dawn, you're not alone, I suffer from stress and also worry a lot about silly things (besides my bum probs) there's no doubt that stress interferes with the bowels as does worry, it's a vicious cycle and hard to get out of, stress definitely doesn't help with fissures that much I am sure, I have noticed that when I'm under pressure or worrying then I need the loo more and more which isn't good.

Ditto,
I was under a lot of stress when I got my fissure too. I've never been able to control my anxieties very well, even as a kid. As I got older and more and more medical conditions kept piling up, things got worse and worse. I don't think people who have no problems with nerves or anxieties get it at all ... I've been looked at as though I was an alien on more than one occassion!
It is a comfort to know that you're not alone. I find this forum quite helpful for keeping things in perspective. There's nothing like being reminded that others suffer too, many of them alone, to help you keep your own head above water.
Dawn, your husband sounds like he could just as easily have been talking about me! I've heard that a few times myself!! It's really wonderful that you care enough about people here to take their stories to heart. Maybe it would be nice if the were more out there with that kind of empathy and compassion ... like Doctors for example.
As Charlie Brown used to say ... "my anxieties have anxieties"

I can only laugh... just spent 15 minutes typing a response that got lost! Laughter - a good response to computer induced stress!
Yup - me too, I was super stressed when I got the AF.
If I had been taking care of myself and taking time away from work to exercise - which helps reduce stress and keeps the body in good shape - I think I wouldn't have ended up here.
Exercise and laughter I think are good stress reducers.

For sure Bb, that's so true. I suppose the brutal cruelty of this condition and other maladies, is that they can sometimes take basic things like laughter and the ability to exercise from us. It's a fight to get them back too!
Sometimes I feel as though these misfortunes have turned me into a different person ... one I don't like! This wasn't exactly in the 'grand plan', if I ever had one!
I worry that it has turned me into a person that other people won't like as well, especially friends and husbands ... you know, those who choose to be around me!
This of course does not include my mother, who would still care for me and want to fold my laundry if I was on death row for murdering a bus full of tiny babies!
Some guy said something once about wallowing in the muck not being the best way of getting clean!!
Sage advice, but you gotta vent once in a while huh!

:D

Yes, sphinct, you're right that it takes those things that we need away from us. I was trying to watch a comedy show some weeks ago when my fissure was bad and I had to use this weird laugh so that it wouldn't hurt my butt! Now I'm feeling better enough that I can laugh, physically. But I know that mentally, this AF can bring depression, and then it is sure hard to pick yourself up.
What are some other ways that you guys reduce stress in life when you have an AF? I guess it is a conscious practice...

Deep breathing, yoga, excercise, meditating, praying can all help. Taking an A/D helps/has helped many also!