i am curious what foods people avoid and for what reason.
i eat less at each sitting, and i have avoided (for the most part) chocolate, cheeses, white bread when possible, chips of any variety, mexican/spicy, heavy foods like fettucini alfredo, coffee (is it just the caffeine that is constipating or coffee altogether?), milk and a lot of dairy in general......
i really miss my hot chocolates with whipped cream in the cold weather :(
i avoid them mostly because i am afraid to eat anything that isn't fiber or healthy
how about everyone else?

I avoid all the above plus the folowing:
Pizza..i tried eating pizza without cheeze..meet only but i guess the hard bread still is hard to digest and opens me up down there so i avoid pizza all together.
Meat - i avoid meet 90 percent of the time. I cant remember the last time i ate a steak. I guess its too hard to digest and opens me up down there as well.
Spicy foods i avoid. Hot dogs and hambugers i avoid.
I try to stick with chicken, fish, salad, pasta salad and fruit, cooked veggies and baked potatos.
I avoid all candy, deserts with suger icing, hard candy things that will collect in the colon and exit hard. The sugers feel like glass when exitiing..just my experiance.
What ever you eat chew everyting real good then swallow it. Better the chewing the better you are off.
Note: I went from 191 to 150 in about 6 months due to the fissure and diet.

Dear Mom,
It is individual like everything else. If you were not constipated to begin with, you can be more liberal than somebody who "goes" only 2 times a week. I was always regular so when I started taking stool softeners I had to go 5 times a day !!!!!!!! But, fissure pain scared me so much, I did everything possible to get rid of it.
Coffee is not good because it is diuretic - it flashes water from your body fast, same as alcohol. But, if you drink extra water - one coffee will not make BIG damage. Stay away from spices just so that your poop do not burn your butt and make you miserable. White rice can make poop hard - too sticky I guess, but brown rice is OK.
I avoided almost everything - was living off oatmeal with prunes, chicken soup, veggie stews, and fresh fruit - yes my fiss. healed, but as soon as I eased on softeners and when I was around my period , my fissure reopened again. I refused to be it's slave for life so I had LIS with fissurectomy. I am still recovering, so some discomfort is there because they performed fissurectomy too. BUT< nothing to compare to fissure pain !!!!!
Best of luck !!!!!

I avoid as much spice as possible, it plays havoc with my stomach and then butt.
I also avoid as much bread as possible as that is a real trigger for constipation in me. Not too much dairy.
Weirdly chocolate seems to help me go to the toilet, but I try not to have too much becasue of the sugar content (I loooooove chocolate though :) )
Fizzy drinks are a big no no for me as well, I didn't realise until i went to the hospital that they constipate you :(
Other than that, I eat pretty normally :)
I have a great recipe for pizza toast if anyone wants it, I got it from my slimming magazine and it is delicious! Made with wholemeal toast, but really is nearly as good as pizza :)

That recipe sounds good, Helen, but I don't cook!
I avoid milk and dairy products, big time!

I avoid dairy, grains except rice, uncooked foods, red meat, a lot of meat in a sitting, a lot of food in a sitting.
I concentrate on eating relatively high fat and cal foods to stop the weight loss (I have always been prone to losing weight fast) so I eat nut butter, fish, veggies (primarily cooked), loads of beans, yogurt (ok so it's dairy), omega 3 oil, goat cheese (for some reason it doesn't bind like cow cheese), miso soup.
chocolate I still eat. It's my weakness, and fortunately seems to have no effect on the fissure.

i stopped eating beef and pork completely. i also stopped drinking milk. i try not to eat much cheese or other dairy. my diet was so much stricter before i discovered MOM. now i can eat pizza, chocolate, etc without worrying about it backing me up the next day. it's kind of a relief not to worry about every bite i put in my mouth. whenever i decide to ease off on the MOM though, i will have to start slowly with all the soft foods again...

Someone mentioned white rice causes hard BM's. Is this correct? This is the only thing i could think i need to change in my diet. Is brown rice better?
Please advise anyone
Thanks in advance
Bernard

It hasn't affected me, Bernard, but it might you.

i also eat white rice without any problems
i do like brown rice better since it is so much better for you :)