Miralax Helping Me Heal

Healing my Second Fissure

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Miralax Helping Me Heal

Postby ouchgirl » 31 Mar 2021, 00:01

I've visited this site quite a bit, but this is the first time I've posted. I'll try to be brief, try to share all of the things I've tried and what has worked for me, and what might hopefully work for you too.

As my subject heading implies, Miralax has been one of the most helpful things in healing my anal fissure. It's sort of the last puzzle piece in everything else I'd been doing to finally get some healing going. Like a lot of you, I've experienced A LOT with my fissure, the pain, the burning, the clenching your teeth because it hurts so bad, but I'll try to be as brief as I can. I've had this fissure for a few years, which went chronic probably fairly early on, going through the cycles of partial healing, then tearing again, then partially healing again. At this point, I do have scarring, or a skin tag, but I'd be surprised if I didn't. I healed long-term the first time without Miralax, for about nine months. Then I started treating my bum like I'd never had a fissure, and it came back with a vengeance for six to seven months. I've been healing now for close to three months, with the use of Miralax.

Here are the things that worked for me:

- Miralax. It's so difficult to consistently get your stools soft without the help of a softener. I resisted using Miralax because I'd never been constipated, and sometimes when you first use it, you can experience diarrhea, which can lead to bleeding, but that goes away pretty quickly if you stick with it. You can also take less than a full dose. I take between a half to three-fourth's of a dose now. There can also be a feeling of bloating, but that's gotten better too, and my GI said you can basically take Miralax forever.
- Desitin Multi-Purpose Healing Ointment (not the kind for diaper rash). This is sort of like Vaseline, and I found it was really good to use if I had bleeding, and I could gently get some ointment over the fissure using my finger. I'd use it fairly sparingly if you do use it.
- Gentle massage. And by gentle, I mean maybe one to three very gentle movements with your finger over the fissure (or scar/tag), preferably by using the Desitin ointment or Vaseline. Sometimes I think this can help with some itching and also if the scar is acting up. I stopped doing this though as I've been healing more. I wouldn't even necessarily do it every day when I was doing it. I'd made the mistake of doing a more robust massage for like five minutes, and I was in pain for several days!
- Sitz bath/hot baths/hot shower spray. A hot sitz bath after a painful BM would often cut the pain for me by 90%. If you're in the worst of it, it's gross, but you can basically fill a sitz bath with hot water and have your BM while soaking. Like I said, it's gross, but when my pain was at its worst, it would help make the BM more bearable. Thankfully I didn't have to do it for long. I'd also use shower spray to really get into the fissure (by spreading your cheeks in the shower), but you have to be careful with this too, because the pressure can irritate the fissure/dry it out if the water is too hot.
- Sitz soak after BM/bidet. Currently, after I have a BM, I soak in a sitz right after for about three minutes. This loosens the leftover BM, which you can dump into the toilet when you're done. After, I use a portable bidet to spray off any excess BM. Then I wipe gently or pat with toilet paper for any that's left. This keeps things fairly gentle down there.
- Sleeping without underwear or with cotton underwear. When you're starting to heal, I think it can be helpful to make sure you're dry down there, then sleep without underwear or cotton to help things air out.
- Avoiding trigger foods. One of my trigger foods is almonds. I used to eat them all the time, as much as I could, and I think that contributed to my fissure, because they don't digest completely. The same can be said for other foods like seeds. If you do eat something like that, try to make sure you're chewing it up as good as you can so your body has less to digest.
- Exercise. This is something that always seemed to be recommended, but definitely needs to be done in conjunction with other things.
- Better bowel habits. Before I got my fissure, I used the bathroom sometimes five times a day. I didn't like having poop inside of me if I felt I could get it out, and so I'd make it happen. This led to too much time on the toilet and diarrhea from pushing when it just wasn't necessary. I thought the diarrhea improved when I started a fiber powder supplement (which I no longer take because of bulking), but it was really just putting less pressure on pushing things out. Bad bowel habits are likely what led to my fissure.
- Squatty Potty. This actually helped me early on, but just wasn't enough on its own when the fissure got worse.

Things that didn't work for me:

- Coconut oil/suppositories. I'd really hoped this would be my saving grace, but after trying this multiple times, it seemed to make things worse for me. I think it acts as a great moisturizer for some people, but not for others. For me, I think it actually dried me out and/or irritated the fissure/tag. It's too bad, because the suppositories were easy to make and easy to apply to the area, but then again, the oil can be pretty messy.
- Nitroglycerin. This might have helped a little, but never enough to justify using it. It certainly didn't seem to be a miracle cure. The type I got was from a compounding pharmacy, as the name brand Rectiv was $800 out of pocket and likely wouldn't have helped anyway.
- Hydrocortisone. Used it several times, and always made it worse.
- H-Fissures oil. Tried a couple of times. Couldn't tell if it was making it worse, but didn't seem to make it better, so I didn't try it for long. I certainly don't see it as a miracle cure, but it might help some people.
- Hemorrhoid creams. Obviously, these are made for another problem, so they only made my issue worse (when I didn't realize I had a fissure).
- Pelvic exercise/robust massage. To be fair, I did these on my own, based on some videos I found, and I think it was just hurting too much to start an exercise that may not have been good for me anyway. As I mentioned above, I think very, very gentle massage can be good for a chronic fissure, but I was trying a robust, five minute (or longer) massage, going in semi-circles, and this put me into pain for days, so definitely be careful with that. I think it's more for an acute fissure.

Overall, I've found the best healing with soft stools and things like hot baths. This second time, I'd start healing for a week or two, and then it would start coming back. It really has been the Miralax that's gotten me on the right track of long-term healing.

I really hope by sticking with what I'm doing this time around, that I'll heal for good. Hopefully my experience might help someone, as it feels like this experience is a lot about trial and error. Hopefully you'll all find some comfort soon!
ouchgirl
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Re: Miralax Helping Me Heal

Postby Pzgre » 03 Apr 2021, 19:54

Thanks for the post
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Re: Miralax Helping Me Heal

Postby Bathboi » 19 Jul 2021, 02:37

Thanks for the advice ouchgirl. I've now looked into better laxatives (I'm from the UK, so I need to look into the equivalent of Miralax) as I was taking 3 Dulcoease pills a day and it just wasn't working.

Thanks again :)
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