I know what you mean about fiber and big bm.
I think you should be fine without the supplements as long as you get a "good" amount through the foods you eat, get enough fluids and use the stool softeners.
I wish I had found this site before my surgery and started on some type of regimen before. A bm the day after surgery would have been a pain saver. So since I didn't know how to regulate my system, I went through trial and error after surgery. Too much fiber (supplements, fiber one cereal) and stool softeners didn't work well and I went too often and had larger bm. Then I cut the fiber and increased the softeners and got the opposite...loose stools that burned like Hades. I found Benefiber easier on my system, less gas and bulk, as opposed to Metamucil. Ultimately I stopped using the Colace and Miralax and settled on Benefiber in oatmeal, Metamucil wafer, and high fiber foods, to help me reach 20-25 grams a day. If I eat more fiber I go more often and bigger.

Personally I swear by Movicol for producing soft stools, I've not tried Metamucil or Colace but have tried Docusate Sodium and Lactulose, neither of them come close to Movicol, but I agree that too much fibre creates bigger stools, knowing how much fibre to intake each day is quite a task, so basically I just eat a pretty normal diet which consists of porridge oats for breakfast, soup (occasionally) for lunch and anything else for tea, experimenting with foods as I go along, I will never just eat soup like some people have, everything works fine as long as I do the same breakfast, water and Movicol.

I don't take fiber supplements either. I think what I do is pretty similar to Steve. Basically I eat at least one high fiber meal a day which is basically veggie soup. As long as my overall fiber intake is in the 20 grams or so range, I'm good. For other meals and snacks, I cut myself a bit more slack and just make sure I take Miralax with sufficient water intake. My diet before surgery, during recovery, and even today looks pretty much like this:
BREAKFAST:
1 Fiber One granola bar (contains 9 grams of fiber ... before my fissure I never ate breakfast at all so this is more than enough for my morning meal)
LUNCH:
Basically whatever I want, usually a deli sandwich, sometimes a chicken caesar salad, but I allow myself some flex here (more recently I've been eating some fried stuff and fast food on occasion)
DINNER:
Big bowl of veggie soup with a plate of soy beans. Once or twice a week I'll have a couple plates of brown rice sushi instead (some people have problems with digesting brown rice so YMMV but it works nicely for me)
After dinner I have my Miralax and then make sure I have a couple glasses of water afterward.
Also, personally, I rarely eat any fruit because it makes my stools watery and irritating. I have the occasional apple or asian pear, but that's pretty much it. I think the individual constituents will vary, but most people generally have some "anchor foods" that they eat every day to ensure adequate fiber intake, and then the rest of the diet can include a bit more variety.

BTW dawn in case it helps motivate you at all, I should say that I've been letting my diet slip a bit more as of late. In fact I've been downing quite a few bags of potato chips, popcorn, and Reese's peanut butter cups in the evenings. And for lunch I've had McDonald's a few times (still haven't worked up the courage for a Big Mac yet though :(), dim sum on occasion, and even a few slices of pizza for my birthday. And I'm slowly working coffee and beer back in haha. Ok so it's not the healthiest diet, and BIG TIME KNOCK ON WOOD, but 4 months after LIS I guess I'm finally beginning to see some benefits diet-wise :) I'm still Veggie Soup Man at least once a day, but my dietary horizons have certainly expanded a bit.

