Well, this question is for women, as it has to do with our anatomy...
I'm wondering if any of you have also experienced pain that extends into the vaginal muscles too. Sometimes it feels almost like the pain is as much there as in my butt.
Thought I was getting better, after a few days with minimal pain and disappearance of spasms! Decided to walk to the grocery store yesterday, but on the walk it was difficult as I felt this intense pressure in my butt, which is only relieved by sitting down. Standing or walking just feels like the worst thing to do. It's as if the muscles are trying to push themselves out of my body. Does anyone else also have this feeling?
Thanks, and happy healthy new year!

Hey Bumbutt,
I can't recall any pressure in the vaginal area but I did have the worse spasms in my rectal area. I really couldn't function. It felt like a constant pushing out feeling along witht the clenching and tightening through out the day. I stayed on a heating pad and in the bath 24/7 until I had LIS.
I couldn't really get any real relief before the surgery. I do remember the spasms being so bad that if I had to pee, I would sometimes leak a little urine?!
I wish I knew of something that could help you.

Thanks Dawn - now I know why you are a proctosphincteranalogist! You've been really helpful with your answering so many posts!
I guess I am trying to self-diagnose and sort out what is going on with me until I get to the CRS. I had three good days in a row and fell into the thought "I'm healing!!" and then today have had some pain (but no spasms). I read on another post that you just can't think that way, and that you have to see the big picture and consider how you are feeling from week to week.
Sometimes I wonder if what I am feeling sometimes is from hemorrhoids or AF. I mean I know the spasms and extreme pain have been from AF, but when that subsided for these past few days, and I just feel this constant pain and pressure (as well as pain in the vaginal wall), then I wonder if it isn't hemorrhoids or something else.
Did sitting help relieve that pressure for you? It seems so counter-intuitive, but often sitting (on heat) is the position that feels best to me. Standing or walking I can only take for about 5-10 minutes.
Thanks again, and I'm envious of your Florida location too! We have 2 feet of snow on the ground...Sometimes I feel like just going and plonking my butt in a snowbank...

Hey Bumbutt,
Your Welcome! I know what it's like to self diagnose. I tried to figure out what was wrong with my butt many times. I did actually figure out that I had a fissure before the doctors that I went to did
I was scared to death that I had colon cancer or something when I first saw the blood because it didn't get to the real intense shards of glass feeling for a couple of months.
To answer your question, I couldn't stand to walk around either for more than a few minutes. I would lean on my lower back area with a heating pad under me.
I had a huge skin tag develop because of my fissure being chronic that also made me wonder if it wasn't just hems. I soon found out that it happens with chronic fissures. I had that removed with my LIS in October of last year( almost 3 months ago).
It's hard to say if you may just have hems that are giving you more trouble but I know from my experience the fissure would be ok with some of my bm's but the pressure and clenching never really went away.
That's funny about the snow,Lol I probably would have tried it if I lived where it snows! There wasn't much I didn't try. I remember reading on yahoo answers about someone who said they went to a neud beach and layed out and it healed their fissure?!
I seriously laid out in the sun that day hoping the sun would peek through my bikini bottom and do some magic healing
Needless to say that never happened! Nothing worked for me but LIS. I over used diltiazem, lived in the baths on a heating pad, gave up everything except vegetables and fruit- which gave me a near 50lb weight loss and none of it worked. I think it made things more bearable but in the last weeks before LIS, things were pretty miserable without much comfort, except for the fact I was getting the surgery!
Take care:) Good Luck w/ your CRS appointment!

It sure would be nice if either a day in the sun or the snow would take care of this thing! Unfortunately for me, the spasms/clenching was back today, so it was just a temporary reprieve, it seems. Funny enough though, several hours after the morning torture session, I feel better than yesterday. What a weird pattern of pain this AF thing has. A couple days ago I was envisioning normal life again... ahhh...
Actually, I am not sure whether I have skin tags or not... I guess I am going to have to do some research and maybe look at some nasty picture on the internet to see if what I have is a skin tag... I have several large fleshy bumps you know where, and they get sensitive after a BM.
I've lost 10 lbs so far, and now I realize that it is good to have some extra meat on your bones, so that if you get sick, you've got a buffer zone of weight you can afford to lose!
Thanks again - I'm really glad that LIS did the trick for you... 8 months is a horribly long time, and I'm glad you don't have that pain anymore!

Sorry you have had pain today. I totally agree with you about having some extra meat on your bones to lose. I was 20 pounds over weight when I got my fissure and It really saved me from looking like a skeleton. I looked very thin and poor the day of my surgery. I can't imagine what I would have looked like if I hadn't of had that 20 extra pounds to lose.
Good luck on the internet search for skin tags. They usually have pictures of the most horrific, worse cases
I remember my husband looking up thrombosed hems. to see if that was what I had in the beginning when mine was at it's worst. They had the most disgusting pictures I've ever seen.
So sorry you've already lost 10 pounds:( Hope things get better for you soon! And yes LIS did very well for me:) Don't be afraid if it comes to that and don't read all the horrible stories on the internet... That's what kept me from getting mine much sooner than I did. It's no piece of cake but it's not as horrible as I had imagined and read.
Take care!

Yes - I can hardly recognize what some of those pictures are!! Is that a butt?! I looked... but I think I'll just wait for the professional opinion!