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How I healed...and how I stay healed
sugar substitutes and probiotics
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How I healed...and how I stay healed
Postby ihatethisclub » 13 Apr 2016, 16:39
It's been months since I've posted. If you do a search of my posts, you'll see I tried everything over a year to heal a chronic fissure that had led to excruciating spasms. The fissure pain itself was overshadowed by hours and hours of agonizing sphincter spasms that left me writhing in pain, crying and sweating on the bathroom floor. It was the worst pain I've ever experienced.
Anyway, I did it all. I used every cream ever mentioned by anyone who ever had an anal fissure--nitroglycerin cream, yeast cream, wheat grass cream, Liquid Bandage, Lansinoh, olive oil, coconut oil, and so on. I took stool softeners, magnesium, Miralax, fiber. I went for a highly invasive visit to a pelvic floor physical therapist. I visited 3 different colorectal surgeons, and had doctor friends making inquiries for me out of state with other colorectal surgeons. I had Botox done twice. I had my fissure cauterized and injected with Kenalog (aka, the "Feingold procedure"). The only thing I didn't do was a sphincterotomy because I've had 5 babies and am considered very high risk for incontinence later in life.
The agony lasted a year and no one could give me answers other than, "Just keep your stools soft and it will heal."
One day, I was praying and these thoughts came to me: 1) Stop taking Miralax and Magnesium. They're making you poop too much and freaking out your hyper-sensitive sphincter. 2) Stop eating/drinking dairy products. 3) Stop consuming fake sugar (i.e. Diet Coke). 4) Start walking every morning (the repetitive movement always brought some relief when I was having a spasm, but I hadn't been doing it regularly)
So, I did. I had a very quick rebound effect from stopping my stool softening agents so suddenly, and my stools became very hard very quickly. I started taking Senna at night, and it was just the right amount of stool softening to keep me from going into spasm. Without dairy and Diet Coke, my anal area started to heal. The pain, burning, itching, and creepy-crawly feelings started to go away, and with that, the spasms began to taper off. I also began to tolerate using Calmosepetine cream (which would trigger spasms before because my nerve endings were constantly on high alert). That bit of menthol cream offered a bit of drying and cooling which was welcome.
I also started taking some heavy duty probiotics. I feel like my gut bacteria balance was the source of my fissure. I am one that didn't have a "triggering" event when my fissure "happened." It just started hurting one day and got progressively worse. I had been a Diet Coke fiend at the time and not eating healthfully when the fissure happened, but I wasn't particularly constipated.
I have tried adding back in dairy and diet coke. I went on vacation recently and threw caution to the wind. I came home and was *miserable* for a week while I eliminated those things again from my diet. Even the spasms had started to kick up. I doubled up on my probiotics, too, to try to get my gut back in line. I find that I don't need any kind of stool softener or fiber, as long as I keep the fake sugar and dairy away.
Now, I'm back to "normal" and doing great. I say "normal" in quotes because obviously, I wish I didn't have to be so careful with my diet. But fortunately, it's not worse. I can deal with no dairy and no Diet Coke and taking probiotics every night. My diet is much better now, and that's a good thing. I also have a treadmill now, so there's no excuse not to run or walk daily.
And that's where I've been and where I am now. And I guess my 2 cents is that if your situation is chronic, take a holistic view of what's going on with your body. I've been interested in gut health for a long time. In past years, we brewed water kefir, made sauerkraut and other fermented foods, grew our own sourdough starters, etc. I was on antibiotics as a kid A LOT and I was trying to make up for it. I'd gotten lazy in the past couple years and this is where it got me. While I'm not currently going out of my way to eat fermented foods, I'm finding that probiotics are a must. Good luck, friends!