Hi guys,

I'm new here but have suffered with AF for many years on and off. I've had botox once and ointment seemed to give me a speedy recovery after this. However, I've recently had this worse than ever. It's now so bad, I've been signed off work.

Great this is here though and looking forward to sharing experiences and reading advice :)

Hi! I’m new as well and am happy to have found this forum. It doesn’t seem to be too active right now from what I can tell but there is a lot of information to read through.

I can relate a lot to what you said. I’ve been suffering with multiple fissures for the past 10 years and within the last 5 weeks or so it’s been so bad that I can’t work. I’m actually set to have Botox and dilation in a few hours and I’m terrified. The last thing I did was fissurectomy about 10 years ago and that was absolute hell for two months. Anyways, I hope that your issue resolves soon. It can feel like a never ending cycle. Are you seeing a CRS right now?

Let us know how you get on Biscuit with your procedure, fingers crossed for you that it helps : )

Thank you, I appreciate that. I’ll definitely update you all.

Hey Biscuit. Great you're having it as it did wonders for me. It will totally help relax it for 3-4 months, so blood flow will help it heal good. Baths are the main thing after the injection really, they help a lot to sooth once you've been.

All the best for it though. It's a quick one, so you'll probably be in and out in the same day :)

Just in case though, I think I should touch on how my diet made it like this again. The botox was great, but it was my pure lack of understanding fibre, that got me back into this rut again, years later.

You see, years after the injection it was great. If I ever had minor pain, Retogesic ointment solved it in a few days. However, a few weeks ago I started a more strict workout and diet. White rice/pasta with chicken/beef for every meal with eggs for breakfast Protein shakes and protein bars on top of that. They only fruit I was eating was unripe bananas - big no, no as unripe can cause constipation (the problem is that most people think a fully ripe banana is bad and chuck it out!).

Add that to all the meat I was eating - yeah. It wasn't good and the pain was unbearable at times.

However, only over the last day or so have I found a perfect setup that worked for me. I got rid of the bananas and held off the meat (the latter just to heal as I can slowly reintroduce after full healing). I had 40g of bran flakes for breakfast, oatmeal with almond butter for lunch and an egg sarnie for dinner (gotta get your protein for you to heal). BUT here's the BIG thing - after EVERY meal eat at least 1-2 of the following:

1 apple, 1 orange (I prefer the small, soft easy peel), 30g of dates (around 5-6 dates).

BOOM! I could go to the toilet without that unbearable pain and it's giving me a chance to heal!

It's awesome you've had the injection biscuit and this will sort you out but if you ever have issues after (or to help prevent it) I hope what I've found helps.

All the best

I forgot to mention the all important water. I also strive to take in at least 3L of water per day.

Sorry to babble on, just hope it helps and let us know how the botox went?

Stay safe.

Thank you so much for all of that information, the more the better!!!

I just woke up and the anesthesia is wearing off. I applied some GTN and I could feel how swollen everything is down there and there’s a lot of blood. I refuse to look with a mirror lol I might traumatize myself.

I had a conversation with my surgeon after I came out of anesthesia about the dilation and I think she said she was able to do some but not all. I’m not sure, I need to clarify that with her, I was still not fully aware when had the conversation. I hate when they do that.

I haven’t had a bowel movement yet but I’m pretty scared because everything feels broken open down there.

Bathboi when you had Botox did you find it helped right away or did it take a few days? My CRS said it doesn’t kick in for 5 days.

Hey,

Great that you've had it done now. Tbh it will be uncomfortable and I got a burning sensation after bowel movements that lasted a bit. Don't worry as this is normal, remember the op does not close it, the botox simply relaxes the muscles in the sphincter to allow blood flow to it, so it can heal. It will take time but help it with baths and any ointment they have prescribed.

As soon as you get the sensation that you'll need to "go" soon, start running a bath. This is better than any painkiller as it will a) sooth pain and b) aid the botox in relaxing the sphincter, boosting the healing process.

Stay away from co codamol as it will cause heavy constipation (the last thing you need!) and check out the diet above to make stool passing as easy as possible to further aid the healing process. I'd personally stay away from asprin if you can as it thins the blood and could cause more bleeding down there.

Talk to your doc about ibruprofen just in case (as this should be fine to help the inflamed area but keep it to a minimum if you can with just one pill if you need it) but also retrogesic ointment. I advise this because for some reason I was not prescribed the ointment or even advised on this until years after the op. This could be due to them wanting me to stay away from the area after it, but it could also be that they simply forgot. Worth checking out as if you can still use it, that will add to pain relief, along with the diet and baths to speed up healing more.

Mine took about 2 weeks to fully heal but bear in mind I had no ointment and was clueless on diet at the time. Yours should take much quicker with those on your side :)