Oh boy - I am not scared of needles at all (as needles ) - get poked regularly for blood tests and they always have trouble finding my veins since they are so tiny and they have to dig and dig and dig *sigh... But the thought of having a needle stuck in the anus that is already in so much pain make me cringe . I do not know *sigh, I think I would almost feel "violated" , if you know what I mean. Aren't we strange creatures ??? _ I mean "we as human" species LOL It is amazing what tricks our brains can pull on us
How many series you had done ???
We had a member who had 3 series and one after the other - so she had her sphincter relaxed for more than 6 mos !!!!!! AND SHE HEALED FOREVER !!!!!
How about you try something like that when you are so comfortable with a Botox :roll: !!!!!????
I just hated all possible side-effects and non-permanence of relaxed sphincter - but if you are not ready for a LIS at all and want to do something in the meantime - how about that :) ???

NG,
I was also apprenhensive about having LIS, so you aren't the only one.

Thanks guys :)
Fiss, I just had Botox one time. It was great for a while, then it started to wear off, but my son's situation got a little complicated at the time, so I didn't go back for a second round.
Cheryl, thank you, I know it's natural to be apprehensive, I'm just letting the fear control me a little too much.
You know, guys, I've been thinking and I want to apologize for being such a whiner. So many people here are dealing much more painful and serious situations (both fissure and non fissure related), and my fissure isn't even all that bad compared to most, yet I'm talking so much about being scared of LIS that it's just pathetic, and not very considerate of those suffering more. I will try to keep a lid on it going forward so as to not diminish the importance of other people's dilemmas :) I do appreciate all of the awesome support from you all for a guy who is a complete chicken!

NG,
I think this forum is for support. You've given a lot of that to many others, so don't worry about venting your feelings, whatever they are. Plus you have a lot to deal with also, just like the rest of us!! Especially if a person has never had any surgery, I think it is normal to be very apprenhensive since a surgery experience would be new.

Hey Mechelle, so how's the Botox treating ya :)

Everything seems to be going pretty well. I only had a little bit of discomfort after Monday last week. Some bleeding from the removal of the tissue. All and all not too bad. Hopefully things are healing up now! I haven't noticed any bleeding for several days. One thing that gets me though is that not matter how consistent I am with my diet I have days where I will go to the bathroom 3-4+ times. Those days always seem to irritate things more with the constant cleaning. I don't know what to do to get that to stop though. It's like I'll have four days with just one BM then all of the sudden one day of five. Drives me nuts, but I'm never having hard or difficult to pass stools now which is definitely a good thing. Today I've already had 2 and it's feeling a little itchy! We'll see how the rest of the day goes!

Awesome that's great to hear Mechelle :) I usually poop a bunch of times a day too (always have) so I don't think you're alone in that regard. There are lots of us frequent poopers out there

i just wish that it wouldn't make things so irritated when it happens! i think i would be healed for the most part, but when i make a lot of progress i have one of those days!! :(

so, went in for my 4 week follow up appointment and the doctor said that everything is healed! i do still have a couple of very small hemorrhoids and a skin tag, but he wants to wait until i'm done having kids to mess with them as long as they aren't bothering me too bad. i do sometimes get a little discomfort from the skin tag area, but NOTHING like the fissure pain. he did tell me to be extra careful, because as the botox wears off any constipation could retear the area. i'm going to stay on my stool softeners at least until i'm done breastfeeding, and then figure things out after that. i'm going to keep all of my diet changes, because i think i feel a lot healthier than i used to. at least now i won't feel too bad if i cheat once in a while. hopefully this is the end of my fissure saga!

Congrats Mechelle. That's great to hear. You're wise to be super careful for a while. At 4 weeks the Botox could still be keeping the sphincter loose so it'll likely tighten up a bit with time. I healed after Botox and then got careless and that's when the fissure came back. Depending on how long you plan on breastfeeding for, I'd even consider staying on stool softeners for longer just to make doubly sure. I think a bunch of otherwise normal people have skin tags so I wouldn't much about those. Nice to hear that you're on the upswing.