Since a very long time, talking about years, i have had that occasional red blood in toilet paper after bowel movements. It would come and go for a few days and then disappear. No doubt my toilet habits were wrong. I had the bad habit of forcing myself to evacuate stool even if it wasn’t urgent, just to maintain a routine. Eventually, in November 2012, with a lot of stress at work and sitting long hours and doing some weight lifting at night, the amount of blood started to increase (from toilet paper to dripping in the toilet bowl). Then one day, during straining of a hard stool, I felt some pain (normally there used to be only blood with no pain). The pain lasted after the bm and eventually it started to hurt every time I had bm (sharp razor blade pain) followed by burning/contraction sort of pain after bm. I went to the doctor who said I had a fissure.
She put me on dinitrate isosorbide cream. In about 6-7 weeks off improvement/deterioration I finally healed. When I looked at my anus with a magnified mirror, I saw that the area of the fissure had turned to a light pink color and the ulcer had seemingly disappeared (before it was almost dark red/purple). It was a good coincidence because at the same time I left for a 3 week vacation. During my three weeks, I had almost no problems, even though I ate a lot (while paying attention to having a lot of fresh fruits and veggies), I also ate some “heavy” food like mexican burittos, chilli, spices, kebap, fries, beer…nothing happened at all. My stools were soft despite all the food I had. No pain during bm, no pain after.
And then, once my vacation ended and I came back to my stressful job, within 1 week things started to get strange again. The bowels turned hard, I developed bloating, gas, and finally ruptured the fissure again. I went again to another doctor this time who said I had a fissure + small hemorrhoid. He put me in hydrocortisone suppositories for 20 days. Unfortunately, at the same time, I developed a heavy sinus infection that required antibiotics. Within a few days the suppositories helped and my stools were soft. But as I took the antibiotics things turned sour again and stools became very large and hard. I had a few straining episodes and yesterday even some blood (since November 2012, the bleeding occurred maybe 2-3 times).
My suppositories are almost finished and I don’t know what to do. Looks like I’m not healed yet and I’m afraid next step is surgery or at the most optimistic case botox.
I am normally a very athletic person, playing soccer, lifting weights, and leading an active lifestyle. I can’t help but think whether all this coupled with a stressful job have finally worn my body off. Since November 2012 my eating habits changed. I have the fissure in mind 24/7. I can’t enjoy things and even sex is painful sometimes (hetero) because I seem to get anal contractions when I am in action. My grandpa died from colorectal cancer at the age of 52 and I’m also getting paranoid about this now. Please help with some opinions.
- What should be the next steps for me?
- Could there be any links of my symptoms to bowel cancer?
- Do you think sports, soccer & weightlifting have adverse effects on the fissure?
- I feel like my stool gets impacted more by stress than what I eat, could stress really cause hard stools? During vacation I ate all kinds of stuff and I still had soft stools. Lately, just a piece of white bread or some rice is enough to turn my stools into rocks.
- How can I change the bad habit of trying to force bowel movements; or let me ask in another way, how do you really know when you have to go to the toilet? Do you wait until the stool is really close to the evacuation site?
- It’s a shame that at the age of 28 I am asking such questions… I should have had a better toilet training I guess.