Hi guys,
Just in case anyone is keeping score, here's my symptom profile after 5 days. VMs are very bloody and painful, as bad as any BMs that I remember from the days when my fissure was at its worst. Getting in a hot bath right after helps a lot, and the pain goes away completely after 10 minutes or so. This worries me a little because my CRS emphasized how BMs would be much improved immediately. That is definitely not happening yet. Have others experienced this? How long until a less painful BM experience?
I've been bleeding more than I expected throughout the day, using a pad that has to be changed every few hours. The discharge is red, looks like blood only.
I had a lot of pain sitting, putting pressure on a certain spot (where the incision was?)--that seems maybe like it's a little less.
Except for BMs and the five or ten minutes after, pain is not too bad. Haven't taken any pain meds since day 3.
Happy healing to all.
Mr. Fissure

My BMs didn't feel very good for a while either. Maybe 3 weeks or so. I think that part is normal. For me the pain was kind of a sore, tender pain, though. Not sharp and in-your-face like acute fissure pain. But I think that could vary from person to person and also depend on the incision itself. And yeah, I couldn't sit properly for a looooooong time after surgery. I'd say about a month.
I personally had drainage, but not much bleeding after surgery. So I can't say if that part is normal. Most likely it is, because my post-op care sheet did say to expect possible bleeding for up to a week afterward. If it's really heavy bleeding, though, then definitely keep an eye on it and get it checked out if you think it needs to be. I wore cotton pads and panty liners for a while after LIS, but that was just to soak up the brownish discharge that I had.
Long story short: painful sitting, normal, painful BMs, normal. Bleeding, most likely normal, but do be careful. If you start bleeding profusely, call the doc or go to the hospital. Better safe than sorry there.

Hey Mr.fissure,
I had a sore feeling during bm's, no shards of glass. Think I had a little blood the first week, nothing alarming though.
I did expect to see some blood since they did remove a tag which bled a little during recovery.
Did you just have LIS alone? Give it a couple of weeks and things should be getting better... As NG said, be careful about large amounts of blood but a little blood wouldn't alarm me since they did just cut down there:)