Daily itchy and irritation, almost 2 months post-lis surgery

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Daily itchy and irritation, almost 2 months post-lis surgery

Postby joneskevin1582 » 06 Dec 2020, 14:30

I had LIS surgery done in mid-October. I have had a rough recovery since then. It is currently almost two months post-LIS, and I am still having itchy and uncomfortableness/irritation on a daily basis. My fissure was somewhat mild, however more conservative approaches like ointments/creams and botox did not fully heal me. I have not had pain like I did pre-op since my surgery, which is the good news, however that pain has been replaced with itchyness and irritation, which is just as distracting and anxiety-provoking as my pain pre-surgery was. I am starting to lose faith that this itchyness and irritation will go away. I have read extensively online and through this forum and others, and I know that it takes a while to heal and everyone is different and all that, however it seems like the past three weeks, I have some good days and some bad days and I don't really get any better overall. Has anyone had a similar experience? Sorry this is very disorganized, I get very frustrated and angry and I can't collect my thoughts in a way that is easy to understand. I am at my wits end today, I had to leave work after only being there 2 hours (I was scheduled for 7, and typically have no issues at all with shifts like that), moreso because my anxiety and frustration was getting to me, rather than that the itchyness was too much to deal with, but it just feels like every decision I make regarding this helps me a little bit and then hurts just as much and then I am back to square one. Thank you in advance for any advice.
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Re: Daily itchy and irritation, almost 2 months post-lis sur

Postby chachacha » 06 Dec 2020, 21:10

Have you asked your surgeon, or even your GP about what is causing the itchiness? And how to treat it? That would be my first step.
Fissure since about 2007
Fissure diagnosed in 2011
Diltiazem for two years - didn't work well
LIS January, 2015
Hemorrhoidectomy December, 2017
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Re: Daily itchy and irritation, almost 2 months post-lis sur

Postby joneskevin1582 » 08 Dec 2020, 11:44

I went to my surgeon about 3 weeks ago, he basically just said it needs more time to heal completely and he gave me a pamphlet on anal itching which didn't help at all.
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Re: Daily itchy and irritation, almost 2 months post-lis sur

Postby chachacha » 08 Dec 2020, 11:59

I would call them and give them an update. They should at least be able to tell you what to do to alleviate the itching, and tell them that the pamphlet's advise wasn't satisfactory.
Fissure since about 2007
Fissure diagnosed in 2011
Diltiazem for two years - didn't work well
LIS January, 2015
Hemorrhoidectomy December, 2017
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Re: Daily itchy and irritation, almost 2 months post-lis sur

Postby analhealthcure » 20 Mar 2021, 14:06

Read the following for how to fix anal irritation. It's about careful cleaning and time for the skin to regenerate

A Solution to Anal Irritation
If you are reading this then you are probably having problems with your anus. This sucks. I get it because I have suffered too. I wrote this document for you so that you can understand the cause of your anal distress and so that you can cure yourself. I know you are stressed, even hopeless, and wondering when you can get your life back, wondering why you were so unfairly afflicted with this problem. I will demystify the whole thing and give you an easy and practical way of fixing your anal problems for good.


No doubt by now you have tried all manners of remedies like changing your diet, hygiene, clothing. You have probably applied all sorts of creams. And although each of these things may have helped to some extent, they didn't completely fix the problem. The anal irritation came back and your hopes of a cure have been dashed over and over again.The frustration of this disease is that it never leaves you alone whether you are at work, sleeping or at leisure. And every supposed cure you find disappoints in the end.


I have suffered from anal irritation my whole life, although maybe I only understand that in retrospect now. It has caused me immense amounts of distress and worry. I am not a doctor and my remedy is not anything a doctor told me, although I think medical professionals would find no issue with it. Despite the way you feel, there is likely nothing medically wrong with you. You likely don’t have anal cancer or any other digestive disease. Of course, I cannot say this with certainty, and you must always tell your doctor of any ailment you have. The advice here is to be used in conjunction with your doctor’s medical advice, not as a replacement. In the small chance you do have an actual health issue, you don’t want to waste time treating yourself when you need more serious medical intervention. In my case, I went through the medical system for help for my anal irritation and after running many tests they couldn’t find a solution. I was left to figure out the solution on my own, and this document explains what I found out. Luckily for me I’m an engineer and really good at solving problems. I cannot overemphasize this disclaimer - If you ever have a problem speak first with a doctor and then if you can’t solve it take matters into your own hands.


