Hi all, I have been battling fissure(s) for over a year now and have had many ups and downs.
I went back to my CRS amazingly a year to the day (in July) I first saw him mainly because a) I knew I had a fissure that was bothering me and b) the skin around my anus was very raw, irritated and would bleed if I wiped more than once. And by bleed I mean not from the fissure, from the raw skin.
He took a look with his night vision goggles (that's what they look like) for a minute and said "yep, you have a fissure that is irritated as all get out". He told me I had a second one but it wasn't much of a problem, very small, but the bigger one was the reason for all my issues.
He told me the usual -- take sitz baths as often as you can, eat more fiber, drink a lot of water, soften things up (he knows I take Miralax) and that's that. But he did give me a cream called Calmoseptine to use (it is orange and smells like menthol) for when I "feel I just have to tear it apart" mainly from itching, etc. He said to come back in a month.
After a couple weeks of little progress, I started using the Calmoseptine daily after each BM or tub and it felt great. The rawness went away which was excellent so no more mass amounts of blood when I wiped and I was feeling better back there. I had a setback before I went back to see him where I was fighting dehydration (four days outside in 100 degree heat and humidity led to some diarrhea) and I think that hurt things back there.
So I went back to see him a month later knowing my butt felt a little better but I certainly wasn't healed or on the right path. He took a look again, said "we are winning" but said I now have three fissures instead of two. But he said they are all "superficial" and "if I asked him to operate on them right now he'd tell me no" so he gave me same instructions -- sitz baths, fiber, lots of water, miralax, soften things up, etc -- and come back in three months.
Two odd things (to me at least). I told him I was using the Calmoseptine daily and it was making things feel better back there (it has a cooling sensation and I have read online it is used to heal raw skin and even help heal fissures, it is a moisture blocker with healing elements) but he told me to only use it when needed and emergent. He said the Calmoseptine could trap fecal matter or whatever else in the fissure and impair healing.
The second thing he said was "let's try to heal this without the Diltiazem, because if it worked last time for you then you're the first person I've ever met it worked for". I found that odd. I used Diltiazem last year and off and on throughout this past year and while I clearly didn't heal, it seemed to help. His comment seemed odd.
So my questions are -- has anyone used Calmoseptine to aid in the healing of a fissure?
And can anyone think of why he would say Diltiazem would not work or hasn't worked for people? Should I use it again now? I recently had a hard BM (three days ago) and re-tore one of them because it hurt, there was a little blood in the bowl and I have been in pain after going each time since.
Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. I'm drinking water like crazy, taking my full cap full of Miralax nightly and trying to keep things soft but I'd like to start getting ahead of this. It has me very depressed.