Did you guys use any creams after surgery? If so, what?
By the way, that pic of that little girl on the beach is so freaking cute!

Hey Macymae !
I made a point of using no creams and keeping the area really dry and clean !
I would bathe and then use hairdryer on cool setting making sure all the crevices were dry as a bone ! :D
Those hurricanes are very scary my daughter was there with her grandparents one time she phoned to tell me they had to stay in the hotel because of hurricane Katrina, we saw a video when she came back, it looked wild !

Yes I had to move out of our condo after Hurricane Ivan in 2004. It was a disaster...almost made us move out of the area. No power or water for three weeks.
I told my husband just last night (it's period time for me) that I am so fed up. I try so hard to be positive that I have had LIS and it will heal. It amazes me that a c-section was peanuts compared to this stupid thing. My mom's a nurse and she talked to a CRS in California who told her that these things can take months and months but most will heal, especially with LIS. I keep thinking what am I doing wrong? Three months post LIS I feel I should be healed....I guess I just having a bad day.

Tabby, you said no creams, and kept it dry and clean. Did you use anything before BM's, like vaseline to coat the area? Did you clean with a q-tip?

macy - 3 months post LIS isn't that long, so don't feel too hopeless yet. fissures are WAY more complicated than drs or medical sites would have you believe. there are so many people on this forum and others who don't heal w/in 3 months of LIS. try to be patient awhile longer!
i've had 2 LIS and a fissurectomy in the past 2 years and still haven't healed, in fact a new fissure recently opened up. it's mind boggling to me.
try not to overanalyze everything you do. i've become stuck in this obsessive routine of overthinking everything i do and only thinking about my butt and it is almost more hell than the pain itself. try to relax and stay positive.
my mom recently bought me wheatgrass on the internet. she was really excited to find it and thinks it'll be my super cure. let me know how it goes for you, i haven't tried it yet cuz i don't want to disappoint her.

Hi Macymae – I love that name btw !
What I think is … Our scars are very delicate and sensitive and it is going to take time and more time to strengthen and heal strong We had some realistic stats about that somewhere, someone ???
Before surgey days i used a whole shebang of creams esp the vaseline before BM but since surgery I used nothing, Now I shower off after BMS ocd style and bathe once per day that is it, I only just stopped cleaning with qtips a couple of weeks back but still have mirror inspections !
PMS sucks I think you should eat some chocolate

Thanks! I think so too....something sweet. Juney you poor thing! I thought a fissurectomy was the final straw and would work....my CRS told me he wouldn't do that as he didn't think it was necessary. Did you just have one fissure? Are you in pain all the time? How far apart were your LIS's?
I have been using the wheatgrass about two weeks now, nothing real noticable yet except some itching (some people say that means its healing, some say its the cream) but the doctor said it could take six weeks to see the improvement so I will let you know. The website sure looks promising.
I hate my butt!

macy to sum up my looong story:
i had my first LIS in may 06 and the 2nd one in Sept 06. last summer i saw a new dr who said i still had a fissure to the muscle and also the beginning of a fistula. he did a fissurectomy in sept 08. at one point the dr said the fissure looked healed but i had some bad inflammation that he couldn't explain and the daily pain was exactly the same as always. the longest i've gone without pain in sooo long is 2 weeks when i was using hydrocortisone suppositories. things are up and down but i have pain every day for 6-8 hours or more after BM. i have 2 BMs a day most days so my butt hurts all the time.
my story is totally discouraging i know, but don't let it get you down b/c i've had so much trauma down there. you'll heal but be patient!

Thanks Juney, it helps to know I am not alone out there with the butt :)
So do you work? Is that a pic of you in the chair? If so, you look great!
Beginning of a fistula? What exactly is that? What do you do for that? Have you been back to the doc?

you're definitely not alone. i remember being new on here 2 years ago. finding people who deal w/ similar problems is very reassuring. i just thought by this time butt problems would be a bad memory for me.
after the fissurectomy i was so depressed i couldn't do anything for 4 months. i never left the house, cried all the time, and thought about suicide a lot. i'm taking antidepressants now and i got a new job back in january. sometimes i feel like i can't take it anymore but i'm trying to take control over it and stop letting it ruin my life.
a fistula is basically where an infection or wound starts "tunneling" into the skin. i kind of think of it like my fissure was so deep it became a tunnel and stuff got trapped in there and that's why i'd see pus or mucus sometimes. mine never tunneled thru to the outside like some do. the dr cleaned it out w/ the fissure and stitched it up.
i stay in contact w/ my recent surgeon but he never has anything new to say so it's kind of pointless. i'm too scared to let anyone else examine me. i've had all the tests and don't know what else can be done now.
yah that's me in the chair...in maui a couple years ago...the summer between my 2 LISs actually LOL :)