Changing How You Think About Your Anus
Fundamentally we have to think about the health of the anus the way you view the fullness of a gas tank. The health of your anus reduces as it is affected by stressors. You are here because your anal resilience has been reduced by a variety of factors to a critically low level. You may be wondering why nature created us with such weak anuses but in reality our anuses are very strong, you are just suffering from a seriously degraded one. Everybody suffers occasionally from anal issues whether that be excessive sweating and heat, irritation from spicy food or whatever (cue the Johnny Cash “Ring of Fire” song). The difference between them and you is that something is happening in your case to continually lower anal health and driving it continually past a critical point. When you get to the point of a degenerated anus then all sorts of more severe and terrible things can happen, like itching, dryness, fungal infection, hemorrhoids, fissures, bleeding, burning, stinging and constipation. Once you fall this low it’s hard to get out and the symptoms truly are horrible.


The truth is that the majority of people don’t think much about their anuses they are never going to need to have the anal awareness that you and I will have. For them, sometimes they get anal irritation but then it goes away and they stop thinking about it. So what is it that causes your anus to degenerate? You can probably think of some event where before that things were manageable and then after they weren’t. Chances are that that event was the breaking point and the end of a degenerative spiral of anal health rather than the true cause of your situation. For me it was a 4 day episode of constipation at the age of 32 that resulted in a fissure and which immediately struck at the core of my life, after which it was never the same. In some ways there was life before that moment and life after. As I write this 9 years later I’m sharing with you my journey. Overcoming my hurt anus was in many ways the hardest thing I did in my life, no pun intended. Getting through it made me realize how strong I am, and I’m quite proud I was analytical enough to think my way out of it. Don’t worry I don’t think it’s going to take you nine years, hopefully just a few months.


The Cause of Anal Irritation
The first place to start is to understand anal degeneration. What causes it? Poo! Poo in hot places is a shitty thing and despite your body’s best intentions your anal skin can’t withstand the assault presented by residual fecal matter in your anus and the results of thermally and mechanically grinding it into your anal skin. Constant exposure to feces degenerates the skin, just consider for example a baby’s diaper rash. Anal skin is interesting because it’s the same type of skin as your lips and the anal skin stops just inside your anus where it becomes intestine. It made sense to me those years when I was putting lip chap on my lips and on my anus although with different applicators of course! For whatever reason my anal sphincter isn’t so great and it tends to leave a residual amount of fecal matter in my anus after I defecate. It’s not a lot but it’s enough to cause soiling of my anus and continual non-stop irritation of the skin. This doesn’t happen every time I have a bowel movement, for example depending on the consistency of the fecal matter. I think I was always like this and maybe it got worse as I got older, or maybe my skin just got more tired after so many years of abuse. The point is that this residual stool is the devil and if your anus isn't working in an ideal manner to clear the fecal matter completely then we have to intervene. The solution to healing your ass is to eliminate the stool residue. This removes the main source of irritation and if you sustain it for a few months your skin will eventually heal and return to normal resilience, and you, to a mostly normal person. At this point you can recover quickly from temporal strains on your anus like sweating or spicy food.


