Hi. I visited this forum a lot earlier this year and I thought I should finally post something.
Im male and in my mid-50s. Back in March I developed an anal fissure. Like all of you know already, the pain was pretty incredible. I saw a couple of doctors, and at first they diagnosed me with hemorrhoids, and prescribed steroid suppositories. It was a waste of time. In May, I was referred to a general surgeon to be scoped. After hearing me describe my symptoms, he knew it was a fissure right away. A simple external examination confirmed it. He said to use stool softeners and sitz baths for a few weeks and see if it healed on its own. It seemed to be healing, but then I had one hard stool and I was back to square one.
I returned to see him in early June and he recommended the LIS procedure. After reading a lot of horror stories on the web, including many on this board, I was very scared to have the surgery. I convinced the doctor to prescribe a round of nitroglycerine ointment instead. I used it for about six weeks, and the fissure itself pretty much healed. The problem remained that the sphincter was still incredibly tight. The caliber of my stools was about like a pencil. I was using stool softeners and doing sitz baths and generally obsessing about my backside in fear of having that horrible pain again. I figured that as before, I was one hard stool from tearing open the fissure again. I went back to the doc in early August for a follow-up and he did a simple and gentle scope exam on me and I was tore, sore, and bleeding again. He said that the sphincter would probably stay tight, and recommended the LIS procedure.
During the second week of August, I had the closed LIS done by the general surgeon. I was in the hospital for half a day and went home. I wasn’t supposed to return to work for a week, but I have a desk job and live close to work, so I figured I’d play it by ear. On day 2, my backside hurt quite a bit, but I was used to pain by then, and I was bored at home and driving my wife nuts, so I went in to the office for a few hours. On day 3 I went in for most of the day. Things were going fine. I had some significant pain, but I never used the prescription pain pills. On day 5, I started running a fever and was worried that I had an infection . . . but the fever broke by the end of the day. That was my only scare.
After a couple of weeks, the post-surgical pain was minimal, and I was able to pass normal-sized stools again. Now it’s been almost three months. I’m still taking stool softeners, and intend to do so for a little while yet until I’m certain that things have healed well enough. I have no pain. I have no fecal incontinence, and only a minor amount of trouble with controlling gas. I can live with that. I have my life back. My only regret about the LIS procedure was that I scared myself by reading horror stories on the web and put it off for so many months.
I hope that my story might help somebody else. Thanks for reading!

I'm glad you got cured so quickly Wisconsin guy. I think a few months is a fast cure! Like you I was cured by the LIS operation. Before that however, I was given Diltiazem cream followed by two separate botox procedures at six monthly intervals. The cream and the Botox didn't cure me. If I'd had the LIS operation early on, as you did, I'd have been cured much, much earlier. Due to laying around in pain for two and a half years, I had muscle atrophy in my legs and all sorts of other physical effects. I still haven't regained the physical condition I had pre-fissure, but my bottom is cured! If I'd only been out of action a few months, like yourself, the physical deterioration to the rest of my body would have been much less. Ten or twenty years ago, patients were given the LIS operation much sooner. Now doctors seem to want to try more conservative methods first, and if those fail, progress to the surgery. A proportion of us however need the surgery, so it just prolongs the process now that there are more conservative treatments that have to be tried first.
Like yourself, the muscle spasms from the fissure had given me a tight anus and high muscle tone, so even though the major fissure healed spontaneously, I kept re-fissuring with most bowel movements, and experiencing muscle spasms. Only the LIS stopped this.

Thanks, Lauren. The surgeon said that he would be willing to try the more conservative measures, but his experience told nim that I would almost certainly be back begging for the surgery. He was certainly right. My words were something like, "Please either cure me or kill me." Of course I was joking about the kill me part. (mostly) The doc chuckled and said, "I don't want to kill you, so let's cure you.