thanks nimitor, noooo way would i eat nuts! and i have not tried any dairy since having botox i just stick to high fibre at the moment, maybe later i may try a few more things i dont know as the pain is firmly imprinted in my mind so i think that will stop me from eating badly in the future also the hospital told me keep off red meat ! so i will i think it is just me having to get use to a new way of eating! and for my own health and sanity!lol i have to. xx

And don't forget to drink lots of water with your meals!
Our digestive systems are so different.... For me, I can eat a piece of chicken (baked) or fish (no problem), and I usually have it with some cooked carrots - which can be spiced up with some butter, brown sugar and ginger if you want a treat (and if fat, sugar or spices don't bother you!). Over the weekend I had spinach and ruccola (arugula) salad - and raw tomatoes and cucumbers seemed ok too, since they are kind of soft. For lunch I've had hummus or tunafish sandwiches on this flat lebanese bread that we have here (which you can warm in the microwave so it's nice and soft). I think there are alternatives out there... it's just a matter of getting used to them. Like someone else wrote earlier, we should make an AF cookbook!
I lost 13 lbs (6 kg) over the past few months... but during my last 2 weeks of better health, I've started to go back up again. I even have to admit that I fell off the bandwagon this past weekend and had a McChicken (Jr) sandwich when my husband dragged me to McDonalds... and it wasn't the end of the world!
But as you said - I avoid nuts like the plague. I take one look at anything that has nuts, and I just know that it wouldn't be good.

evie wrote:hi, dawn do you know if brown rice is ok? i can put some vegies with it and chicken maybe, i have just eaten a bowl of wholewheat pasta with tomatoe and herb sauce then i read your post to strawberry! hope i ,ll be ok? lol. i got my shopping in this evening so i will now have a choice of fish e.t.c. and fruits so, i dont feel as deprived now lol.

Hey evie,
I have to agree w/nim. It's kind of trial and error, since we all seem to digest and tolerate things differently. I think the brown rice would be ok. I would make sure to eat plenty of vegetables along with it. The pasta definitely made my bm's firmer so I stopped eating it. I didn't take miralax until after I had my LIS or this may have not been a problem

So Dawn, I'm not sure when you had your LIS, but are you still taking Miralax? I've tried that, but it was too strong for me, too easy to give myself diarrhea and it was too hard to figure out a dose that would work consistently. And you still won't eat nuts? I know I can't go the rest of my life without eating nuts. I just can't. I love pistachios and I won't give them up. It just makes me wonder if we can ever really get back to normal, even after the surgery.

Strawberry,
I had my LIS 3 months ago. I don't know how I would tolerate nuts, chips like doritos at this point because I haven't tried. I plan on keeping a pretty strict diet for about a year. I honestly don't think small amounts would hurt me at this point but have read of others on here who had large amounts of junk which caused blood after LIS. I think a year is a pretty fair amount of time to give that area time to heal and gain some strength back from reading other peoples post on here.
I still take miralax and I hate it, but I'm actually afraid to change anything at this point because all has went well for me. I've never had a set back since LIS. It's all been up-hill for me.
I do believe life can return to normal after Lis but we will kind of have to eat well even if we eat some junk for the rest of our lives. I know two people personally who have had this surgery and it's been years since their surgeries. They eat what they want and don't take stool softeners/ miralax. I'm actually staying on the miralax for 6 months and then tapering off because this worked for one of the people I know. He said he took his stool softener for 6 months
My husband seems to think I could eat more than I do and that may be true but I'm taking all precautions for awhile. I think if you are prong to constipation then the stool softeners / and or diet is going to be crucial for healing even after LIS.
Have you tried fiber supplements like miralax or benefiber or docusate sodium for a stool softener? I couldn't tolerate the metamucil w/ my fissure. It made stools too big but think I'm going to give the benefiber a try when I stop the miralax. My crs doesn't even know I'm taking miralax. She prefers citrucel or metamucil. I was told miralax is a laxative?! The docusate sodium (colace) wasn't very effective for me. I took through out having my fissure before lis and switched to miralax after.

well i did something that i didn't want to share up front since it would seem a deviation of what we are supposed to do.
i per say never had a problem with eating nuts. as a matter of fact, i bought like 2 bags of salted nuts and 2 bags of honey roasted nuts the day before surgery to have on hand. the type of nuts that i got were a mix of almonds, cashews, macadamia, and pecans.
i got them because they are a good source of fiber and nutrients and fat.
i do suck on them first and then slowly chew them out until they are very tiny little bits that i do eventually swallow.
**
i also had some pita chips that i enjoy very much with hummus so i ate some of those a couple of days ago with hummus. again, chew it down slowly.
**
@alpinestrawberry, the only added OTC medication i have to help soften stool is the docusate sodium @ 100 mg per capsule. i bought the generic brand which is a knock off from Colace. i am planning to get off of this by the weekend as i don't think there is any additional benefit any more.
i think the trick here is that if you can get your BMs to the consistency of soft-serve ice cream or toothpaste about 2 weeks prior to your LIS and keep it that way - if you can do that via nutritional input and not so much with OTC stimulants or additives, then you will be fine post-LIS.
i haven't yet had anything to eat that has not been prepared other than me - ie, eaten out.
very important to keep your hydration in your body up.

Confession time! Confess your "food sins" here!
Yeah, I think everyone has their own personal food sin... good if nuts don't bother you happy... Maybe when you munch them up in your mouth enough, they aren't as much of a problem?
I know I had some high fiber bread that had lots of seeds on it ... pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds - and I saw some of those seeds the second time around and decided that bread wasn't for me. Since the seeds are in the bread, it might be that it is harder to really munch them down before swallowing.
In any case, your post is a good reminder to really change the diet to get things soft naturally... at some point we all want to stop taking miralax/movicol. I'm pretty sure that's my saving grace right now.
Dawn - they label movicol (here called Laxido, but it's the same ingredients) as a laxative (as you can tell by the name!).
That said, I am feeling like I've reached a plateau in my improvement. The past few days it's been some mild spasms in the AM, and a dull ache that lasts the rest of the day. Still working at home, but tomorrow I have a meeting, so I'll have to venture out. A big test!

Bumbutt,
I'm so afraid my bowels are going to become dependent on the miralax. I was under the impression that it's not a stimulant laxative and this couldn't happen, that it draws water into the bowels like a stool softener?!
I was hesitant about taking it for so long. I'm praying I don't have problems when I stop. I took colace for about 8 & 1/2 months then started taking the miralax after lis (3 months), so I've basically been on all this for almost a year.

Dawn, for what it's worth, the pediatrician prescribed Miralax once for my daughter, (9 yrs old at the time) and said it was fine for her to take long-term. It ended up not helping her situation at all, which was just vague abdominal pain that he thought might be caused by constipation. But he felt it was harmless enough to try without having a firm diagnosis. And some people take it basically forever! So I tried it myself, and it's powerful stuff!! I totally know what you mean about hating to be on it. Maybe when you're ready you could come off of it and back onto the Colace for awhile. I've also heard of people using magnesium as a stool softener. I'm starting to realize this a definitely going to be a lifelong situation for many of us, even with surgery.

hi everyone just thought i would throw this out there. it is now 5.13pm british time and i have not had b.m yet this is first timr this has happened since my botox 9 days ago and i,am getting a little nervous just in case when i do go the horriffic pain will be back ,dont know why ive not been because of all the fibre,liquid e.t.c thats gone in . anyone else had this? getting a bit anxious now and i know that wont do me any good as i need to relax my sphincter muscle help! xx