Anal irritation and all things that come from it (fissures etc) stem from the protracted effect of fecal residue. Fecal matter is incredibly destructive to skin when it is allowed to stagnate. It weakens skin and makes it prone to breakage and makes it itch.The solution is to remove the fecal residue and allow your anal skin to heal and return to it’s robust natural state. This is illustrated in the following diagram. Looking at the healthy anus line, you see that it goes up and down depending on stressors slightly but always returns to normal. It is normal to have stressors acting against your anus. What’s different for the unhealthy anus is that there is a stage (Stage 1) where fecal residue causes a general and long term decline in anal health. This brings the anus to a weakened state hovering around a critical level. In Stage 2, the anus is easily affected by even the slightest irritant, and this is often when obsessive behaviour a comes about, and cure searching. Every possible remedy is tried but the anus stubbornly refuses to heal. Creams are applied, clothes are changed, diet modified. Stage 3 is the recovery phase when you learn to clean your anus properly. Slowly the skin returns to a normal healthy state






Healing Your Anus Through Careful Cleaning
You need to change your mindset about your anus, because you need to intervene manually (literally!) to keep it clean. Get over the issues you have with touching feces. Yeah, it’s gross and smells, but all animals do it, and personally I don’t mind getting a bit dirty in order to not suffer from continual anal irriation. Probably you were taught from a young age that you anus is dirty but you need now to get intimate with it. The solution is simple
* You must clean your bottom with water, not just toilet paper after each bowel movement.
* You must regulate your bowel movements to defecate at a time conducive to washing immediately following
* Critically: Use your pinky finger as you are washing with water to draw out all fecal residue from your anus
* With practice you can do this with water only. At first you may need some lubricant or a drop of plant based oil
* Make sure that anus is totally clean
* Repeat this for a long time and the anal skin damage will stop and you will return to a normally functioning person that doesn’t even think much about their anus


Use your Pinky to Clean your Anus
It’s satisfying to me that something so simple is the solution to such a cryptic and difficult problem. It took me years to figure out and the fact that it was so simple and obvious was part of what made it hard. On top of that you will read about all sorts of remedies like I have described above in the forms of creams, modified food choices and advice for anal care from doctors. But, I suppose it’s our collective fear of anal and fecal things, inculcated in us from birth, that made it taboo to do the one most effective thing: Use your pinky and water to clear any fecal residue from your anus after you defecated. If you repeat this every time you defecate, then you have addressed the primary or root cause of anal irritation. Your skin will then be able to heal, and over some months will return to a robust form.


The first strategy I used to deal with fecal residue was to return to the washroom after defecation to wipe again. Later I adapted this by putting a small amount of toilet paper on cotton on my anus after defecation in an attempt to absorb any potential residue. This has partial effect and I would remove the paper or cotton an hour or so later. Obviously though, having paper on your anus would cause it to irritate or chafe, even if it helps absorb some of the residue. I tried this for probably a year, before I went to the next level of actually introducing the pinky into the anus in order to clean it.


When I first started this, I had just read online someone suggested you stick your finger up your ass to get any remaining stool out. I thought that this was disgusting and I had never inserted any part of a finger into my anus. In fact I seldom touched it ever. Initially, I used water based lubricant on my pinky while still on the toilet to aid inserting my finger into my anus and I would wipe it and the fecal residue on a piece of toilet paper. I did this for years and was always embarrassed for the need for the lubricant, for example when I travelled or explaining it to my spouse. I also used to worry that somehow it would be bad for me since water based lubricant is made from chemicals that perhaps would be bad for my anus over the long term.


Eventually, I realized that the best approach requires no lubricant at all. While you are in the shower, squat down under the spray of the water which will run down your back and over your anus, and use your pinky finger to gently dislodge any fecal matter. You only need to insert it perhaps 1 centimeter or so to clean it out nicely and the flowing water carries the fecal matter away and acts as a lubricant. You need to relax since if you are tense you might be clenching and this could make it uncomfortable to introduce the pinky into your anus. In order to do this you have to put aside your squeamishness of touching your anus or getting fecal matter on your finger. It takes some practice and conditioning, but it’s for a really good cause of getting your life back to normal and ungated or dominated by anal health issues. When you start out, since this is likely at a low point of anal health, I suggest that you do use an anal lubricant to make it easier and less friction to insert the finger. Over time as you learn you can learn to not need anything more than water. Even now, years into doing this, I occasionally use some plant based oil, or residual hair conditioner from my head to make clearing my anus easier if it’s particularly tight or irritated.