Hey NG,
that sounds awesome! LOL :)
I went to the crs today and she was really nice. I had a list of questions and she answered all of them. They are suppose to call me here in a couple of days to schedule the surgery. She's going to do lis and skin tag removal. The skin tag removal kind of scares me. She did say I didn't have too but it may give me some trouble. Right now it's swollen and I'm kind of sore from the exam but I don't think she did anything she didn't have to do to get a look. Todays the first day that anyone has really seen my fissure. My husband said it was bleeding but it was bleeding before I left when I had a bm. I have no idea why because my bms have as soft as they could be.
But anyway, she said she has done more LIS than she could even count and I asked about anyone developing a infection because of the surgery and she said she has only seen it once. I asked her about the pain meds and she said vicodin would be what she gives me and that she would give me something else to take to keep me from throwing up since pain meds do that to me. I asked about tylenol w/codiene because it doesn't make me sick but she said that is a real constipator. I seen I will be given flagyl (spelling?). Isn't that an antibiotic?
She said she will sedate me then do the numbing(shots) before the surgery. She said I will need to take it really slow the first week and the skin tag removal with the lis will take more time to recover.... I was so afraid that I'd need more than Lis and this makes me more nervous but I have read on old threads that it's common.
She said they don't do fissurectomys , that they are old and really don't make sense?! Oh well I'm glad I don't need that.
She's letting me off with the bowel prep too and I asked if I could get the colonoscopy after I heal my fisssure and she didn't see any reason that I can't wait.
Well, I will let you all know when the surgery will be in a couple of days and I'm so glad you are getting to enjoy some normal foods again.
One more thing: my husband and doctor and the assistant were freaking out when the saw my butt. I have grill marks from 7 months of the heating pad. She said it could really do permanent damage to my skin. My husband said it looks really messed up. So warning to others Don't set on a heating pad 24/7 on high....Lowest setting for 20 mins, then take it off.LOL
Oh and NG, I think the chips would scare me more than the big mac!! They really killed me, but I ate a big mac snack wrap a few times with my fissure and they didn't cause me any trouble.... I have just had more pain and blood lately so I am strictly vegetarian for now and probably until they say my fissure is healed , then I may add a little of something new,LOL

Yup Flagyl is an antibiotic. It's active against a lot of anaerobic bacteria like what typically lives in the bowels. I had a course of it a few weeks ago and it's pretty nasty stuff IMO. It penetrates the CNS and gave me some neurological side effects. But better than getting an infection or abscess, that's for sure.
For most people codeine is indeed more constipating than hydrocodone (and is associated with more side effects like itching as well as a greater chance of allergies hence why it's prescribed less). But I take both on occasion for some other chronic pain conditions (not butt related) and personally there's not much difference between the two for me. With Miralax you should be fine with either one. Personally, hydrocodone upsets my stomach more and makes me sleepier than codeine but is also a more effective painkiller, even at equivalent doses. I'd go with the one that works better for you. Doctors are going by general guidelines which may or may not have any bearing on you as an individual. If you keep a good diet and take stool softeners, I have a hard time seeing Tylenol #3 or even Tylenol #4 giving you pooping problems.
It's interesting that the doc mentioned giving you numbing shots before the surgery. Does that mean that you will be awake (conscious/twilight sedation) for the procedure? Just curious. When I had mine, I was under MAC anesthesia from Propofol so no numbing shots needed.
I think the skin tag removal is a good call. I was kind of on the fence about getting mine removed during LIS but decided not to. If I knew I was going to have slow recovery anyway, I would've just done it. Skin tags can sometimes cause problems, but mainly I just think the butt looks nicer without them haha :) Odd place for vanity but whatever.
I think you're the first case of "BBQ butt" that I've personally read about here LOL!!! That's funny stuff. I don't know if I'm imagining "grill marks" right, but it sure does leave a hilarious mental image
Hrm now you've got me thinking about a Big Mac. It's football season so I've been parked on my couch all weekend just eating bag after bag of Doritos and Cheetos. The Big Mac Snack Wrap was actually my first target because it seems like it might be easier to digest than the regular Big Mac. I've been eating fries and egg rolls lately so maybe one of these days I'll roll the dice if it worked okay for you.

