How do you work?!

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How do you work?!

Postby flatfish » 01 Mar 2022, 21:21

Hello, new here after reading for a while.

Just lost a long post with my story so will do that another time. The short version is -

I have had severe pain with fissure for at least six weeks. Have a polyp as well and am on waiting list for surgery. Having IVF which likely caused constipation and means I can't take certain medication and, depending on the timing and if I am fortunate enough to conceive, will have to delay the surgery.

I am on a high fibre diet, using a squat stool and breathing techniques to help with BMs. Taking paracetamol.

At the moment almost all of my day is pain management (baths, sitz baths, heat pads). If I am having a good day I can move about a bit, like hang some laundry up and walk the dog. On a bad day I just move between the bath and being in bed with a heat pad. The pain can be unbearable and I am crying and rocking about like a sick animal.

I am starting some new work from home soon which I hope I can manage by sitting on my heat pad and fitting in sitz baths. But I have also been offered some work out of the home which would involve sitting (in different seats) and standing. Also a long walk there (I don't drive and wouldn't dare cycle at the moment). I have been interested in this job for a while but just don't see how I could do it at the moment, and really frustrated and disappointed about it.

I have a delayed sleep phase (aka, I am a night owl), which can mean having a BM before a 9am start doesn't happen for me and often early working hours means I get constipated. The working from home job is a later shift, luckily.

How do you cope with working? Especially getting to work after a BM or managing pain when you are there?
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Re: How do you work?!

Postby Rich44 » 30 Mar 2022, 10:59

"How do you cope with working? Especially getting to work after a BM or managing pain when you are there?"

Hi, I guess I can let you know how I dealt with it. I literally learned to live with the pain. At it's worst on the toilet the pain could be a 10 out of 10 (on the worst occasions) so anything less than that was GOOD. As bad as this may sound I simply accepted that I would have pain everyday like Eskimos accept that they will be cold. Now I certainly tried to limit the pain, but overall it was there everyday for 6+ years. I also had an unusual surprise along with the fissure. I would have a BM but when I'd try to stand up my muscle by my tailbone/rectum would spasm. It would be painful and hard to walk. I'd have to literally sit on it and it was excruciating. But it was the only way to release the spasm. That issue was fixed when I quit my job. It was all from stress!

I finally had to get the LIS when I realized I was straining to have a BM every time and I was terrified of anal stenosis, giving myself a hernia or even a heart attack/embolism, etc. It turned out the sphincter was SUPER tight. I obviously couldn't relax when having a BM. I had the LIS almost 18 months ago and have been normal ever since.
Fissure June 2014 - Oct 2020
Botox, skin tag removed - Feb 2015
Levator Ani Sep 2014 - Feb 2016 (left job, cured!)
LIS, skin tags removed - Oct 2020
Fissure 100% healed - Nov 2020
Still healed as of March 2024
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Re: How do you work?!

Postby flatfish » 01 Apr 2022, 03:38

Thanks for your reply!

Acceptance isn't one of my strengths in any area of life really, but I do agree when the pains is there it would help if I could just get on with it!

It probably doesn't help that I'm not working at the moment, having taken a break from a stressful role / work life stuff last autumn. So I'm overthinking every job application and if I could actually get there for 9am. I'm wondering if the heat pads for postnatal might work.

I've been managing a bit better, I think muscle tone was an issue for me to - having had a few strain free BMs I know the difference now, but still difficult to achieve. Diltiazem and lots of pelvic floor relaxation videos have helped. Still spend most mornings lying on a hot water bottle.

Nervous now as my diltiazem has run out so just over to me and my breathing exercises! (Diltiazem is off licence and my GP can't prescribe it apparently).
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Re: How do you work?!

Postby Sisyphus » 12 Apr 2022, 05:49

flatfish wrote:
I am on a high fibre diet,



Stop this nonsense. You are not a cow. High fibre diet produces bulky stools, especially when accompanied by a lot of water and can cause damage to the rectum.
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Re: How do you work?!

Postby flatfish » 01 May 2022, 06:03

Do you think that tone is okay? To speak to someone dealing with a painful, stress related illness?

I don't feel it's 'nonsense' to follow the overwhelming advice from the medical community including the NHS. Sure, there may be some papers saying that a high fibre diet doesn't help. There's also a huge medical community assessing such research and putting it into guidance such as the Nice guidelines. Whatever the truth is about diet and fissure and diet (and obviously it's not a known thing, which is why there's so many people here looking for solutions) people following standard advice are not following 'nonsense' .

Perhaps you could speak more kindly to people.
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Re: How do you work?!

Postby dhc » 01 May 2022, 08:01

I am so sorry for the pain you are in. I work from home and could not possibly sit all day in an office. I have a heat pad that I heat up in the microwave. It is a lot easier to use than a hot water bottle. As far as fiber, I think a high fiber diet is one of the best things I have done. Some people here think the opposite but that has not been my experience. I had a botox injection and it has really helped as I am starting to heal. My spouse has a hard time believing that the pain I experience is real. She thinks I have become obsessed on it. More OCD than a real problem. I have to admit that I would not understand it if I was not experiencing it. Still amazed that the medical community cannot offer more help.
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Re: How do you work?!

Postby Sisyphus » 03 May 2022, 05:07

flatfish wrote:Do you think that tone is okay? To speak to someone dealing with a painful, stress related illness?

I don't feel it's 'nonsense' to follow the overwhelming advice from the medical community including the NHS. Sure, there may be some papers saying that a high fibre diet doesn't help. There's also a huge medical community assessing such research and putting it into guidance such as the Nice guidelines. Whatever the truth is about diet and fissure and diet (and obviously it's not a known thing, which is why there's so many people here looking for solutions) people following standard advice are not following 'nonsense' .

Perhaps you could speak more kindly to people.


I wish someone a few years ago had spoken in that tone to me. Sometimes harsh words help us wake up and free ourselves from our cultural shackles and from our own mental blocks
. In the specific case, our health system fosters obesity, metabolic illnesses and of course anal fissures, hemorrhoids, IBS, etc, etc




Standard advice is deeply contaminated by commercial interests and influenced by religions, philosophies and ideologies; and that they have nothing of scientific.
In this toxic culture, an oppositional streak is required to get healthy and stay healthy.
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Re: How do you work?!

Postby Sisyphus » 03 May 2022, 05:13

dhc wrote:As far as fiber, I think a high fiber diet is one of the best things I have done. Some people here think the opposite but that has not been my experience. I had a botox injection and it has really helped as I am starting to heal.


One of the best things you have done, but your problem remained, right?

Have you ever tried a zero fiber diet?
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Re: How do you work?!

Postby dhc » 03 May 2022, 13:01

No, my problem did not remain. I have pain free BM's but still a little irritation. No pain. When I had my Botox, the doctor reviewed my diet and said I was not getting enough fiber. I got serious about increasing it and was almost better. But then I was in a social situation where I ate a very low fiber meal and did not compensate with taking more psyllium fiber. I had a hard bm and it set me back a week. Since then I have been very good about eating high fiber and I am 99% better.

In your other posts, you discuss getting better with a carnivore diet. I am so glad that worked for you and that you are better. It seems like some things work for some people and not for others. The argument that I have heard against high fiber is that it produces bulky stools. That is not the case for me. Why it is different for me than it is for you, I can't explain.
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