Once you are done wash your hands carefully and liberally rinse your crack with water using your hand to make sure it’s clean and free of soap residue. Later on when your anal health improves you can wash your anus with a little soap and this will make a healthy anus get healthier. Keep in mind that soap will make an unhealthy anus get unhealthier too, so it’s correct only at a specific time.


Questions About Anal Care
The following is some Q&A about anal care


How do I deal with Constipation?
Many people suffer from constipation and it can be a lifelong battle for some people. The typical discussion around it centers on eating fibre rich foods and consuming lots of water. These are true, but I think this in itself is not the remedy. I can guarantee you that there are many people who don’t eat fibre rich foods and lots of liquids and yet have no problems with constipation. I think the winning strategy is about training your body to have regular bowel movements. You need to establish this cycle with a good diet and repetition. Most importantly, once you have established the cycle you must abide by it religiously, never ignoring the urge to defecate. For me, my routine is to have bowel movements every morning after a cup of coffee. It is so programmed into me that the routine sustains itself. If you ignore the urge, then there is a positive feedback that feces stays in your system too long and hardens from dedication. I would postulate that if you are defecating at random times of the day that you are likely constipated. Once I established a good routine, I feel now that I can eat anything and not be constipated
What about probiotics?
Don’t obsess over it. Probably you don’t need them. People got by without them for years. Eat them once and a while but don’t view them as a cure to your anal issues


Do I have to have a special diet?
No. When your anal skin is in a debilitated state it is ultra sensitive to everything including your diet. This may lead you to obsess over your diet, for example over fiber heavy items with the intention of giving soft stool. People with normal asses try to eat healthy but dont obsess over it and eat varied things and have periods of eating unhealthy foods with no anal consequences. Diet obsession is cure searching


Does it matter if my ass is hairy or not?
No. Possibly a lot of hair could make it sweaty. Possibly a shaved ass can create chafing. There is nothing conclusive about hair other than personal preference. I used to obsess over anal hair, and would actually pluck out my anal hair. Shaving I deemed too risky in case it caused a knick and shaving inevitably left stubble which was definitely an irritant. Now that my anal health is recupperated, I have no particular treatement. Sometimes I shave my anus, sometimes I pluck the hair out and sometimes I let it be. And I can have good anal form in all situations, so therefore it doesn’t matter. Think of the people out there who get Brazilian waxes to remove all anal hair. Now also think of the more hairy cultures in our world and they can also live normal lives unafflicted by anal stress with extremly hair anuses. The fact that these two extremes exist in normal people helps us counter prove that it doesn’t matter significantly for anal health


Are creams and ointments required?
Absolutely not. Those with normal asses don’t use creams. If you are using creams you are caught in a spiral. I’m sure you have already been caught up in the quest to find the cream that will cure your condition. The answer is that there is no cure in cream form and that the solution is to eliminate fecal residue. Only people that suffer from anal issues use creams, do you know of anyone with good anal health that spontaneously decides to put cream on their anus? The concept supposedly is that creams can propel you back to having a healthy anus, which I suppose could be true, but there is no chance of this being permanent unless you address the true cause which is fecal matter irritation. Your skin and body is more than capable of keeping your skin in good form automatically without the need for cream. You just have to do it a favor and keep your anus clean from fecal residue for a long period of time so that the skin can rebound. All that being said, occasional use of creams and ointments is ok as a short term way of coping with anal irritation. For example, if my anus is depleted because of a bout of diarrhea or from a series of days of long bike rides, I may use some petroleum jelly or hydrocortisone cream for a day or two to bring myself back to 100%. Using creams to sustain you at 20% level is stupid and not the intended way of using these medicines.


