by WelshDoubleFissure » 03 Jul 2013, 10:44
Hi pample, first of all I'm sorry to hear that you have a fissure but do not despair! You've got on the right path, you're very lucky to be seeing a CRS so soon after being referred. I was referred in January (after a whole year of the GP treating me) to a specialist in Wales and by March, I still hadn't heard back about an appointment.
It was getting chronic by this time so I phoned up and got it put through as an urgent case because I threatened to stop eating. I was given a "threshold date" in which they needed to allocate me an appointment by, and that got pushed back. By May, I was at my wits end and my mum (who is a nurse) went to the CRS to beg for him to see me. He gave me an appointment before his normal day would start which I was so happy about.
I was incredibly sore when I went to see him, his trainee asked me questions while he was having his morning meeting to save time. When he came in, he could see the pain on my face. He asked me if he could take a look and said to his trainee, that without a doubt it's anal fissures because the presence of skin tags were indicative of fissures. I had a skin tag develop in the 4 month wait to see him.
He said I had 2 fissures of which he could see, he didn't do an internal exam as it was too painful so it was more of a visual exam from the outside.
He then said if the creams are not working, it's likely my fissures are chronic and he'd need to cut away the scar tissue that had been trying to heal (but because of my BMs - they kept tearing) by cutting away away or "excising" the scar tissue, it would make them fresh into acute fissures and therefore the cream would have a better chance of working.
He said during surgery, he'd do an examination under anaesthetic and decide whether to administer Botox or not.
My CRS was pretty amazing, very very sympathetic and rushed me in for surgery 2 weeks later.
Im now 18 days post surgery & Botox and things are looking up. No real pain whilst having a BM, no passing a razor blade feeling any more. I'm still healing though.
You're very fortunate to be able to see a CRS so quickly and the sooner you get this looked at, the better. They're brilliant. Honest. Don't be worried about your OCD, be honest with your CRS, they're very helpful.
If and when you get treated, bathing the area will be very important. I had sitz baths for a week after surgery and now I use flushable wet wipes after a BM.
Hope that helps.
Let us know how you get on,
Welsh x