Thanks for the update Cporosus. I am so happy to hear your wound is mostly healed. Was your exam painful? Did you get an internal exam or just external?

We all know how much just a tiny would down there can hurt. I suspect that is my issue too. Did your wound go up into your bum or was it further out? I think my issue is that my wound went right up into the anal verge and, therefore, has been acting like a bad fissure. Do you have any discharge yet?

Can you remind me when you had your surgery?

Hi MSimon,

I just had an external exam. He looked at it for a few seconds and that was it. No pain at all, he pulled the cheeks back and touched around it, that's all. My wound did indeed go right up to the anal verge and about 2.5 inches or more out from it. Not sure how deep it was but it looked pretty deep to me (although obviously low enough to perform a fistulotomy without seton). I've had no discharge at all; in fact, I had little discharge even immediately after the surgery....just some mild serous drainage and a few tiny pink drips (presumably blood) for a couple days and then nothing. I did notice exudate build-up as the wound healed (looks like thick white stuff) but this is normal according to my doc and signifies healing and it never fell from the wound unless I sprayed it with the shower head. I also never had any incontinence or uncontrollable gas. To be honest, the worst parts of the ordeal were- 1.) Having to wash my bum with a shower head after every bowel movement...this made going out for long periods tricky, and 2.) Worrying about recurrence/never getting better/never healing. The pain was never bad at all (in fact, I noticed aching more as the wound got close to healing, I assume this is because the wound was at the surface and touching a lot more). I had my surgery on January 7th...so exactly 3 months ago today....which is about the average heal time for a wound like this.

Have made a sub-forum, with some of the fistula success stories that I was able to find, transferred there. Hope it is of some help.

Hi,

I had fistula and abscess surgery today! I had been putting it off and I was getting rid of symptoms by having no bread and eating well. But it was never fully healed. Over the holidays it got very painful so the doctor said I had an infection and need surgery right away...yikes. well rewind to August 2014, I had an abess which was drained in the office, with no anesthesia mind you! It was very traumatic. They said I have a fistula and will need surgery with seton. I went online and read all the horrible stories. I tried to avoid surgery and use diet to maintain it. But it was never 100% successful, although it helped temporarily...

Anyway, I finally knew I absolutely had to get the surgery. I COULDN'T STAND THE PAIN ANY LONGER. So today I went. And it went really well...I went to Froedert Hospital in Milwaukee. They have 3 really good colorectal surgeons. Anyway, they ended up draining the infected abess and cleaning up the fistula tract. They didn't need to put a seton in.I'm very very happy about that. They treated me very well today. I was very very scared. I cried the whole time before it started and they gave me medicine to calm me. I had a nerve block and was also sedated. I didnt remember anything. I was sleeping I guess.

I would encourage you to get surgery and get it over with. It really doesn't go away on its own. The only other option I've researched was to go to India and do Sar Sutra (sic) with medicated thread.

Try to stay positive. I'm so relieved I finally did this...I can't wait to get back to having my life back.

Thanks so much for sharing your story. I put off LIS for years, and suffered terribly before finally being brave enough to go through with it, so I understand what took you so long. Congrats on getting it done and I'm so happy to hear that you're doing well and it's all behind you now.