I'm a 25-year old guy who has been coping with a fissure since early November 2012, about five months and change now, and hesitated for a while to seek medical help. I'd had a fissure in 2006, went to the ER because I had absolutely no idea what was going on and panicked, and was basically told "yeah, that'll hurt for a couple of days. be careful what you eat for a week and you should be alright." :roll: Everything cleared up, as far as I could tell, and I didn't have any real trouble (hemorrhoids a couple of times, due to hard work and heavy lifting) so I thought I was good. Flash forward to this past Fall, I was at an Election Night party, ate too much pizza (seriously, what is it with pizza? seems like that's a huge no-no for a lot of folks on here, too) and probably had one too many beverages, and the next morning I went to use the bathroom and found myself in a whole world of hurt.
Over the last five months, things have been pretty up-and-down for me. Mostly down. I've tightened up my diet, which was pretty healthy before. Whole grains, mostly plants, meat on the side instead of the centerpiece (if at all most days), high fiber, lots of water, etc. Docusate did *not* help, actually seemed to back me up worse. I've missed a good bit of work in the time that this has gone on, probably a couple weeks total in the last half year, on the days where all I could really imagine doing was lying in bed trying not to move. But for the last two weeks I've been using Milk of Magnesia, which is the only thing I've found that helps keep me from getting hurt all over again from my morning constitutional.
On the medical side, I've used the steroid/pramoxine cream, which was ok but didn't seem to work well enough. The nitroglycerine gave me headaches and dizziness, meaning less/no time at work, and in any case was difficult to get to the proper location anyhow. I had a consult a few days ago and the surgeon recommended LIS and fissurectomy. My biggest concern is this - I've only got insurance until mid-June. I know that the Milk of Magnesia isn't a long-term fix, but for two weeks now I've been almost entirely free of pain. I don't think I should try to avoid surgery altogether, but what I'm wondering is if it makes sense to ask about doing just the LIS? From what I'm reading here, the fissurectomy seems to be more difficult to recover from. Even though I've broken plenty of bones and taken a few knocks to the head in my time, I'm still something of a wimp, and I can't tell if I'm being a wuss here or looking to avoid unnecessary pain and difficulty. At the same time, I don't have much time to get another operation if the LIS is insufficient without paying full sticker price for it.
Sorry if this is a bit long. The main doctor I've been working with isn't very, well, conversational. It's hard to get too much in the way of help from him. The surgeon I saw was much better, but as I've read more here and elsewhere I just keep seeming to find more and more questions. Any help or advice you all could offer would be greatly appreciated!
