Hi Everybody,
I am a Crohn's disease patient. I was diagnosed with Crohn's in '99, but I'm sure I had it at least since I was 18. I was diagnosed with Psoriasis at 11, and then Uveitis in '94. I finally figured out that all these problems were related, and resulted from some type of auto-immune problem. The first thing to get me into the gastroenterologist was a fissure (which I had never even heard of, thought I had hemorrhoids.) I remember the doc gave me proctofoam which did nothing and actually burned, but then he gave me nitroglycerin and cortifoam, and that helped. The fissure healed; later we did a colonoscopy and found out that I had Crohn's. I started on several drugs, and finally ended up on Remicade infusions which helped the fissures that seemed to reoccur and also helped the diarrhea. Eventually I went on Cimzia injections which were easier and faster than the infusions, and also seemed to work.
Still, somehow I managed to get a terrible fissure 7 weeks ago. I have never had one take this long to heal, and I cannot stand the thought of the doc trying to check it out in the office again this week. He checked it three weeks ago, and I thought I was going to die. Plus the pain was sooooo much worse for days after the exam. He gave me lidocaine with hydrocortizone to try; he really thought it would work better than the Cortifoam. And he gave me Diltiazem to try instead of the nitroglycerin because he thought it would not give me a headache. The lidocaine burned so badly that I thought I was going to die, as did the Diltiazem, which did not give me a headache, but also did not stop the spasming. In the case of the Diltiazem, I question the base of the compound (as this had to be compounded by a pharmacist - not an easy to task to find one around here who does that anymore.) The foams seem to do so much better for me and not burn as badly except that I think the praxomine in the proctofoam burns.
I am taking sitz baths after every bowel movement. It has taken some time, but I think I finally got my BM's to the right consitency after trying Benefiber and Miralax. Stool softeners seemed to give me gas, so I stopped them, as the gas actually hurts! I am still using the nitroglycerin, but I swear it doesn't seem to help as much, and the fissure just seems to ache like an open wound. I can't see it; my husband can't see it, but it's somewhere around the 6:00 position, I believe. Believe it or not, the Cortifoam feels better than anything else, but I know that typically hydrocortizone does little to help fissures. I just don't know what else to do. I have been eating things I know don't set my Crohn's off, but that doesn't seem to be helping any. I just ache all day long. I work, so I can't just lay around all day, although I have been all this weekend, and I've missed two days a week for the past couple weeks, just hoping that extra time off my feet would help.
Was hoping someone would have a miracle cure here on these pages, but I guess at least I can talk to others who understand. Hope we can all help each other.
God bless you.