So I am new to this ordeal and have been devastated by the seemingly little but life altering cut on the bottom.
Got my first one about 2 months ago. Before it started, I had a very stressful period of about 3 weeks with irregular and hard BMs, diarrhea on a couple of occasions. I also used to sit on the toilet for 30 mins. and just surf the web. I also had itching which i promptly did - a little inside the anus as well. At this point I had no idea what a fissure was.
So one day, I saw some very minor blotting on the TP for two days in a row and went to the GP. He said it looks like a minor fissure. He asked me to use hydrocortizone suppositories, add metamucil to my diet and sent me home. 4 days later I went to a CR who did anoscopy, did an HSV (herpes) culture (which came out negative), asked me to stop hydrocortizone and start using calmol 4 suppositories. He said it is a small fissure.
I was taking metamucil, increased my water intake a little. Did not make many changes to my diet which obviously was not great. None of these docs explained to me how serious can it be.
For the next 2.5 weeks, there was no blood, just mild discomfort. I also obsessively kept looking at it using a mirror and a lamp - every single day. I did not see anything more than a minor scratch. I did not know I was disturbing it.
It was feeling better but the area outside was red and itchy. So one day I could not resist and I itched it. Two days later there was significant bleeding on the TP and stinging pain. I made an appointment with the CR for a week later. The day I saw the CR, it seemed fine. So he said it is getting better and asked me to use synalar for the outside inflammation.
I did that - all well for a week with minor intermittent bleeding. I also started getting much better on my diet - oatmeal and a fruit for breakfast, salad for lunch, beans or steamed veggies for dinner. Little to no meats, taking a tbs of metamucil upto 3 times a day.
About 2 weeks later, again there was significant bleeding and stinging. called up my CR - he said stop using the synalar as it may have thinned the skin and go back to the calmol 4 again. So I did. I also added 4 tabs of colace everyday.
Another 2 weeks went by relatively ok. Then one day, I carried some heavy stuff from the grocery store, and ate fried bacon. 2 days later I had the bleeding from hell. Like I'd never seen before. So i called up the CR who said it is not an emergency so gave me a 3 week later appointment Disappointed, I made an appt with another CR.
I saw him last Thurs (7/15). He did sigmoidoscopy and confirmed that I have a fissure as well as some small internal hemorroids. He basically told me that I will have to get surgery for the fissure done. He said that I could try Nitro first but it is not a permanent solution.
So I have been using nitro for the last 5 days. No change in the first three days but today feels a little better. There has been blood and the cutting pain in every single BM though.
The size of my fissure is 1cm x 1mm x 1mm.
It is great to find this forum. Obviously all of us here know how much anger, grief and distress this could cause. Planning my whole life around a BM. Can't eat anything. This is no way to live. Absolutely not.