by horsetrainer » 15 Nov 2016, 18:47
I had LIS (open) on August 22, 2016. It's now mid-November. Good news: my decades-old fissure healed in two months! Not so good news: my incision has never closed. It also has never stopped hurting. Now it appears that it might be infected, with severe pain, green discharge, and a low fever.
I have seen my colorectal surgeon three times in the last two weeks. He applied silver nitrate to the wound to remove granulation tissue and encourage healing. The pain from the silver nitrate was appallingly intense. I endured these office procedures because it might help.
The LIS incision sort of turned into a fissure, so I traded one cut for another. I do not regret having the sphinterotomy, I am really glad I did it, I just happen to have had bad luck. I asked him how often he saw this, and he said less than 1% of the time. It made me wonder if that means that I am the first, as he is on the young side! But he is very intelligent and has a lot of experience.
Yesterday my pain hit a new level and I rang the doctor. Today he examined me carefully without a full digital exam and said that he will do an exam under anesthesia this week, and try to figure out whether there is a fistula, abscess, etc. He will also evaluate the internal sphincter to determine whether I need a second LIS. If he does this, he will do it on the right side. The current (non healing) incision is on the left.
There will be additional risk of incontinence, but I told him I trust him. He said he won't divide the sphincter if he feels that it would make me incontinent, but if it "feels tight" he will do the second LIS. I think that with anal fissures most of us get to the point where we can't take the pain anymore and we are willing to risk incontinence because our quality of life has diminished.
I gladly took the oxycodone he prescribed today. It is potentially constipating, but if I take Miralax I can manage it.
Stay strong, everybody! I will update after I have the procedure, at the end of this week or the beginning of next.