Can I use soap on my anus?
Despite what doctors say, yes you can. Again, when your anus has been degenerated, every little thing you do including washing it with soap can worsen the situation. But if you have robust anal health, soaping your ass will have no effect, or maybe even a positive effect, since it’s helping to keep your anus clean and healthy. Think about it though, if you had a skin issue on another part of your body like a sunburn, you probably wouldn’t think that soaping it would help. But generally speaking soaping healthy skin is something that keeps it healthy. I remember obsessing over soap for my anus, should I or shouldn’t I, this natural soap or that, etc. Is it causing drying, is there soap residue after bathing that is causing irritation, and on an on. Now that I’m recovered I soap my ass every day because it helps my anus stay clean and smell fresh


Is occasional bleeding ok?
Actually yes, I’m sure that you have read it, but occasional anal skin bleeding is ok. Maybe all of us are genetically condemned with less strong anal skin which is why we are prone to anal issues. If I have a bout of diarrhea or eat a lot of diarrhea inducing food then I do occasionally see blood streaks on the toilet paper. All that wiping and irritation has done damage to the anal skin. It’s normal and comes and goes. I remember obsessing to see if my anus was bleeding every time I wiped, and when I saw red my heart sank in despair. It’s certainly startling and disconcerting to see blood on your toilet paper, especially when your anus is degenerated and causing you grief. But what I want to say is that even a healthy and normally functioning anus is going to bleed once and a while, and there’s nothing to stress about.


Does the size of you ass matter?
Yes, if you have a big ass you are lucky sexually but at a slight disadvantage with respect to anal care. It’s going to get more sweaty because it’s so juicy. A sweaty environment is a stressor that can cause anal skin degeneration


Does spicy food matter?
No. Once your anal skin is restored you can eat spicy food without any major concern. When your anal skin is weakened spicy food can be very painful because it will aggravate the irritation. It is not the direct cause of the irritation, that is the fecal residue. Fix the fecal irritation and you can eat spicy food again


Do you need special underwear ?
No. Wear whatever you want and what is comfortable. I remember obsessing over this but it’s irrelevant. Yes some underwear can create strain on anal skin if it’s too tight or grabs the wrong way. But your anal skin when healthy is more than strong enough to handle this. I recommend no underwear especially if you have a big ass to reduce heat and sweat


Do I need a high fibre diet?
No. I used to obsess over eating a lot of fibre and I think more than anything it made me constipated. Theoretically it’s supposed to absorb water and make your stool soft, but if you eat it obsessively then the net effect is that you can make your stools really hard. Passing hard stools with an irritated anus can be very bad and cause fissures. Now, stool quality is a real issue, and the product of your digestive tracts can be enigmatic. What we do want is soft stool, preferably like what a cow paddie looks like rather than a log shape that we tend to view as a normal stool shape. As mentioned above, the way to achieve this stool quality is by having a religiously regular bowel movement habit. Constipation is more about routine than food, despite what you might think and have been told.


Do I have to stop drinking tea, caffeine, chocolate, tomatoes
Absolutely not. These items are often cited as anal irritants which may be the case. The point is though that your anus can easily handle them provided it’s in a healthy state and hasn’t been under continual onslaught from fecal irritation. I have given up coffee for years with the health of my anus in mind, and suffered immensely from a desire to drink coffee. Coffee in fact is an important ingredient in your bowel habits as it is helpful to induce a bowel movement in the morning when bathing and anal cleansing is convenient. Chocolate, tomatoes and tea are some of the most healthy foods you can eat as well. When your anus is healthy you can eat anything you want.


Can I eat junk food? Like a fries and hamburger with a soda pop?
Yes, absolutely, basically whenever you want and when your waist permits it. The main thing again, is that once your anal health is degenerated, you will become ultra sensitive to many things. I have been in such delicate situations, when I obsessed over dinner choices out of fear of how it would affect my anus the next day. Now, I don’t think about food at all from an anal point of view, but only from the point of view of eating a healthy overall diet. This is how normal people think of food. If you are thinking about your anus when deciding what to eat, it’s likely that you are suffering from a degenerated anus


What about exercise and walking?
I have been an avid walker my whole life and I have especially enjoyed them in the morning. When I started suffering from anal issues one of the ways it immediately affected me was my morning walks. My routine used to consist of breakfast, showering and defecating, then an hour or so walk before work. I remember getting to work and seeing bloody fecal residue in my underwear from walking. Walking and exercise is without a doubt one of the worst natural stressors on your anus, because it generates heat and friction in the anal area. If you have any fecal residue, then it will grind it into your anal skin with each step or motion, causing maximum damage. Damage that takes weeks to heal from, because that’s how slow skin heals. Think for example when you have a cut or a burn or a rash on skin from other parts of your body. It usually takes up to a week for it to heal. The problem is that your anus is a particularly bad place for healing to occur, given the heat and sweat and mechanical agitation from movement or bowel movements. I’m happy to report that you can walk as much as you can bear once you have regained proper anal health and force.


