefit, I don't plan to change anything.

I know that this is a crazy dosage, but drastic times calls for drastic measures...So far I detect no negative effects (although I do seem to be a little gassier than usual). I've been on this regiment for three weeks. I'm gonna talk to my doctor about this and I'll post here what he says.

Thank you both, sparent and Jay. I appreciate your input!

Cupcake wrote:Thank you both, sparent and Jay. I appreciate your input!

Anytime ! ...if it helps, I'm a 49yo male, 162lbs. If you decide to go the gummy supplement route, maybe you can scale your dosage based on my weight/age/sex....

Thank you. Yes, I'll use that info as a guideline. I do fiber capsules now, I don't enjoy them a whole lot, so maybe the gummies will be better. :-)