I am fairly new to this forum, have learned a great deal, but now wonder what all mean by "healed" - either naturally healed or with surgery? I would like to think healed means no more thoughts whatever about my fissure but see that to be most unlikely. Even with continued Miralax and fiber use, I would like to think there could be a painless future.
As it is with 5 months of nitro, Miralax, and fiber, I vary from oooh discomfort to geeeez that hurt with a hint of blood on the tissue. This is not bad at all compared to the start when it felt like I was pooping bricks.
I cancelled a surgical correction and am glad I did after looking over this forum. Clearly surgery alone does not mean "healed."
Any thoughts on this?

You're quite right- surgery alone does not equal "healed." I will say that it can significantly improve healing time and prevent further fissures from developing. In my case, my fissure wouldn't have healed entirely on its own. I'm only 8 days post-LIS, and so the jury is out on whether or not it worked for me. Did your CRS perform a sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy?

Now66, surgery should always be the last choice after everything else fails, or when pain is so unbearable that is not other way out.
It can help most people but is always that small percentage that LIS can not help.
That's why you don't know how well you will do until you have it.

How much surgey would potentially help depends on what may be slowing down or keeping you from healing too. With me, through all this, I've learned I'm a tight ass despite my laid back demeanor . My sphincter's just unnaturally tight, so throughout healing, I really can't take anything of diameter coming out.
LIS probably would help me along, but I'm at the beginning of my 7th week since getting ideal stool, and have had the issues growing since January (with a new fissure happening in the mean time).
Other's don't get out at all, have no blood flow, poor nutrition, etc, so they can't actually do the healing part, retearing aside. So LIS isn't going to do anything for them but give them another cut to heal from .
Identifying specifically WHY you think you may have trouble healing through research and experimentation's the first step, and something surgey can't help anyone with.

My question then: Does mild discomfort during a BM and occasional blood tint on the toilet paper count as "healed" or should I expect better with time?

I'd expect better with time, though where you're at isn't a bad place to be considering how bad things can get for all of us. I've read on here that one CRS said that it takes 3 months to get back to 40%, and up to 2 years to get back to 80% strength down there.
If you didn't want surgery, but wanted to see the status of things down there in a more definitive way, you could go in for an exam to just look at it. The doctor'd need to be careful not to open it up, but many here find that there's no real sign of fissure, it's just a very tender area from all they've done to it and that's gone on with it.

Thanks for your question Now 66 because it sounds like you and I are in the same boat, and I had the same question. Let's keep our fingers crossed that we are on the road to full recovery!!!

Now66 wrote:My question then: Does mild discomfort during a BM and occasional blood tint on the toilet paper count as "healed" or should I expect better with time?

It depends, less blood is always a good sign that the fissure is healing, I have mine for 11 months and yes, I only see now the mild irritation and a dot of pink in the paper, but also I have been weeks without any problem or blood.
So a bit of blood for me after weeks of nothing means that even when the fissure is not re opening fully is still there and getting irritated on and off, so healing is very slow at least for me.

Healed for me is when I could get in the showers and do a finger probe and be very obtrusive in my feeling of all around the anal area where my fissures used to grow and have no discomfort whatsoever.
I mean I would press and pull at my anal area quite hard. I would not dare do that when I was battling my fissures though.
Back then when I did the finger probe it was like reading braille, all kinds of crevices, tags, a virtual forest prime-evil.
Your talking to someone who battled with fish for well over a decade and I had no small amount of scar tissue. My skin tags were never really as terrible as some of the (image google, anal fissure skin tags) and some of us here are.
But that's why today I'm still amazed that its now like a varnished bowling alley down there as I do a general wash and probe in the showers.
So yes guys, things can get back to normal down there after months and months go by without any re-tears, setbacks, or other similar problems.
Granted though, I never had the LIS or skin tag removal or any other procedure performed on me.
HTH GL to all....

My standard for "healed" is much higher as I need anal sex.
I just had a full anal sex yesterday after going through 3 months of my personalized "routine". I did not bleed!!! Yes, my ass feels irritated yesterday but today is a lot better. Irritation after anal sex is common as ass isn't meant to get penetrated. However, I want to get back to my old status... anal sex without blood and fissure.
If I don't do anal sex, I can have BM without any blood and pain. Yes, I still take fiber but I think it's pretty much part of my life and I will follow this routine for the rest of my life. I cannot and will not suffer through another episode of Anal Fissure. I love anal sex too much to stop for a few months just to heal.
To me, "healed" means you no longer have blood that's for sure. Mild pain is acceptable but if you have spasms after BM, then you are not healed. You need to keep doing anal dilation as that is part of your life now. Our sphincter is just naturally tighter and we need to train that muscle!