I realize that I have a really relaxing time after a nice, soft and quick bm. But whenever it is harder, and takes a while to come out, I'm in horrendous pain for hours to come.
I do try to eat more fibre, which I never used to. I only eat fruits, fibre 1 cereal, whole wheat pasta in tomato sauce, boiled/grilled chicken and fish, whole grain rice, and today I had a minestrone soup with kidney beans that I did not rinse or soak (is that why my bm was so hard tonight?)
Do I need to eat even more fibre? Maybe I should have 2-3 bowls of the fibre 1 cereal a day? Or was it just those dang beans that hardened my bm?
It's just really frustrating how I'm eating perfectly for softer stools and I still get hard ones. I don't want to take restoralax/miralax but is that my only option? These hard stools just keep setting me back.

Hey Adam,
The stool softener thing had me freaked out for awhile. I really didn't want to take it. There came a point where I gave in... I have had really good results with the miralax and if it makes you feel any better I have been able to cut my dose down tremendously since my surgery without any problems. I've just done it slowly by reducing it and not going cold turkey.
You may be able to take one of the fiber supplements like metamucil, benefiber, etc which are considered to be safe for the rest of your life. I wasn't able to take the metamucil. It made my bm's huge and tore my fissure worse. I never had the nerve to try any more of the fiber supplements after that. We are all different though. Many people have good results with the fiber supplements. We all have had to experiment and through trial and a lot off error figure out what gives us the perfect bm.
You have to be careful with over doing the fiber and eating too much. I would stay at around 20 grams a day with my fissure and take a stool softener. It's not to good to overload your system with fiber when your body isn't use to it. It's better to gradually increase your fiber intake and drink plenty of WATER when taking supplements or eating fiber. Too much and not enough water can cause constipation.
Beans won't make hard bm's. They are really good for you and have fiber. Pasta on the other hand can cause harder bm's for some.
Hope this helps and others can add:)

Ditto for metamucil, I had the same effect, to the point that I once had 3 fissures, not one. Funny thing is that once I stopped and switched to Movicol/Miralax, all 3 healed, including my chronic one! I guess because the sphincter was so stretched by the huge bms that when I started the Movicol it just had time to heal. I had about 2 weeks of pain-free life, then the chronic af came back :(
So yea, take Movicol for sure, it's a lifesaver.

Wow people :D
My bm this morning was the most 'perfect' I ever seen it, according to what doctors' think is a perfect stool. It came out so softly and quickly, no troubleb at all, it was a hefty amount too, and it wasn't too dark or too light, it's actually the lightest brown it's been ever! Just a bit darker than cardboard!
I guess the beans in my soup last night may have not done as much harm; I researched how long it takes food to digest and come out, and I got an answer of 12-72 hours. I thought whatever I ate before the bm comes out at that time. Can anyone confirm or deny this? I'd really like to know what causes the bad bm's and I'll stay away.
Sorry to go in an in-depth discussion about my stools, but it's the most important thing to curing our problems in my opinion.
Thanks

Hey Adam,
what you eat doesn't usually come out until the next day or longer. If you had a hard bm yesterday, it wasn't what you ate yesterday that caused it. The 12-72 hours is correct unless you became constipated and obviously that would take longer.