by Lauren12 » 21 Sep 2012, 16:46
Yes take it slowly. I was virtually immobile for two and a half years with a chronic fissure, laying down for hours each day after a bowel movement. Before the fissure I was very fit and active. When it was cured by a LIS op, I thought I could just gradually work back to my former level of fitness. The first thing that happened was I tore a muscle in my back because my muscles were weak. That took a few weeks to recover. During the time I had the fissure, I was also not bending, as it hurt too much. So I lost the ability to squat and bend fully. In trying to regain this, I hurt my knees several times. As the leg and lower back muscles were no longer as strong or elastic as they had been, the muscles weren't taking the impact of movement as they should have been and it instead impacted on the joints, causing minor injury. Just now I've got bursitis in one hip because my muscles in the area were weak and the hip joint took the impact of movement (according to an orthopaedic surgeon). I've been working with a physiotherapist for just over a year, on and off, to try and regain my former fitness and flexibility. When I asked him if it would come back, he said he thought that "most of it" would return, but would take another year. I keep having setbacks of minor injuries where I have to stop exercising, thus losing the condition and strength that I've worked so hard to regain. Oh, and I developed a frozen shoulder as well, no doubt from the stresses on my body of trying to regain condition.
As to what sort of exercise you can do with a fissure, I practised the Alexander Technique, something I'd learnt years earlier. I don't know if without this I'd have been even worse. It was difficult to do some of the stretches however, because of the fissure.
Best of luck!