Just a thought, do any of u guys use salt in the tub?? It's probably an old wives tale but I use it when I run out of dettol! Summer, take the girls advice about staying away from soap and baby wipes imo. Once your healed you can go buy yourself a bloody big bar of it :)

Places- Well, I use a wet to dry gauze per my doctor's instructions and I put a saline spray on it. He said I could wash with water or saline. I haven't tried just putting some salt in the tub though. I think I have heard of that too, so there must be some truth to it.
Val- Thanks for responding. I will stay away from the soap. *sigh* I go for a follow-up at 5 weeks, so I guess I can wait until then and see what he says at that point. RIP bar of soap! LOL

Hey Andrea - a big YES to the salt! I got through tons of it - Tesco Value salt bags, my cupboard was full of them! And Savlon liquid too!
I use a feminine wash there now, it's soap-free, so I assume its ok, although time will tell if its just as bad!

Summer, Saline is just sterile water you know. Best thing for hygiene is to stay away from bars of soap. SO sorry to be the one to tell you that. Soap bars have millions of bugs lingering in them :-( So, even when ur better it will be safer to use Liquid soaps etc...RIP SOAP BARS
VAL<
Thanx for tip for salt at Tesco! I use the femfresh too and I have seen it sold in the States in Walmart etc...
We in fissureville have the softest, cleanest butts in the lands! & if you have had botox there, the youngest ones too hee hee hee

So how much salt do you all add to the bath? I am assuming it's just like table salt?
LOL@ your last comment Andrea!

Yeah, just plain ol' table salt.Not only are we botoxing our butts, now we're seasoning them too LOL!
I tend to go OTT with everything and threw loads of it in, but I think a handful would be fine.

I have what I call the 4 day curse. I seem to do okay for 3 days and then on the 4th lately, I will have an isssue. I thought I broke the curse, since I had a fairly good BM this morning. Then tonight I felt I had to go, so I went into the restroom,an didn't even strain, but couldn't go,so I stopped trying and I noticed bood in the toilet. Is that normal to still have blood? Not gushing or anything but probably dripping into the toilet and then some on my gauze.. This process is all so annoying sometimes. Argg! Hope everyone else is doing well this week.

Hey Summer! That's a good name for it! yep, the healing process really is up and down for quite a while. A little blood is not a big deal at all. I still get some on the TP when I have a BM. Don't let the blood get you down. It can take quite a while to heal completely because, well, we can't not use our butts! I'd rather see a little blood than have the dern thing close up too soon and form another fistula!
You're doing great, Summer! It just takes some patience to heal from this, but you will heal.

Thanks Hope. That is good to hear. It does freak you out a bit when you see the blood. How is your infection btw? Did the new course of antibiotics help out?

It does feel like the antibiotics cleared up the bladder infection - but I wasn't having very serious symptoms anyway. I do feel better though - I'm out and about in the world, shopping and sitting at my computer getting work done. I'm almost back to my normal life now. I'm not pushing myself too hard - just easing back into things; but, man, it does feel good to not be in constant pain and worrying about BMs and all that!
I hope you're getting to this point too. The blood really can freak you out - no doubt! I hate seeing blood. But I've calmed down about it quite a bit. I inspect the wound everyday and I can tell that it's healing and not infected, so the blood doesn't bother me as much anymore. It's getting less and less too, so that helps. It does sound like you are well on your way to a full recovery! Yay! Try to stay positive. It gets better!