Is sitting bad for your anus?
I guess it might be that sitting for too long is bad for your whole body. Maybe sitting can aggravate constipation or create some anal strain. But to repeat again, it’s unlikely that sitting in itself is causing your anal situation. It might be contributing to it in some miniscule way. If you eliminate fecal residue, the true cause of degenerated anal health, then sitting will become a non-issue. Many people, including myself, sit for hours, like 10 per day working on computers and don’t suffer from anal issues.


Do I need to moisturize my anus?
This one in particular took me a few years to sort out. Because when your anus is irritated you tend to assume that it needs to be moisturized, and it does indeed help. But, it can also hurt because it causes moisture in that sensitive region which can add to the irritation. One common sense way of looking at it is that normal people don’t obsessively moisturize their anal skin. I’m pretty sure normal people skip over their anus when applying moisturizer to their bodies. And it makes sense since your anus is in a damp environment and not exposed to the drying effect like your knuckles. Your knuckles for example in winter are an example of where applying moisturizer has a healing effect. In net, I would say that moisturizing your anus is not required, but doing it in a very minimal way, like once a month is ok and may make you feel good for other reasons like caring for your body.


Is stress bad for my anus?
It’s possible, but again, mental stress like all the anal stressors is a contributing factor but not the dominating cause. There are many people in the world that live stressful lives with little sleep and who don’t simulataneoulsy suffer from poor anal health. It’s a good idea to get enough sleep and control stress as part of overall management of your health, but that’s not a panacea to your anal problems


Do I Need Medical Diagnostics?
Not likely unless you are older. As I mentioned I started having this issue in my low 30’s. Unfortunately the way American medical system works is for the general practitioner doctor to run test after test until they hopefully find a solution. The medical profession is obsessed with tests and remedies, but I believe treating anal irritation requires no tests or remdies other than proper anal education. During my quest, my GP eventually ran out of ideas. First, he prescribed hydro-cortisone based creams which at first do wonders but are quickly habit forming. They are meant for use for a short time, but the patients with compromised anuses become addicted to them because they are so effective. But they can’t solve the issue of degenerated anal health since they are only addressing the symptom rather than the cause. Next, the GP tested me for parasites as a stab in the dark attempt to diagnose. Of course I had none. He recommended I eat more fibre, and for years I ate metamucil drinks twice a day despite being a healthy and young adult. Eventually, he recommended a colonoscopy since clearly none of his remedies were working, so I waited for months to see a proctologist. The proctologist just looked into my inside and saw nothing. This entire experience saddened me, since the medical practice is only configured to give you some basic help and you better hope that your problem is solvable by one of the known, canned solutions. Unfortunately, anal issues don’t and the patient is left to themselves to figure out the cure. I estimate there are millions of people out there suffering this way, essentially abandoned by the medical world.


Ending Notes
At last, I have explained you all that I know about non-medical cures of anal problems. Read this over and over. It’s only a few pages but contains great wisdom that was refined out of 10 years of suffering and experimentation. Humans are incredibly tough, and this experience tested me to my core. I had to live my normal stressful life and at the same time deal with anal problems. There were times of great frustration, times of tears, false starts at thinking I was cured and overall I learned how fallible our bodies are. It’s very hard to solve problems or understand phenomena where there is a large delay between cause and effect. There’s also a lot of misinformation about how to fix your anus, most of it coming even from doctors. It took me a long time to parse through this and find the obvious solution of cleaning your anus with your pinky to remove all fecal residue. I guarantee that if you follow this advice you will see improvement. I wish you the best of luck in your journey. Be strong and brave and I hope that this advice helps you improve your life.




Anonymous man 41 years old
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