NG,
I'm not sure if I'll be awake. All that I remember is she said I wouldn't feel the shots. Now I'm getting nervous...
I asked her about miralax and she said it's a laxative?!
Do you think I will be okay sticking with my colace and regular routine, even with the vicodin?
I think I will be glad I got rid of the skin tag when I'm healed but right now it's kind of scarry because I know it's just something else to heal down there...Yikes!
You are making me so jealous with all the junk food. I think we are both fond of the same junk foods by your list,lol
Oh and the burn marks look awful, even though it was funny. They were all looking at my butt freaking out. She said she has never seen that before. She called the assistant over to look. So my husband her and the assistant were all starring at my arse while I was sweating bullets waiting on the exam...LOL

Hey dawn, I can't personally comment much on the Colace, sorry :( All I know is it never really did anything for me no matter how many pills I took, so I'm biased in that I don't trust it for anything. Some people do great with it, though, so I'd wager that if you're doing fine with it now then you should still be okay with it after surgery.
Both Colace (docusate sodium) and Miralax (polyethylene glycol 3350) are stool softeners and laxatives. I don't see why the doctor would call one a laxative and the other not. "Laxative" is just a general umbrella term. They are different kinds of laxatives -- Colace is a surfactant laxative while Miralax is an osmotic laxative -- but neither one is a stimulant laxative, which are the kind that are generally best avoided for long term use. Examples of stimulant laxatives are bisacodyl and senna. I've taken stimulant laxatives as part of colonoscopy prep and they have pretty violent and abrupt effects compared to non-stimulant laxatives IMO.
Doctors do love to suggest docusate sodium for some reason (my doctor was the same way) but personally I think a lot of that is because it's been available OTC for a long time now (and is therefore widely available under inexpensive generic brands) whereas Miralax hasn't been available OTC for nearly as long and the patent on it only expired this year (hence there were no generics available until very recently). Anyhow I wouldn't lose any sleep over labels here, in my personal opinion, what's important is to avoid stimulant laxatives and stick with whatever works and you feel comfortable with.
Yeah I think we both do have a penchant for junk food :) I was a huge fast/junk food and beer/soda/coffee consumer in the "good ol' days" but have definitely had to cut back. I'm slowly working goodies back into my diet but don't think the glory days will ever be back!

Hey Dawn-
I had a large skin tag removed in my LIS surgery. By far the best thing I have ever done. Mine was right by the fissure so trying to keep the area clean was difficult. Plus mine would get swollen a lot and hurt like heck. I am not sure how much more pain that added to the recovery....
Flagyl is an antibiotic. I just finished a course of it about 1.5 weeks ago. This stuff is a very broad spectrum antibiotic so I think it pretty much wipes out all the healthy flora in the gut. For me I had loose watery stool that burned all the incisions like hell. I cranked up my yogurt input during taking to try to add healthy flora. I have also read that people take probiotics pills. I never tried those just eat the yogurt containing probiotics. So you may want to ask if you have the same reaction what they suggest. For my this made my recovery hellish since i couldn't get soft formed stool. This is where bulk forming fiber can help some since it will gels the stool.
The pain meds for me didn't cause issue but I only took about 2 pills. I switched to taking Advil a day after since I was vomiting from the meds. The gave me Percocet. My surgery last week I took some again. This time I managed to not vomit but still felt like krap on them. So once again I think I only took about 3 and switched to Advil the next day. I am the type that hates to feel loopy. Plus if you are taking Flagyl this will help with the constipation risk also.
I have had MAC (Monitored Anesthesia Care) in all three of my surgeries. I like this since it isn't putting you so far out that you stop breathing and need to be intubated like general anesthesia. So basically as I am being rolled towards the OR they give me the first shot, in the IV port, to relax - all worries gone. They have me roll onto the table on my stomach with a roll to raise my rear up in the air and then that is the last thing I remember until I wake up.

Thank you Paul. I will ask if I have any reaction to the antibiotic. The doctor did tell me she would give me something for the nausea from the pain killers. I really don't want to be in pain atleast the first few days, so I'm going to take the meds if I need them.
My crs did say that the tag removal would cause the recovery to be alittle longer.... I agree with you about getting rid of it. Since my exam its swollen and painful today and like you said it's almost impossible to clean. Mine is right over the anal opening and It's just irritating me horribly.
Thanks again :) I hope you are feeling better.