Hi everyone,
I thought I'd make this post because this is something that is lacking on this forum - descriptions or photos of what a healing/healed fissure actually looks like. I tried for so long to find out what healing looks like from other posts but couldn't find anything reliable or consistent and no pictures were available. I have a ton of photos on my phone but am not sure I'm ready to upload them all and post on the internet yet lol, so for now I will describe it as best I can for everyone!
I also feel that I am in a unique position to share this knowledge with everyone because I had 3 raging chronic fissures all at once (all of which are healed) and they ALL LOOK DIFFERENT NOW THAT THEY ARE HEALED - go figure? So it is NOT a one-size fits all but there is some guidance to let you know you're on the right track.
Okay so what does healing look like:
1) Starting with my posterior fissure - starting with the easy one, you cannot see this fissure at all and my anus in this area looks exactly like it did pre-fissure. You can no longer see the fissure and even the skin tag has gone away? The posterior area truly looks like it did before. Even the scar tissue is gone? Not sure why but this was the cleanest heal where it sealed back up like any other wound.
2) Anterior fissure - My skin tag is still present. Healing looked weird - like granulation tissue was slowly (and I mean SLOWLY) filling in little by little but expanding the fissure outward as it did so. What I mean is that it doesn't just heal like any other wound, the sides of the fissure swelled up and got bigger and bigger as it sort of grew closer and closer together. So the wound itself was GAPING at first with thin wound edges and as the months went on, the wound itself got a little thinner each time which the wound edges puffed and swelled as they grew together. Near the end, it was just a little slit. It stayed as a tiny slit for a long time until the slit then started filling in. The colour also changed as the months went on. When it was fresh and very sore it was a deep red. As it was healing, it was purple. Now it's back to more of a skin colour but still more purple than the rest of my anus. SO in sum, now I have this very raised area, not including the skin tag, where you can clearly see a ton of lumpy scar tissue as the fissure slowly re-fused.
3) Lateral fissure - this is the tricky one. It's healed I think because there is ZERO pain or bleeding but it still looks like a chronic fissure and actually hasn't changed in appearance at all through my entire fissure journey - from the very beginning of the fissure journey 15 months ago until now - the photos of my anus in this area month to month are the EXACT SAME. From when I was bleeding profusely and in intense pain to now, no pain and no blood - it loosk the same. The fissure itself looks like a little tiny canoe with indurated edges and a slit in the middle from where it was acute before. I used to pull the edges apart (DON'T DO THIS AT HOME FOLKS) and then I'd see there was blood and open wound tissue inside. Now, I can't pull it apart. So it looks like it always did but it's sealed inside.
The reason why I say DON'T DO THIS AT HOME is because as I was really starting to heal (after the Botox) I pulled it apart to check progress and realized I ripped the granulation tissue open when it was starting to fuse together. Stupid me - my curiosity of wanting to pull it apart and see healing was preventing it from actually healing. Curiosity certainly hurt me in the healing journey with this fissure because the inspection process was actually setting me back every time I pulled it apart hoping to see healing.

In light of that, I would say if you can - DO NOT INSPECT your fissures. I'm posting this because I know some people are looking for this information but I learned the hard way... I probably delayed my healing. Try to resist the urge and go based on feel/your CRS' inspection.
Happy Healing!

Thanks for the detailed post, that's really interesting to read. I agree it's risky to check your own fissures to see how things are going but most of the time you won't get a good view and like you said you could do some damage.

I myself when my fissures were really bad I was obsessed to check them daily but it would teach me nothing but frustration.

thanks again for your post I'm sure it's going to help a lot of people