I love the 30 min window between BM and spasm start. I feel like the dude in 24, with a small window to comb my hair, shower, dress etc. before I am knocked off my feet in agony! Anyone know why I get the knife like stabbing pain 30 mins later? I can't move following that...not an inch - or it starts...Also, how many weeks should I give the Diliatizim to work?! It's been 12 days now:(

I began healing with nitroglycerin, a vasodilator as is Diliatizim, along with Miralax, fiber, water, and vasoline for a BM pre-lubricator. My doctor, who prescribed the nitro, warned me to be patient and it would take at least 2-months of this to get better. All was helpful but I still dreaded every BM. After 3 months I scheduled LIS surgery thinking I would never get well at the rate I was going. Then suddenly, just after 3 months, all was vastly improved and I cancelled the surgery. The healing was not perfect but certainly tolerable.

Sorry I cannot speak to the spasms, but healing an AF requires patience.

For me Diliatizim started working from the very beginning, I would say no more than one week.
After 3 weeks the fissure was almost closed but a terrible headache, Diliatizim consequence, took me to the clinic and I had to stop Diliatizim. Today I am back suffering and desperate.
I hope you are luckier.

I don't have any experience with diliatizim, but wanted to share in your misery!

Diltiazem, for me, took less than two weeks. It was my miracle drug after 5 months of agony. My Diltiazem is in a lotion base, like hand lotion. I read somewhere that the lotion base absorbs faster than the petroleum jelly base. Others may have had good results with the petroleum. Don't give up! I thought it wasn't going to work fast enough, and then suddenly it did! I and others also prayed for my healing, and I like to give God the major credit. :)

I've used both nifedipine and diltiazem (never know how to spell it). Instructions were a bit different. The nifedipine (with lidocaine) was used before and after each BM and three times a day. Diltiazem only twice a day. I always had intense pain with and for a while after the bm so my pattern was a bit different. However, I found a sitz bath (or warm/hot bath) to be necessary for pain relief, followed by the post bm nifedipine. If I had a major episode of butt cramps at other times, I found the diltiazem to be more effective, usually I used a heating pad at the same time. Terrible stuff, those butt cramps. I found the ointments to be very important in controlling the spasm pain. Hope you get relief soon!!!

Thanks all, will wait it out - my open wound from the hemm surgery has not healed either, so for me hard to tell where the pain is coming from. Although I suppose knife pains must be fissure, weird prickling from healing wound. Question, I am paranoid about my fissure turning into a fistula - help me stop the panicking!! I guessing symptoms differ to stab stab, and my CRS would have identified anything to be concerned with Finally my CRS only used his finger (owww) to diagnose me - is that the norm? I can't really see the fissure nor am I certain if I have more han one as the pain kind of moves around.