Dealing with an anal fissure

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Dealing with an anal fissure

Postby mrAnonymous » 02 Dec 2017, 11:08

So, my anal fissure had been causing me a bit of pain and irritation for a while and then a couple of weeks ago I got bad constipation and it got BIGTIME painful and bloody again. I thought "this is it, I'm gonna have this pain every time I poop for the rest of my life. I'm screwed." Still, I decided to go on a regimen to try and heal it once and for all. A couple of weeks later I can now pass stool with no pain or trepidation, and I'm pretty happy about it! The stool is soft and passes gently, not causing any significant damage to the fissure which feels like it has healed quite well.

For the first few days, you have to work through the pain and constipation until you've managed to sort out your digestive tract, but I still wouldn't recommend going for constipation relief tablets which can screw up your digestion even more. I wrote up a list of advice for myself for dealing with this problem if it re-occurs, and I'm sharing it here in case it helps anyone else. 8)

Dealing with an anal fissure
============================
Constipation and anal fissure damage/pain seem to go hand-in-hand, so dealing with the anal fissure and dealing with constipation and bad digestion usually go hand-in-hand.

DOs:
- Stay well hydrated (large glass of water every hour from 9:00 to 16:00; setting up reminders on a mobile phone app to drink is a good idea).
- Eat porridge *every* morning (no matter how boring this gets!)
- Have a decent amount of fibre in your diet (at least 1 apple per day, plenty of vegetables, wholegrain bread).
- Walk briskly for at least half an hour each day.
- Try to stick to about 1.5 bowel movements per day; 1-2 per day is OK, less or more is bad. This should happen automatically if your diet and exercise are good.
- Have a *hot* sitz bath for at least 5 minutes after every bowel movement.

DON'Ts:
- Don't strain during bowel movements if at all possible; always try to relax and pass stool gently. If there's enough constipation *some* straining may be necessary but with the right stool consistency, straining is never required.
- Don't take constipation relief tablets (you'll get diarrhoea which is arguably worse, and it will screw up your digestive tract's schedule).
- Don't eat any foods that are liable to lead to constipation (pizza, fried *anything*, chips, kebab, burger, white bread, cheese, etc. Yeah, lots of tasty things are off the menu. Deal with it.)
- Don't apply Anusol or other hemorrhoid treatments to the fissure; it can actually reduce blood flow to the area which will slow the healing process. For relief, use Savlon or a similar soothing antiseptic cream, although the sitz baths should usually clean the area well enough to avoid the need for this.

Stool should become soft & unsticky, and bowel movements gentle. The fissure should become less painful after a few days and heal properly over a few weeks.
Be sure to keep this regimen going for a month or so, until the fissure seems to have completely healed. At the first sign of irritation or pain, go back to this regimen *immediately* before things get worse and very painful again.
Once it's healed you can start eating the odd pizza or fried food, but it should always be a "once in a while" thing. If you eat this stuff regularly the constipation and fissure will probably come straight back.

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Re: Dealing with an anal fissure

Postby Ihatethisfissure » 02 Dec 2017, 11:32

Walking tends to get me in more pain. Sometimes I can walk thru the pain and then it gets better but in general walking gets me burning bad and sitting kills me
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Re: Dealing with an anal fissure

Postby mrAnonymous » 02 Dec 2017, 14:34

Ihatethisfissure wrote:Walking tends to get me in more pain. Sometimes I can walk thru the pain and then it gets better but in general walking gets me burning bad and sitting kills me

Maybe with this regimen it gets less painful after a few weeks. For me, getting the stool to be very soft was the key. That way the anus doesn't need to stretch much. What was doing the damage was stretching the fissure and having stool scraping through, that was painful and damaging. With soft stool it can basically "flow" through instead which is a LOT better.
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